The Pyramid of Khafre or of Chephren is the second-tallest and second-largest of the Ancient Egyptian Pyramids of Giza and the tomb of the Fourth-Dynasty pharaoh Khafre (Chefren), who ruled from c. 2558 to 2532 BC.
History
The pyramid was likely opened and robbed during the First Intermediate Period. During the Eighteenth Dynasty, the overseer of temple construction took casing stone from it to build a temple in Heliopolis on Ramesses II’s orders. Arab historian Ibn Abd al-Salam recorded that the pyramid was opened in 1372 AD.
On the wall of the burial chamber, there is an Arabic graffito that probably dates from the same time.
It is not known when the casing stones of the pyramid were robbed; however, they were presumably still in place by 1646, when John Greaves, professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford in his "Pyramidographia," wrote that, while its stones weren't as large or as regularly laid as in Khufu's, the surface was smooth and even free of breaches of inequalities, except on the south.
It was first explored in modern times by Giovanni Belzoni on March 2, 1818, when the original entrance was found on the north side of the pyramid and the burial chamber was visited. Belzoni had hopes of finding an intact burial. However, the chamber was empty except for an open sarcophagus and its broken lid on the floor.
The first complete exploration was conducted by John Perring in 1837. In 1853, Auguste Mariette partially excavated Khafre's valley temple, and, in 1858, while completing its clearance, he managed to discover a diorite statue.
