Khafre
ancient Egyptian pharaoh of 4th dynasty
Khafre or Chephren (died c. 2532 BC) was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the fourth king of the Fourth Dynasty, during the earlier half of the Old Kingdom period (c. 2700–2200 BC). He was son of the king Khufu, and succeeded his brother Djedefre to the throne.
Khafre's enormous pyramid at Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, is surpassed only by his father's (the Great Pyramid). The Great Sphinx of Giza was also built for him, according to some egyptologists, although this remains unconfirmed. Little is known about Khafre aside from the reports of Herodotus, a Greek historian who wrote 2,000 years later.
Family
Khafre was a son of king Khufu and the brother and successor of Djedefre. Khafre is thought by some to be the son of Queen Meritites I due to an inscription where he is said to honor her memory.
[Breasted; Ancient Records]
Others argue that the inscription just suggests that this queen died during the reign of Khafre.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Khafre” is ancient Egyptian pharaoh of 4th dynasty. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Khafre, ancient and Egyptian, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “ancient Egyptian pharaoh of 4th dynasty” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q199861. VIAF identifies the subject as 50019346. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Khafre” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.