Khafre (Chephren)
Khafre built the second pyramid at Giza and, on the usual attribution, the Great Sphinx. He ruled Egypt around 2570 BC as a son of Khufu, and succeeded his half-brother Djedefre, reigning for perhaps twenty-five years. His pyramid stands on higher ground than his father's and appears taller, though it is about three metres lower at some 136 metres originally. It retains its casing of polished limestone at the apex, which is the only surviving evidence of how all the Giza pyramids once looked — smooth, white and blinding rather than stepped. The complex is the most complete at Giza. A valley temple built of enormous granite-faced limestone blocks stands beside a causeway running up to a mortuary temple at the pyramid's base, and the whole was designed as a single processional route. The Sphinx sits beside that causeway, carved from a single outcrop of limestone left in the quarry, some seventy-three metres long and twenty high, with a human head and a lion's body. The attribution to Khafre rests on its position within his complex, the style of the headdress and the proportions of the face, and it is generally accepted while not being certain; a minority argue for Khufu or Djedefre. The valley temple contained a seated diorite statue of Khafre with a Horus falcon enfolding the back of his head — among the finest sculptures of the Old Kingdom, and now in Cairo. Herodotus, writing two thousand years later, reported that Khafre and Khufu were tyrants who closed the temples, which is a late tradition.
- Lived: 2558 BCE – 2532 BCE
- Nationality: Egyptian
- Roles: pharaoh, builder
