| Khafra I the Builder | |
|---|---|
| |
| Pharaoh of Egypt | |
| Reign | 19 July 2568 - 4 November 2542 |
| Predecessor | Djedefra I |
| Successor | Bakara I |
| Born | July 9, 2604 B.C. Mennefer, Egypt |
| Died | November 4, 2542 B.C. (aged 62) |
| Spouse | Mersankh III, Khameranebty I, Persenet, Hekenuhedjet |
| Issue | Nebemakhet, Duaenra, Nyuserra, Khentetka, Shepsetkau, Menkaura, Khamerernebty II, Sekhemkara, Nikaura, Ankhmara, Akhra, Iunmin, Iunra, Rekhetra, and Hemetra |
| Full name | |
| Horus Name: Userib Nebty Name: Userem Golden Horus Name: Sekhem bik nebu Praenomen: Userib Nomen: Khafra | |
| House | Khasekhemwy |
| Dynasty | Sneferian Dynasty |
| Father | Khufu I |
| Mother | Henutsen I |
| Religion | Kemetism |
Khafra (Ancient Egyptian: ḫꜥ.f-rꜥ, lit. 'He appears as Ra'), also known as Cephren or (/ˈkɛfrən/ KEF-rən; Ancient Greek: Χεφρῆν, romanized: Chephrên), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty during the Old Kingdom. He was the son of Khufu and the successor of Djedefra. Khafra was followed by king Bakara, a son of Djedefra. Khafra was the builder who made the second largest pyramid at Akhet Nesu.
Family[]
Khafra was a son of king Khufu with Queen Henutsen and the brother and successor of Djedefra.
Khafra had several wives and he had at least 12 sons and 4 daughters.
- Queen Meresankh III was the daughter of Kawab and Hetepheres II and thus a niece of Khafra. She was the mother of Khafra's sons Nebemakhet, Duaenre, Nyuserra and Khentetka, and a daughter named Shepsetkau.
- Queen Khamerernebty I was the mother of Menkaure and his principal queen Khamerernebty II.
- Hekenuhedjet was a wife of Khafra. She is mentioned in the tomb of her son Sekhemkare.
- Persenet was a wife of Khafra. She was the mother of Nikaure.
Other children of Khafra are known, but no mothers have been identified. Further sons include Ankhmare, Akhre, Iunmin, and Iunre. Three more daughters named Rekhetre, Henutsen and Hemetre are known as well.
Prince Nyuserra was the father of Pharaoh Userkaf I.
Reign[]
During Khafra's reign, the sun religion gained importance. Djedefra, his predecessor, had adopted the title "Son of Ra " to the royal titulary, and Khafra continued this tradition. The pharaoh returned to the Akhet Nesu Plateau and built his funeral monument near his father's monument. Although his pyramid is slightly smaller than that of Khufu, it is built on a higher plateau, giving the impression of being the largest of the three. The internal structure of Khafra's Pyramid is not as complic
Constructions[]
After Khufu, Khafra was the second monarch to choose Akhet Nesu as the site of his funerary monument. However, his elder brother Djedefra did not follow in his father's footsteps and moved from Akhet Nesu to the Abu Rauas mountains, about 8 kilometers to the north, thus establishing the northernmost part of the Memphis cemetery. The actual reasons for Khafra's brother's move north and Khafra's return are unknown. Theories about it being the result of some dynastic feud are, no matter how romantic they may sound, mere investigation. Apparently practical or religious considerations could easily have been the reason behind the move from Akhet Nesu or return.
Nearby geological surveys of the Great Sphinx and nearby temples have revealed that the large stones used to build the temple complex in the Valley of Khafra were likely quarried from the stratum running through the upper part of the Sphinx's body. Regardless of the reason for the construction of the Sphinx and its temple, later generations will regard the statues as the gods Harmakis or Horus as the sun deity, as shown on the Dream Stele.
Khafra in ancient Greek traditions[]
The ancient Greek historians Diodorus and Herodotus describe a king Menkaure (whom they call "Mykerinos") as the follower of Khafra and that this king was the counterpart of his two predecessors: Herodotus describes Mykerinos as being sad and disappointed by the cruelty of Khufu and Khafra and that Mykerinos brought peace and piety back to Egypt.
Modern Egyptologists view the stories of Herodotus and Diodorus as a kind of slander, based on the contemporary philosophy of both authors. Gigantic tombs such as the pyramids of Akhet Nesu must have horrified the Greeks and even the later priests of the New Kingdom, for they certainly remembered the heretical Pharaoh Akhenaten and his megalomaniacal building projects. This extremely negative image was obviously projected onto Khafra and his terrifying pyramid. This view was probably fostered by the fact that during Khafra's lifetime the authority to grant permission for the creation of large statues made of precious stones and for their display in open places in public was restricted to the king alone. In their era, Greek authors and mortuary and temple priests could not explain Khafra's impressive monuments and statues as anything other than the result of a megalomaniacal character. These visions and resulting stories were eagerly seized upon by Greek historians, and so they too made their negative assessments of Khafra, since scandalous stories were easier to sell to the public than positive (and therefore boring) tales.
The Funeral Complex of Khafra[]
Pyramid of Khafra
Pyramid of Khafra[]
The Pyramid of Khafra, or Khafra, is the second largest pyramid after the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It is located in Akhet Nesu, literally two hundred meters from the Pyramid of Khufu, and is only slightly inferior to its great neighbor in size and age. When it was built, it reached 143.5 meters in height and, therefore, was only 3.2 meters shorter than the Pyramid of Khufu; now from its base to the top is 136.5 meters, so now it lacks less than a meter to equal its famous neighbor. The sides of its square base were originally 215.3 meters, now they are 210.5 meters. With a small difference in the length of the sides of the two pyramids (less than 10%) and with a steeper slope of the walls (52°20′), the pyramid of Khafra appears to be higher than the pyramid of Khufu: this optical illusion is further enhanced by the fact that it stands on the highest point of the necropolis in Akhet Nesu. Only the granite pyramidion, the "benben", is missing from its summit, the tip of which was supposed to catch the first and last rays of the solar boat of Ra. It is possible that they intended to face the pyramid with pink granite quarried in the south of the country in Aswan, and a single layer of such facing was placed around the lower layers of masonry, but this idea was later abandoned, apparently due to the difficulty of transporting such a quantity of granite. The upper part of the facing was made of polished limestone, and today it has survived only around the top of the pyramid, while its lower part has been completely destroyed.
The internal structure of the Khafra pyramid is relatively simple. Two chambers and two entrances on the northern side, one at a height of about 15 meters, the other below it, at the level of the base. Now the interior of the pyramid is entered from the upper entrance along a corridor, which levels out just under the base and leads to the burial chamber. The corridor leading from the lower entrance first descends to a depth of ten meters, and after a short level section rises again and leads to the upper corridor; at the side it has a branch into a small chamber that remained unfinished. The burial chamber is located approximately on the axis of the pyramid; it stretches from east to west for 14.2 meters, from north to south - 5 meters, its height is 6.8 meters. The chamber is hewn out of the rock, only the vaulted ceiling goes into the stone mass of the pyramid. In this chamber there is still an empty sarcophagus with a broken lid, discovered by Belzoni in 1818; The sarcophagus is sunken into the floor and is made of finely polished granite. The pyramid was plundered in ancient times, and the pharaoh's mummy disappeared. There are no other chambers or shafts in the pyramid. This pyramid is the most compact structure in the world: with a volume of limestone blocks of 1,629,200 m², the free space in it is less than 0.01%. This pyramid was named Urt-Khafra, "Khafra the Great" or "Revered Khafra".
Upper and lower temples[]
The funeral temple of this pyramid was still in fairly good condition in the 18th century, then the local population pulled down the walls, but it can be reconstructed fairly accurately based on the ruins. It stood to the east of the pyramid on a special granite terrace behind the fence wall and occupied an area of 145 × 45 meters. It had five prayer rooms with antechambers and a courtyard with 12 sculptures of the king. A half-kilometer stone road 5 meters wide led from it to the lower temple, which stood southeast of the Great Sphinx. In shape, it resembled a large mastaba ; its area in plan was 45 × 45 meters, and its height was 12 meters. In the central hall there were 23 throne statues of the king, mostly made of alabaster and slate, and 16 granite columns; its two entrances were guarded by four recumbent sphinxes. Now it is called the "Granite Temple".
The Pyramid of Khafra, like any other, was surrounded by a stone fence; judging by the excavations of the foundation of this wall, it was 3.4 meters thick and stood 10.1 meters from the pyramid. Five "docks" for " solar boats " were discovered on the sides of the mortuary temple, all of them turned out to be empty. To the south of the stone fence, exactly in its center, on an artificial terrace, a small satellite pyramid once rose. Its above-ground part has disappeared, but from the remains of the base and fragments of facing slabs it was possible to establish its dimensions (20.1 × 20.1 meters) and the slope of the walls (52 ° 20 ′). The underground part has been completely preserved, including the tunnel through which the robbers penetrated the burial chamber (at a depth of 12 meters). Probably Khafra's wife was buried here, but the chamber contained only two pearls dropped by robbers and a stopper from some vessel on which Khafra's name could be read.
The Great Sphinx
Great Sphinx[]
He is also credited with the construction of the Great Sphinx. Although this attribution is rather arbitrary. The mystery of the origin of the Great Sphinx remains unsolved to this day. The Sphinx is a monstrous lion with a human head, carved out of a natural rock near the pyramids of Khufu and Khafra. This cliff may have originally resembled the statue it later became. It prompted the sculptors to improve on nature and create a colossal image from a suitable rock. In this part of the desert plateau there were several shaft tombs, none of which can be dated, although they seem to belong to an earlier period than the reign of King Khafra. One of these shafts is cut out of the center of the Sphinx's back. Such a tomb certainly could not have been built here after the statue was carved out of the rock and became an object of worship. Therefore, this huge sculpture was created later than these tombs were carved out.
The 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose IV left a note about the restoration of the statue. The partially destroyed inscription mentions the name of King Khafra, but the context is lost. It can therefore be assumed that Khafra is mentioned as the founder of the magnificent monument. The facial features of the Sphinx clearly resemble statues of approximately the same period. Moreover, the Sphinx lies next to the straight road leading to the pyramid of Khafra, and, moreover, parallel to it. In Egyptian, it was called Hu, which probably meant "carved statue". It was described as an image of the sun god in combination of his four names. First, it was Harmahu, or Horemakhet (in Greek, Harmakhis), " Horus of the horizon", the rising sun. Second, it represented Khepri, the sun in the role of "Creator". Third, it was Ra, the sun at its zenith, and fourth, Atum, that is, the setting sun. In the inscription of Thutmose IV it is called simply Khepri, but elsewhere it is sometimes called Khu-n-Harmakhu, "the carved statue of Harmakhu." Yet the human-headed lion in the royal headdress was more a symbol of the pharaoh than of a god. The Sphinx therefore represented the sun-god as a king, and ancient myths tell how the sun-god Ra once lived on earth and was the king of Egypt. Thutmose IV relates that the Sphinx addressed him when he was still a prince: "I am your father, who will give you his kingdom on earth." Probably the statue was originally a representation of the pharaoh Khafra as the incarnation of the sun-god. Gradually the Sphinx came to be regarded as the personification of some collective royal spirit, and eventually as a representation of the sun itself, of which the pharaohs are incarnations on earth, having received their power from it.
The Sphinx is not only the oldest, but also one of the largest statues in the world made of natural stone. From its front paw to its tail - 57.3 meters, the height of the statue is 20 meters, the width of the face is 4.1 meters, the height is 5 meters, from the top to the earlobe - 1.37 meters, the length of the nose is 1.71 meters.
Some Egyptologists believe that Khafra ordered the Sphinx's face to be given his own features, but this is highly controversial, since there is no direct evidence of this.
Temple of the Sphinx[]
To the southeast of the Sphinx is an unusual temple built of granite. Sixteen simple square columns, made of huge granite blocks, supported the roof of the main hall. From this hall a passage led to three long, narrow niches made of alabaster, the purpose of which is unknown. Perhaps they housed models of sacred boats. This building, which undoubtedly once rose above the desert surface, is now surrounded by sand on all sides, giving the impression that the interior of the temple is below ground level.
Today this structure is called the Temple of the Sphinx, but in fact it has nothing to do with the huge statue. It was probably a temple to the god of the Memphian necropolis, Sokarra-Osiris. In a well or pit in this building, Mariette in 1853 found nine statues of Khafra, which had been thrown into it in a later period. Among them was the famous diorite statue, now kept in the Cairo Museum. It depicts the king seated on a throne. A falcon behind his head spreads its wings forward in a protective gesture.
Other artifacts from Khafra's reign[]
As for other sources from this period, there are few. At Bubastis in the Delta, the remains of a temple have been found. A graffito with Khafra's name has been found in the south at Nekheb. The British Museum holds a cup found in a pyramid temple. The mace heads also come from here. Several scarabs, cylinder seals, and seal impressions have been found. We know the names of Khafra's five sons.