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Khafre or Chephren (died 2532 BC) was an monarch who was the fourth pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, during the earlier half of the Old Kingdom period (c. 2700–2200 BC). He was son of the king Khufu, and succeeded his brother Djedefre to the throne.
Khafre's enormous pyramid at Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, is surpassed only by his father's (the Great Pyramid). The Great Sphinx of Giza was also built for him, according to some Egyptology, although this remains unconfirmed. Little is known about Khafre aside from the reports of Herodotus, a Greek historian who wrote 2,000 years later.
Others argue that the inscription just suggests that this queen died during the reign of Khafre.Grajetzki, Ancient Egyptian Queens: A Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Golden House Publications, London, (2005), . Khafre may be a son of Queen Henutsen instead.Joyce Tyldesley. Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt. Thames & Hudson. (2006). .Kings-wife, his beloved, devoted to Horus, Mertitytes. King's-wife, his beloved, Mertitytes; beloved of the Favorite of the Two Goddesses; she who says anything whatsoever and it is done for her. Great in the favor of Snefru; great in the favor of Khufu, devoted to Horus, honored under Khafre. Mertitytes. Breasted;
Khafre had several wives and he had at least 12 sons and 3 or 4 daughters.
Persenet may have been a wife of Khafre based on the location of her tomb. She was the mother of Nikaure.Aidan Dodson and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. (2004). .
Other children of Khafre are known, but no mothers have been identified. Further sons include Ankhmare, Akhre, Iunmin I, and Iunre. A daughter named Rekhetre is known and Hemetre may have been a daughter or granddaughter as well.
The pyramid has a subsidiary pyramid, labeled G2-a. It is not clear who was buried there. Sealings have been found of a King's eldest son of his body etc. and the Horus name of Khafre.Porter, Bertha and Moss, Rosalind, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings Volume III: Memphis, Part I Abu Rawash to Abusir. 2nd edition (revised and augmented by Dr Jaromir Malek, 1974. Retrieved from gizapyramids.org
Contrary to modern Egyptologists and archaeological findings, Greek historians Diodorus and Herodotus, writing more than 2,000 years after King Khafre, depicted him as a tyrant who had followed his father Khufu on the throne. Herodotus and Diodorus say that Khafre ruled for 56 years.Siegfried Morenz: Traditionen um Cheops. In: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, vol. 97, Berlin 1971, , pp. 111–118.Dietrich Wildung: Die Rolle ägyptischer Könige im Bewußtsein ihrer Nachwelt. Band 1: Posthume Quellen über die Könige der ersten vier Dynastien (= Münchener Ägyptologische Studien. Bd. 17). Hessling, Berlin 1969, pp. 152–192.Wolfgang Helck: Geschichte des Alten Ägypten (= Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. 1.; Chapter 1: Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten, vol 1.). BRILL, Leiden 1968, , pp. 23–25 & 54–62.
They describe a king Menkaure (whom they call "Mykerînós") as the follower of Khafre and that this king was the counterpart of his two predecessors: Herodotus describes Menkaure as bringing peace and piety back to Egypt.
Of all the rulers of the Old Kingdom, Khafre is evidenced by the greatest number of statues. Almost all of them come from Giza, partly from the official necropolis there, but mainly from the area around the temple complexes of the Khafre pyramid. In a large hall of the valley temple, 23 depressions have been made in the ground, in which originally life-size statues stood. One of these depressions is wider than the others, there may have been two statues here. It has been suggested that these 24 statues are related to the hours of the day. All of these statues were removed from their location at some point after the reign of Khafre. Auguste Mariette found nine of them during excavations in 1860 (Inv.No. CG 9 to CG 17)21 and fragments of a tenth (CG 378) 22 in a pit within the valley temple. These statues are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
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