The Children of Adam and Eve

Khufu (Khnum-Khufu) was the second pharaoh of Egypt in the 4th Dynasty (2613-2498 BC), second of four dynasties in the Old Kingdom Period.

He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Khufu was the son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetepheres I, and brother of Princess Hetepheres. Unlike his father, Khufu is remembered as a cruel and ruthless pharaoh in later folklore. Khufu had nine sons, one of whom, Djedefra, was his immediatesuccessor. He also had fifteen daughters, one of whom would later become Queen Hetepheres II. Several of Khufu's sons are known from the papyrus Westcar, while other children are merely known from their tombs in Giza. Cemetery G7000 containsseveral of the mastabas of these royal children.

Sons of Khufu:

Crown Prince Kawab, the eldest son of Khufu and Meritites I.
Djedefra, successor of Khufu (his mother is unknown).
Khafra, son of Khufu and Queen Henutsen, he succeeded his brother Djedefra as King.
Djedefhor, also known as Hordjedef. King’s Son of his Body, Count, Keeper of Nekhen. Known from the Westcar Papyrus. Buried in the G7000 cemetery in Giza.
Baufra, son of Khufu; some have suggested Baufra is identical to Babaef. Attested in an inscription in Wadi Hammamat, and known from the Westcar Papyrus.
Babaef I, son of Khufu, also called Khnum-baf. Known from his tomb in Giza.
Khufukhaf I, son of Khufu and Henutsen. Known from his double mastaba in Giza.
Minkhaf I, son of Khufu and Henutsen. Served as Vizier during the reign of his brothers Djedefre and Khafre.
Horbaef, son of Khufu. Known from his tomb in Giza which he shared with Meresankh II.

Daughters of Khufu:

Nefertiabet, King’s Daughter, possibly a daughter of Khufu. She is known from her tomb in Giza.
Hetepheres II, King’s Wife, Great of Scepter, King’s Daughter of his Body. Daughter of Khufu and Meritites I, married to Prince Kawab, and later to the pharaoh Djedefre.
Meresankh II, King’s Daughter of his Body, King’s Wife and Great of Scepter.
Meritites II , King’s Daughter of his Body. Married to Akhethotep (Director of the Palace). Shared a tomb with her husband in Giza.
Khamerernebty I, mother of Menkaura, married to Khafre and may have been a daughter of Khufu. Possibly buried in the Galarza tomb in Giza.

Khufu came to the Egyptian throne in his twenties and reigned for about 23 years, which is the number ascribed to him by the Turin King List. Based on inscriptional evidence, it is also likely that he led military expeditions into the Sinai,Nubia and Libya.

The Westcar Papyrus, which was written well after his reign, during the Middle Kingdom or later, describes the pharaoh being told magical tales by his sons Khafre and Djedefre. This story cycle depicts Khufu as mean and cruel, and as beingultimately frustrated in his attempts to ensure that his dynasty survived past his two sons. Whether anything in this story cycle is based on fact is unknown, but Khufu's negative reputation lasted at least until the time of Herodotus, who wastold further stories of that King's cruelty to his people and to his own family in order to ensure the construction of his pyramid. What is known for certain is that his funerary cult lasted until the 26th Dynasty, which was one of the lastnative-Egyptian royal dynasties, almost 2,000 years after his death.

Most likenesses of Khufu are lost to history. Only one miniature statuette has been fully attributed to this pharaoh. Since he is credited with building the single largest building of ancient times, it is ironic that the only positivelyidentified royal sculpture of his was discovered not at Giza, but in a Temple in Abydos during an excavation by Flinders Petrie in 1903. Originally this piece was found without its head, but bearing the pharaoh's name. Realizing the importanceof this discovery, Petrie halted all further excavation on the site until the head was found three weeks later after an intensive sieving of the sand from the area where the base had been discovered. In More recent years, two other likenesseshave been tentatively identified as being that of Khufu, based largely on stylistic similarities to the piece discovered by Petrie. One is a colossal head made of red granite of a King wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt that resides in theBrooklyn Museum, and the other, a fragmentary miniature head made of limeStone that also wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, which can be found in the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst in Munich.

An empty sarcophagus is located in the King's Chamber inside the pyramid, though it is unclear if it had ever been used for such a purpose as burial. While his mummy has never been recovered, his impressive and well preserved solar barge - orKhufu ship - was discovered buried in a pit at the foot of his great pyramid at Giza in 1954 by Egyptian archaeologists. It has been reassembled and placed in a museum for public viewing.

While pyramid construction had been solely for the reigning pharaoh prior to Khufu, his reign saw the construction of several minor pyramid structures that are believed to have been intended for other members of his royal household, amounting toa royal cemetery. Three small pyramids to the east of Khufu's pyramid are tentatively thought to beLong to two of his wives, and the third has been ascribed to Khufu's mother Hetepheres I, whose funerary equipment was found relatively intact ina shaft tomb nearby. A series of mastabas were created adjacent to the small pyramids, and tombs have been found in this cemetery. The closest tombs to Khufu's were those beLonging to Prince Kawab and Khufukhaf I, and their respective wives.Next closest are the tombs of Prince Minkhaf and Queen Hetepheres II, and those of Meresankh II and Meresankh III (Khufu's grand-daughter). When the largest of these tombs was excavated in 1927, it was found to contain a bust of Prince Ankhhaf,which can now be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ankhhaf was Khufu's younger half-brother.