Cheops Pyramid King Khufu the second and most famous king of the 4th Dynasty.

History: He was the son of Snofru and Hetepheres I. He at least had two wives,

probably even as much as four, with whom he had several children.

Queen Meritates bore him Kawab Hor-djedef, Hetepheres II, and Meresankh II.

With Henutsen, Cheops had Re-khaf (the later king Chephren ) and Khufu-khaf as children.

Other children of Cheops are Re-djedef, who would succeed Cheops as Djedefre, Hor-baf,

who is sometimes supposed to have become the otherwise unattested king Bakare, and Khamernebti I?

According to Manetho and Herodotos, Kheops would have ruled for 63 years.

The Turin King-list, however, only notes 23 years for the successor of Snofru.

Although the name of the king on this line is missing, it does apply to Cheops, being Snofru’s successor.

The highest known year reference of Cheops’ reign is the year of the 17th cattle count.

This means that Cheops must have ruled for at least 17 years if the cattle

counts were held every year, to 33 years, if the cattle counts were always held every two years.

Like his father, Cheops seems to have been intent on establishing a more

or less permanent military presence in the Sinai, probably to prevent the

Bedouins from interrupting the work in the turquoise mines. An inscription in

Aswan demonstrates Cheop’s interest in this region as well, as it was the main

quarry of the granite needed to build his pyramid. A stela found near

Abu Simbel and some fragments of an alabaster object found in Byblos

indicate some commercial activity with Nubia and Palestine.

Following his father’s example, Kheops again built his funerary monument

away from his predecessor’s. Building activity moved from Dashur to Giza,

to the North of the capital Memphis. There he built the monument that has made

him one of the most famous kings of Ancient Egyptian history: the great pyramid of Giza.

Herodotos account of thousands of slaves laboring for 20 years to build this monument,

it’s now seen as incorrect. now accepted that the harder labor,

such as moving and placing granite and calcite blocks, done by farmers

during annual 4-month inundation of Nile Recent discoveries have shown were housed

and paid and that they were even buried near the pyramid

of a king so they could be part of the king’s eternal life after death.

Herodotos, however, did not invent Cheop’s bad reputation. This had, in fact,

become part of the Egyptian tradition centuries before this Greek traveler visited Egypt.

The Middle Kingdom story recorded on the Westcare papyrus, which shows Snofru as

a wise and kind man, describes Cheops as a cruel and tyrannical ruler, with no respect for life.

Cheops Pyramid King Khufu