Snefru
| Snefru or Snofru (in Greek known as Soris), was the founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt, reigning from around 2613 BC to 2589 BC.
He was married to Hetepheres I who is thought to have been the daughter of his predecessor Huni. His father-in-law may also have been his father. According to this theory, Huni fathered Hetepheres from a wife and Sneferu from a concubine. Thus the marriage was what allowed Sneferu to inherit the throne.
Sneferu and Hetepheres were the parents of Egypt's most famous pyramid builder, Khufu. Sneferu was actually more prolific than his heir, being responsible first for completing the pyramid of Huni at Meidum, transforming it from a step pyramid to a true pyramid, the first of its kind. He then went on to build his own step pyramid there. These were followed by the famous Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, and finally, the Red Pyramid. A small pyramid at Seila, near Meidum, is also believed to have been built at his command. While the pyramids built under Sneferu are individually smaller than the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the total volume of stone used in Sneferu's monuments is the largest of all pharaohs.
Despite the construction of such monuments, relatively little is known about his reign. From an inscription on the Palermo stone, it is evident that the Egyptians had already begun to import high-quality woods from abroad, as the inscription states that King Sneferu sent forty ships to acquire cedar from Lebanon. It is also known that he built boats used to transport goods and for military purposes to such places as the Sinai, Nubia, and Libya. Some of the court life from that time is evoked in the Westcar Papyrus, written sometime during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Tradition ascribes that Sneferu was a wise and just ruler. Indeed, his reign was regarded in later years as something of a golden age. Clearly, his lifetime marked some kind of watershed in Egyptian history, as the dramatic expansion of pyramid-building seems to
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Khufu
| Khufu (in Greek known as Χέωψ, Cheops; pronounced "key-ops") was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 BC to 2566 BC. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.
Life
Khufu was the son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetepheres. Unlike his father, Khufu is remembered as a cruel and ruthless pharaoh in later folklore. Khufu had nine sons, one of whom, Djedefra, was his immediate successor. He also had fifteen daughters, one of whom would later become Queen Hetepheres II.
Khufu came to the throne in his twenties, and reigned for about 23 years, which is the number ascribed to him by the Turin King List. Other sources from much later periods suggest a significantly longer reign: Manetho gives him a reign of 65 years, and Herodotus states that he reigned fifty years. Since 2000, two dates have been discovered from his reign. An inscription containing his highest regnal year, the "Year of the 17th Count of Khufu", first mentioned by Flinders Petrie in an 1883 book and then lost to historians, was rediscovered by Zahi Hawass in 2001 in one of the relieving chambers within this king's pyramid. Secondly, in 2003, the "Year after the 13th cattle count" of Khufu was found on a rock inscription at the Dakhla Oasis in the Sahara.
He started building his pyramid at Giza, the first to be built in this place. Based on inscriptional evidence, it is also likely that he led military expeditions into the Sinai, Nubia and Libya
The Westcar Papyrus, which was written well after his reign during the Middle Kingdom or later, depicts the pharaoh being told magical tales by his sons Khafra and Djedefra. This story cycle depicts Khufu as mean and cruel, and is ultimately frustrated in his attempts to ensure that his dynasty survives past his two sons. Whether or not this story cycle is true is unknown, But Khufu's negative reputation lasted at least until the time of Herodotus, who was told further stories of that king's cruelty to his people and to his own family in order to ensure the construction of his pyramid. What is known for certain is that his funerary cult lasted until the 26th Dynasty, which was one of the last native-Egyptian royal dynasties, almost 2,000 years after his death.
Most likenesses of Khufu are lost to history. Only one miniature statuette has been fully attributed to this pharaoh. Since he is credited with building the single largest building of ancient times, it is ironic that the only positively identified royal sculpture of his is also the smallest that has ever been found: a 7.6cm (3 inch) ivory statue that bears his name. It was discovered not at Giza, but in a temple in Abydos during an excavation by William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1903. Originally this piece was found without the head, but bearing the pharaoh's name. Realizing the importance of this discovery, Petrie halted all further excavation on the site until the head was found three weeks later after an intensive sieving of the sand from the area where the base had been discovered.This piece is now on display in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. In more recent years two other likenesses have been tentatively identified as being that of Khufu, based largely on stylistic similarities to the piece discovered by Petrie. One is a colossal head made of red granite of a king wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt that resides in the Brooklyn Museum, and the other a fragmentary miniature head made of limestone that also wears the white crown of Upper Egypt.
An empty sarcophagus is located in the King's Chamber inside the pyramid though it is unclear if it had ever been used for such a purpose as burial. While his mummy has never been recovered, his impressive and well preserved solar barge--or Khufu ship--was discovered buried in a pit at the foot of his great pyramid at Giza in 1954 by Egyptian archaeologists. It has been reassembled and placed in a museum for public viewing.
While pyramid construction had been solely for the reigning pharaoh prior to Khufu, his reign saw the construction of several minor pyramid structures that are believed to have been intended for other members of his royal household, amounting to a royal cemetery. Three small pyramids to the east of Khufu's pyramid are tentatively thought to belong to two of his wives, and the third has been ascribed to Khufu's mother Hetepheres I, whose funerary equipment was found relatively intact in a shaft tomb nearby. A series of mastabas were created adjacent to the small pyramids, and tombs have been found in this "cemetery". The closest tombs to Khufu's were those belonging to Prince Kawab and Khufuhaf and their respective wives. Next closest are the tombs of Prince Minkhaf and Queens Hetepheres II, and those of Meresank II and Meresank III.[8] When the largest of these tombs (Tomb G7510) was excavated in 1927, it was found to contain a bust of Prince Ankhhaf, which can now be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
| Djedefra
| The Egyptian pharaoh Djedefra (or Radjedef) was the successor and son of Khufu. The mother of Djedefra is unknown. His name means "Enduring like Re."
He married his (half-) sister Hetepheres II, which may have been necessary to legitimise his claims to the throne if his mother was one of Khufu’s lesser wives. He also had another wife, Khentet-en-ka with whom he had (at least) three sons, Setka, Baka and Hernet and one daughter, Neferhetepes.
The Turin King List credits him with a rule of eight years, but the highest known year referenced to during this reign was the year of the 11th cattle count. This would mean that Djedefra ruled for at least eleven years, if the cattle counts were annual, or 21 years if the cattle counts were biennial.
He was the first king to use the title Son of Ra as part of his royal titulary, which is seen as an indication of the growing popularity of the cult of the solar god Ra.
He continued the move north by building his (now ruined) pyramid at Abu Rawash, some 8 km to the North of Giza. It is the northernmost part of the Memphite necropolis. In 2004, evidence that Djedefra may have been responsible for the building of the Sphinx in the image of his father was reported by French Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev.
While Egyptologists previously assumed that his pyramid at the heavily denuded site of Abu Roash--some 5 kilometres north of Giza--was unfinished upon his death, more recent excavations from 1995 to 2005 have established that it was indeed completed.The most recent evidence rather indicates that his pyramid complex was extensively plundered in later periods while "the king's statues [were] smashed as late as the 2nd century AD." Due to the poor condition of Abu Roash, only small traces of his mortuary complex have been found; his pyramid causeway proved to run from north to south rather than the more conventional east to west while no valley temple has been found. Only the rough ground plan of his mudbrick mortuary temple was traced--with some difficulty--"in the usual place on the east face of the pyramid."
| | Khafra | Khafra or Khafre (Greek Χεφρήν, Chephren) *ḫāʕaf-riʕu) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty, with his capital at Memphis. According to some authors he was the brother and successor of Khufu, but it is more commonly accepted that Djedefra was Khufu's successor and Khafra was Djedefra's.
There is no agreement on the date of his reign; some authors say it was between 2558 BC and 2532 BC; this dynasty is commonly dated ca. 2650 BC–2480 BC. While the Turin King List length for his reign is blank, and Manetho's exaggerates his reign as 66 years, most scholars believe it was between 24 to 26 years, based upon the date of the Will of Prince Nekure which was carved on the walls of this Prince's mastaba tomb. The will is dated anonymously to the Year of the 12th Count and is assumed to belong to Khafra since Nekure was his son. Khafra's highest year date is the "Year of the 13th occurrence" which is a painted date on the back of a casing stone belonging to mastaba G 7650.This would imply a reign of 24-25 years for this king if the cattle count was biannual during the Fourth Dynasty. Khafra built the second largest pyramid at Giza, thought to have built the Great Sphinx and a temple, which is the only surviving example of a temple of this Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
His name, Khaf-Ra, means "Appearing like Ra" for some translators and "rise Ra!" for others; the meaning is most probably the first, according to the hieroglyphic representing his name, which includes that crown. The name of Khafre's pyramid at Giza—which is the second largest of the 3 famous pyramids of Giza—means "Khafre is Great" in Egyptian.
In 1837, English army officer Richard William Howard Vyse, and engineer John Shae Perring began excavations within the pyramid of Menkaura. In the main burial chamber of the pyramid they found a large stone sarcophagus (8ft long, 3ft 1in wide, and 2ft 11in in height) made of basalt. The sarcophagus was uninscribed with hieroglyphs though it was decorated in the style of palace facade. Adjacent to the burial chamber were found wooden fragments of a coffin bearing the name of Menkaura, and a partial skeleton wrapped in a coarse cloth. The sarcophagus was removed from the pyramid and was sent by ship to the British Museum in London, but the ship carrying it was lost after leaving port at Malta on October 13, 1838. The other materials were sent by a separate ship, and the materials now reside at the museum, with the remains of the wooden coffin case on display. It is now thought that the coffin was a replacement made during the much later Saite period, nearly two millennia after the pharaoh's original interment. Radio carbon dating of the bone fragments that were found place them at an even later date, from the Coptic period in the first centuries AD
| Shepseskaf
| Shepseskaf was a son of Menkaure who succeded his father on the throne. Shepseskaf's name means "His Soul is Noble." He was likely the last Egyptian Pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty if he was not succeeded by a certain unknown ruler named Djedefptah as recorded in some Egyptian literature and, indirectly, by the Turin Canon. No ruler named Djedefptah is recorded in contemporary documents such as royal monuments or private tombs in the Old Kingdom cemeteries of Giza and Saqqara which date to this period. Palace officials who served in the interval between the 4th and 5th dynasties of Egypt such as the long-lived palace courtier Netry-nesut-pu explicitly lists this sequence of Old Kingdom kings under whom he served under in his tomb: Radjedef → Khafre → Menkaure → Shepseskaf, and the first three 5th dynasty kings namely Userkaf, Sahure and Neferirkare.[3] Finally,
“ No names of estates of the period [which are] compounded with royal names make mention of any other kings than these, nor do the names of...royal grandchildren, who often bore the name of a royal ancestor as a component of their own [name]. ”
The Turin Canon ascribes Shepseskaf a rule of four years and his anonymous 4th dynasty successor--presumably a reference to Djedefptah--a reign of two years. In contrast, Manetho's King List explicitly gives Shepseskaf a reign of seven years which may be a combination of the 4 + 2 (= 6) full year figures noted in the Turin Kinglist for the last two kings of the Fourth Dynasty plus a significant monthly fraction. Manetho's King List does, however, also note the existence of the unknown and possibly fictitious ruler Djedeptah--called Thampthis in his records--who is ascribed a reign of nine years.
Shepseskaf broke with the Fourth Dynasty tradition of constructing large pyramid tombs by chosing to construct his tomb as a great mastaba at Saqqara, now known as Mastabat Fara'un. In contrast, his three immediate predecessors built the pyramids of Giza while Sneferu, the founder of the fourth dynasty, alone constructed three pyramids in his reign most notably, the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. Shepseskaf may have designed a smaller tomb for himself since he was faced with the arduous task of completing his father's pyramid at Giza while simultaneously building his own tomb--all this within his short reign.
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