Khufu and the Fourth Dynasty: The Pyramid-Building Pharaohs
The Fourth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2600-2500 BCE) is the dynasty of the pyramid builders. In less than a hundred years, the rulers of this single family raised three of the most massive stone buildings the world has ever seen, the Pyramids of Giza, and changed the architectural and political landscape of Egypt forever. The most famous of these rulers was Khufu (c. 2589-2566 BCE), builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing.
The Fourth Dynasty in the Old Kingdom
The Fourth Dynasty ruled during the height of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the era sometimes called the “Age of the Pyramids.” It was a time of immense royal power, efficient administration, and a national economy that could support very large building projects. The kings of the Fourth Dynasty were absolute rulers, commanding the labor of tens of thousands of workers and the resources of the entire country. For the historical background, see our guide to the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
The dynasty is usually divided into seven or eight kings, including Sneferu (the founder), Khufu, Djedefre, Khafre, Baufre (sometimes called Bikheris), Menkaure, and Shepseskaf, with several short-reigned rulers between them. The most important were Sneferu, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, the three builders of the Giza pyramids, plus Sneferu, who built the pyramids at Dahshur.
Sneferu: The Founder of the Fourth Dynasty
Sneferu, the father of Khufu, is sometimes called the greatest builder of the Old Kingdom. He built three major pyramids: the Meidum Pyramid, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. The Meidum pyramid collapsed in antiquity, leaving its tower-like ruins. The Bent Pyramid changed angle partway up, perhaps because its builders detected structural problems. The Red Pyramid, finally, was the first true “smooth-sided” pyramid in Egypt.
Sneferu’s reign consolidated royal power and developed many of the building techniques, casing stones, internal chambers, causeways, that his son would use to build the Great Pyramid. The people and the bureaucracy of the Fourth Dynasty were, in a real sense, his creation.
Khufu: Builder of the Great Pyramid
Khufu, known in Greek as Cheops, ruled for about twenty-three years, c. 2589-2566 BCE (the chronology follows Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids, 1997, pp. 84-119). He inherited a unified, wealthy, well-organized country, and he put most of its resources into the construction of his tomb.
The result was the Great Pyramid of Giza, originally 146.6 meters (481 feet) tall and now standing at 138.8 meters after the loss of its outer casing stones. It contains an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing on average about 2.5 tons, and the whole structure weighs some 6 million tons. It was the tallest building on Earth for more than 3,800 years, and it remains the most massive stone building ever constructed.
For a full guide to the structure, see our article on the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the deeper question of who actually built the Great Pyramid.
Khufu’s Reign
Very little is known of Khufu’s reign outside of pyramid building. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote a century later that he was a harsh ruler who closed the temples and forced the people to labor on his tomb, and that he even prostituted his own daughter to raise money. Almost all modern historians, including Mark Lehner (The Complete Pyramids, 1997, p. 225), consider these stories to be later Greek propaganda. The few contemporary documents that survive, including the Wadi al-Jarf papyri discovered by Pierre Tallet in 2013, the oldest papyri ever found with dates, show a pharaoh deeply concerned with religious institutions, with the welfare of the cult centers, and with the maintenance of ma’at, the cosmic order. The Egyptians themselves, in the king’s own lifetime, appear to have revered him.
The few depictions of Khufu that survive include a tiny ivory statuette found at Abydos, one of the few realistic images of any Old Kingdom pharaoh, and a few reliefs and sealings. They show a strong, young man with a determined face. If you stand in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and look at that little ivory figure, the only three-dimensional portrait of Khufu that has ever been found, you get a sharper sense of the man than any of his monuments. He does not look like a tyrant. He looks like a bureaucrat who meant to be obeyed.
Khafre and Menkaure: The Other Giza Builders
Khufu was succeeded, after a brief reign by his son Djedefre (who built a pyramid at Abu Rawash), by his other son Khafre. Khafre ruled for about twenty-five years, c. 2558–2532 BCE, and built the second pyramid at Giza.
The Pyramid of Khafre appears almost the same height as his father’s, partly because it was built on higher ground and partly because it was built with a steeper angle. It is also distinguished by the fact that some of its original casing stones still survive at the very top, and by the great causeway that leads from it to the Valley Temple of Khafre. Beside this causeway sits the Great Sphinx of Giza, a colossal limestone statue of a recumbent lion with a human head, almost certainly carved as a guardian of Khafre’s pyramid complex. For the full story, see the Pyramid of Khafre and the Great Sphinx.
Khafre’s son Menkaure, the third builder at Giza, ruled for about twenty-eight years, c. 2532–2503 BCE. His pyramid is much smaller than his father’s or grandfather’s, but it is the most finely finished of the three, cased in red granite for its lower courses. The Valley Temple of Menkaure was discovered in 2010, in pristine condition beneath the sand.
The three Giza pyramids stand today as the only survivors of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and as the most visible legacy of the Fourth Dynasty.
The End of the Fourth Dynasty
After Menkaure, the Fourth Dynasty continued under a series of short-reigned rulers. Shepseskaf, Menkaure’s son, broke with pyramid building altogether and was buried in a huge mastaba at South Saqqara. His successors built only modest tombs, and the era of the great pyramids came to an end.
The dynasty that built the Giza pyramids was, in the end, only about a hundred years long. Yet in that single century, the people of the Nile produced the most enduring stone monuments in the world. The name “Khufu” was remembered as a great builder for thousands of years: Herodotus, writing more than two thousand years after his death, preserved his memory, and his pyramid, more than 4,500 years after it was built (Mark Lehner, Giza and the Pyramids, 2010), still stands at the heart of the modern Egyptian nation.