Pyramid of Khafre Egypt

Legendary

Second-largest of the 3 Ancient Egyptian Pyramids of Giza.

Photo by Warren LeMay

Khafre's pyramid looks like the tallest one at Giza. It isn't.

His father Khufu's pyramid is about 7 meters taller, but Khafre built his on bedrock 10 meters higher up the plateau and at a steeper angle. From most viewpoints, the son's pyramid seems to win.

Khafre was a son of Khufu, the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid. He came to the throne around 2558 BC after his older brother died, and he ruled until about 2532 BC.

His pyramid is the middle of the three great pyramids of Giza. It originally stood about 143.5 meters tall on a base 215 meters wide, and it has lost about 7 meters off the top since then.

The stones at the bottom are huge, weighing more than 2 tons each. They shrink as the pyramid rises, until the blocks at the very top are only about 50 cm thick.

Near the peak, a band of smooth white limestone still clings to the pyramid. All three pyramids were once completely covered in this polished casing, quarried across the river at Tura, but most of it was stripped off centuries ago to build mosques and palaces in Cairo.

Khafre's is the only one with any of it left. That's how you can tell his pyramid apart from a distance.

Khafre also had the Great Sphinx carved from a block of limestone left behind in his quarry. It sits beside the road leading up to his pyramid, and most experts believe its face is his.

The pyramid was robbed long ago, probably within a few centuries of being sealed. When an Italian explorer named Giovanni Belzoni broke in on March 2, 1818, he found the burial chamber empty except for a granite coffin holding some cow bones.

He wrote his name and the date on the chamber wall in big black letters. It's still there.

Stand at the panoramic viewpoint south of the pyramids to see all three lined up, with Khafre's in the middle and its white cap catching the sun. Buy the separate ticket to go inside, where a low passage leads down to Belzoni's graffiti. Then walk down the causeway to the Valley Temple, one of the best-preserved buildings from ancient Egypt, and stand face to face with the Sphinx.