Khufu (Cheops)
Khufu built the Great Pyramid and almost nothing else about him survives. He ruled Egypt around 2589 to 2566 BC as the second king of the Fourth Dynasty, the son of Sneferu, who had built three pyramids of his own and worked out how to do it — the Bent Pyramid's change of angle mid-construction records a structural failure being corrected. The Great Pyramid at Giza was some 146 metres high and remained the tallest structure made by human beings for about 3,800 years. It contains roughly 2.3 million blocks averaging two and a half tonnes, and its base is level to within a couple of centimetres across more than five hectares and aligned to true north within a fraction of a degree. The workforce was not enslaved. Excavation of the workers' village at Giza has found bakeries, breweries, medical care for healed fractures, and burials with grave goods — evidence of a paid and organised labour force, probably rotating conscripts, fed on bread, beer and substantial quantities of cattle and sheep. Papyri found at Wadi al-Jarf in 2013, the oldest inscribed papyri known, are the logbook of an official named Merer, recording the transport of limestone from Tura to Giza by boat over several months in Khufu's twenty-seventh year. Herodotus, writing two thousand years later, called him a tyrant who closed the temples and prostituted his daughter, which is a late tradition with no contemporary support. The only certain image of him is an ivory figurine three inches high. His son Djedefre and then Khafre succeeded him.
- Lived: 2589 BCE – 2566 BCE
- Nationality: Egyptian
- Roles: pharaoh, builder
