The Khafre or Chephren Pyramid is the second-highest and second-largest of the Ancient Egyptian Giza Pyramids and the tomb of the Fourth-Dynasty pharaoh Khafre (Chefren), who ruled from c. 2558 to BC 2532.
The base length of the pyramid is 215.5 m and it rises to 136.4 metres (448 ft ) high. It consists of blocks of limestone weighing more than 2 tonnes each. The pyramid ‘s slope rises at an angle of 53 ° 13, ‘steeper than its neighbour, the Khufu Pyramid, which has an angle of 51 ° 50’24. The pyramid of Khafre sits 10 m (33 ft) higher on the bedrock than the pyramid of Khufu, which makes it look taller.
During the First Intermediate Period, the pyramid was possibly opened and robbed. The overseer of temple building took casing stones during the Nineteenth Dynasty to create a temple in Heliopolis on the orders of Ramesses II.
Arab historian Ibn Abd al Salam documented the opening of the pyramid in 1372 A.D. There is an Arabic graffito on the wall of the burial chamber which is possibly dated from the same period.
When the rest of the casing stones were stolen, it is unknown; they were probably still in place by 1646, when John Greaves, professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford
in his Pyramidography, wrote that although its stones were not as big or as frequently laid as in Khufu’s, the surface was smooth and even free of disparities, except in the south.
On March 2, 1818, when the original entrance was located on the north side, the pyramid was first explored in modern times by Giovanni Belzoni.
Belzoni was hoping to discover an intact grave, but except for an open sarcophagus and its broken lid on the floor, the chamber was empty.
John Perring undertook the
first full discovery in 1837.
Auguste Mariette partially excavated Khafre’s valley temple in 1853, and he managed
to discover a diorite statue of Khafre while completing its clearance in 1858.
