Through the Eras

Architecture and DesignHERODOTUS ON THE CRUELTY OF KHUFUINTRODUCTION: Herodotus (484–430 B.C.E.), the ancientGreek historian, visited the Pyramids at Giza about450 B.C.E. Thus they were already 2,000 years oldwhen he arrived as a tourist. Herodotus’ account ofthe building of the Giza pyramid complex emphasizesthe cruelty of King Khufu (called “Cheops,”the Greek name for “Khufu”) in forcing the wholepopulation to work only for him and to ignore allother gods.SOURCE: Herodotus, The History. Trans. David Grene(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987): 185–186.would not have seemed unusual. After all, his grandfather,King Sneferu, built his funeral monuments in twonew sites, Meidum and Dahshur, and his father Khufuinaugurated the new site at Giza. Yet our knowledge ofwhat followed Djedefre’s reign has led some scholars tosuggest that Khufu’s sons were in conflict. The only evidencefor this conflict is the fact that Djedefre inaugurateda new site for his funeral complex and that hisbrother and nephew returned to Giza when they becamekings. Proponents of the theory that Khufu’s sons quarreledhave still not made a convincing case. In fact thereis evidence that Djedefre completed his father Khufu’sburial and that any destruction found at Djedefre’s monumentsat Abu Roash occurred 2,000 years after his successorKhafre came to the throne. Djedefre’s nephewMenkaure left a statue at Abu Roash that suggests thathe honored his uncle’s memory, though no later kingcompleted the pyramid. The pyramid of Djedefre at AbuRoash would have resembled the Meidum Pyramid builtby his grandfather Sneferu if it had been completed. Theangle of slope would have been 52 degrees. The baselength was 106.2 meters (348 feet), thus less than halfof Khufu’s 230.33 meters (756 feet) of base length atthe Great Pyramid. Though only twenty courses werecompleted, the projected height was about 67 meters(220 feet). Compared to Khufu’s 146.59 meters (481feet), Djedefre’s monument was also much shorter. Thepyramid itself had an entrance on the north side that led49 meters (160.76 feet) to an interior pit measuring 21by 9 meters (68.8 by 29.5 feet) and twenty meters (65.6feet) deep. A pyramid temple’s location—on the eastside, but closer to the northeast corner than to the southeastcorner—did not follow Khufu’s model of centeringthe pyramid temple on the east face of the pyramid. Thebuilding’s completion in mud brick indicates that workersfinished it quickly, probably after the sudden deathof Djedefre. The subsidiary pyramid’s location—oppositethe southwest corner of the pyramid rather than onthe southeast as at the Great Pyramid—is similar inplacement to Djoser’s South Tomb at Saqqara. The architect’splan for a very long causeway from the northside of the pyramid to the valley was not completed. Itwould have been 1,700 meters (5,577 feet) long had itbeen completed.KHAFRE’S PYRAMID AT GIZA. King Khafre, son ofKing Khufu and brother of the previous king Djedefre,decided to build a funeral complex at Giza that paralleledand aligned with his father’s complex at Giza. Thepyramid itself is smaller than the Great Pyramid, but appearsequally as tall because of its placement on a sectionof the Giza plateau ten meters (33 feet) higher thanthe base of the Great Pyramid. Khafre’s pyramid is 215meters (705 feet) on each side of the base, about fifteenmeters (56 feet) shorter per side than the Great Pyramid.Its height is 143.5 meters (471 feet), 3.09 meters(10 feet) shorter than the Great Pyramid. Khafre’s pyramidpreserves the outer casing of Tura limestone on theupper levels that once covered the entire pyramid. Theinterior of the pyramid contains two descending passages24 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)