What Was King Khufu Known For?

Khufu is known above all for the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest pyramid ever built and the last surviving wonder of the ancient world. He is also remembered for his huge building projects, his trade expeditions and his famous family of kings.

How Long Did King Khufu Rule?

The Turin King List gives him 23 years, but newer evidence from Wadi al-Jarf and other inscriptions suggests at least 26 to 27 years. Herodotus's figure of 50 years is far too long.

Who Was the Father of King Khufu?

His father was King Sneferu, the founder of the Fourth Dynasty and one of the greatest pyramid builders in Egyptian history. Sneferu built at least three pyramids, at Meidum and Dahshur.

How Many Children Did Khufu Have?

At least nine sons and several daughters are known by name, mostly from their tombs at Giza. The real number was probably higher, as royal children who died young were often not recorded.

Who Was Khufu's Grandson?

His best-known grandson was Menkaure, son of Khafre, who built the third and smallest of the main pyramids at Giza. Several other grandchildren served as officials and priests.

Can You Go Inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu?

Yes. Visitors can buy a separate ticket to climb through the Grand Gallery to the King's Chamber. The passages are narrow, steep and warm, so it is not ideal for anyone with claustrophobia.

King Khufu Facts: Family Tree, Great Pyramid, Boats and Tomb

King Khufu Facts: Family Tree, Pyramid, and Legacy

15 min read | Published: Nov 03, 2018 | Updated: Oct 17, 2026 | TRIPS IN EGYPT

King Khufu raised the largest pyramid ever built, a mountain of stone that has watched over Giza for over 4,500 years. Yet the man himself remains hard to see. This guide gathers what is actually known about him: his family tree, wives and children, his reign and expeditions, how his pyramid was built, his tomb, his boat, his religion, his real face and the many facts behind his story.

Who Was King Khufu?

Khufu was the second king of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. He is usually dated to about 2589 to 2566 BC, although every date this early carries a margin of a few decades. He followed his father, Sneferu, and was succeeded by his sons Djedefre and then Khafre.

Khufu is best known for building the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one still standing. The Greeks called him Cheops, the name the historian Herodotus used when he described him in the 5th century BC.

King Khufu at a Glance

Detail	Fact
Full name	Khnum-Khufu, "Khnum protects me"
Greek name	Cheops
Horus name	Medjedu
Dynasty	Fourth Dynasty, Old Kingdom
Reign	About 2589 to 2566 BC, at least 23 to 27 years
Father and mother	King Sneferu and Queen Hetepheres I
Main wives	Meritites I and Henutsen
Successors	Djedefre, then Khafre
Burial	The Great Pyramid of Giza
Mummy	Never found

Interesting Facts about King Khufu

King Khufu Facts - Trips in Egypt

Khufu's long reign left behind few written records, but the evidence that survives is remarkable. These ten facts answer the questions people ask most often about him.

His pyramid was the tallest building on Earth for about 3,800 years. It stood about 146.6 meters (481 feet) high, until Lincoln Cathedral's spire passed it around AD 1311.
It contains about 2.3 million blocks of stone. Most are local limestone, with fine white Tura limestone for the casing and pink Aswan granite for the King's Chamber.
His only certain complete statue is tiny. An ivory figure found at Abydos in 1903 is only about 7.5 centimeters (3 inches) tall.
The oldest known inscribed papyri mention his pyramid. The Diary of Merer, found at Wadi al-Jarf in 2013, records boats carrying limestone to Giza.
His pyramid's ancient name was Akhet Khufu, "Horizon of Khufu."
He had several wives and many children. At least three queens and more than a dozen sons and daughters are known from their tombs at Giza.
His boat survived intact for about 4,500 years. A 43.6-meter cedar ship was found dismantled in a sealed pit beside the pyramid in 1954.
His mummy has never been found. The granite sarcophagus in the King's Chamber was already empty when explorers reached it.
The pyramid builders were not slaves. Workers' tombs found at Giza in 1990 show that paid crews built it and were buried with honor near the king.
Greek writers remembered him as a tyrant. Herodotus claimed Khufu closed the temples and forced Egypt to work for him, a story later Egyptians may not have shared.

Herodotus also wrote that the reigns of Khufu and Khafre together brought Egypt 106 years of misery. He gave Khufu 50 years and Khafre 56, both far longer than the real reigns. Modern historians treat his account as legend recorded about 2,000 years after Khufu's death.

King Khufu Family Tree

The Khufu family tree is one of the best documented of the Old Kingdom, because many relatives were buried in the great cemeteries around his pyramid. Their tombs name parents, wives and children, although some links are still debated.

Relation	Name
Father	King Sneferu
Mother	Queen Hetepheres I
Brothers and half-brothers	Ankhhaf, Nefermaat, Rahotep and others
Sister	Hetepheres A, wife of Ankhhaf
Wives	Meritites I, Henutsen and at least one unnamed queen
Sons	Kawab, Djedefre, Khafre, Djedefhor, Baufra, Babaef, Khufukhaf I, Minkhaf I, Horbaef
Daughters	Hetepheres II, Meritites II, Nefertiabet, Meresankh II, Khamerernebty I
Grandson	King Menkaure

His Parents: Sneferu and Hetepheres I

Most Egyptologists accept that Khufu's father was Sneferu, founder of the Fourth Dynasty and builder of the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. Because Sneferu had several wives, a few scholars once suggested he was only Khufu's stepfather, but the title "king's mother" held by Hetepheres I points to a direct line.

His mother, Hetepheres I, is famous for her burial goods. In 1925 an American team led by George Reisner found her hidden tomb shaft beside the Great Pyramid, holding gilded furniture, a canopy frame and an alabaster sarcophagus, which was empty.

Wives of King Khufu

His main wife was Meritites I, mother of the crown prince Kawab. A second queen, Henutsen, is linked to the southernmost of the three small queens' pyramids east of the Great Pyramid. Meritites I was probably buried in the middle one, not inside Khufu's own pyramid as some sources claim.

At least one more queen bore Khufu children, possibly the mother of Djedefre. Her name has not survived, which is common for royal women of this period.

Brothers and Sisters of King Khufu

Ankhhaf: a half-brother who served as vizier and may have overseen work on the pyramid. His painted bust is one of the masterpieces of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He married his half-sister Hetepheres A.
Nefermaat: a half-brother and vizier buried at Meidum, whose tomb held the famous painting known as the Meidum Geese. His son Hemiunu became Khufu's vizier and is credited with designing the Great Pyramid.
Rahotep: probably another half-brother, a high priest and general. His life-size painted statue with his wife Nofret is one of the treasures of Egyptian art.

Sons of Khufu

Kawab: the eldest son and crown prince, who died before his father and was buried in a large twin mastaba at Giza. An old theory claimed he was murdered by his brother, but there is no evidence for it.
Djedefre: became king after Khufu and was the first ruler to use the title "Son of Ra." He built his pyramid at Abu Rawash, north of Giza.
Khafre: succeeded Djedefre and built the second pyramid at Giza. His story is told in full in our guide to King Khafre.
Djedefhor (Hordjedef): a prince later remembered as a wise man. Later Egyptian texts quote his teachings.
Baufra, Babaef I, Khufukhaf I, Minkhaf I and Horbaef: princes known from Giza tombs and later texts. Khufukhaf I and Minkhaf I both served as viziers.

Daughters of King Khufu

Hetepheres II: married her brother Kawab and, after his death, probably Djedefre. She lived into the reign of Menkaure.
Meritites II: married the official Akhethotep and was buried in the Eastern Cemetery at Giza.
Nefertiabet: known for her finely carved slab stela, now in the Louvre in Paris.
Meresankh II: a princess buried in a twin mastaba east of the pyramid.
Khamerernebty I: probably a daughter of Khufu who married Khafre and became the mother of King Menkaure, builder of the third Giza pyramid.

King Khufu's Name Meaning

Khufu's full name was Khnum-Khufu, meaning "Khnum protects me." Khnum was the ram-headed creator god who was believed to shape people on a potter's wheel and to guard the source of the Nile. Most people today use the short form, Khufu.

Like every pharaoh, he also had several royal names. His Horus name was Medjedu, often translated as "the one who hits." The Greek form Cheops comes from Herodotus, while the Egyptian priest Manetho later wrote it as Souphis.

King Khufu Reign

The exact length of Khufu's reign is uncertain. The Turin King List, written about 1,300 years after his death, gives him 23 years. Graffiti and the Wadi al-Jarf papyri mention a later royal cattle count, which suggests that he ruled for at least 26 to 27 years.

His reign was a time of strong central power. Expeditions went to Wadi Maghara in Sinai for copper and turquoise, where a rock relief shows Khufu striking an enemy. Others went to Hatnub for alabaster, Wadi Hammamat for stone and the Gebel el-Asr quarries deep in the Nubian desert for gneiss.

Khufu also looked beyond Egypt. Ships sailed to Byblos in Lebanon for cedar wood, and the harbor at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea, one of the oldest known harbors in the world, sent missions toward the copper of Sinai.

When Was Khufu Born and When Did He Die?

No record of Khufu's birth survives, so his birth date is unknown. Because he came to the throne as an adult with grown children, he was probably born a few decades before about 2589 BC.

He most likely died around 2566 BC, after ruling for 23 to 27 years. His age at death is unknown, and the cause of death is not recorded anywhere.

King Khufu Pyramid

King Khufu Pyramid - Trips in Egypt

Khufu's greatest legacy is the Great Pyramid of Giza, known in his time as Akhet Khufu. Herodotus said it took 20 years to build, which fits the length of his reign.

The pyramid originally stood about 146.6 meters (481 feet) high and now stands about 138.5 meters, after losing its top and its white casing stones. Each side of its base measures about 230.3 meters, and the sides are aligned almost exactly to true north, south, east and west.

Inside are three main rooms: the subterranean chamber, left unfinished in the bedrock, the Queen's Chamber, and the granite King's Chamber. They are linked by passages and the Grand Gallery, a corridor about 47 meters long and 8.6 meters high.

The pyramid has no carved religious texts inside, which is normal for its time. However, workers' marks painted in red in the five stress-relieving chambers above the King's Chamber name the king and his crews, with gang names such as "Friends of Khufu."

In 2017 the ScanPyramids project detected a large hidden space above the Grand Gallery, and in 2023 a small sealed corridor behind the north face was filmed for the first time. Their purpose is still being studied.

Did King Khufu Build the Great Pyramid?

Yes. Khufu ordered the Great Pyramid as his tomb, and the evidence for it is strong: the workers' marks naming him, the Diary of Merer describing stone shipments to "Akhet Khufu," and the tombs of his family and officials laid out around it.

He did not, of course, build it with his own hands. The work was led by officials such as Hemiunu and Ankhhaf and carried out by an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers in rotating crews. You can learn more about their methods in our guide to how the pyramids were built.

The builders lived in a workers' town now called Heit el-Ghurab, where archaeologists found bakeries, breweries and animal bones from a well-fed workforce. Their own tombs, discovered in 1990, show that they were respected laborers rather than slaves.

King Khufu and the Giza Plateau

Khufu was the first king to build a pyramid on the Giza Plateau. His father's pyramids stood at Meidum and Dahshur, but Khufu chose a high limestone ridge on the desert edge west of the Nile.

Around his pyramid he laid out a full royal city of the dead: three queens' pyramids, a mortuary temple, a causeway, boat pits and long streets of stone mastaba tombs for his family and officials. His sons and grandson followed him there, turning the site into the Giza Pyramids Complex that visitors see today.

King Khufu Tomb and Mummy

King Khufu Tomb Inside the Great Pyramid

Khufu's tomb is the Great Pyramid itself, and his burial was almost certainly placed in the red granite sarcophagus of the King's Chamber. The sarcophagus is slightly wider than the passage that leads to it, so it must have been put in place while the pyramid was being built.

Was Khufu's Mummy Ever Found?

No. Khufu's mummy has never been found, and no remains of his body are known. The pyramid was probably robbed in ancient times, and when the caliph al-Ma'mun's workers tunneled inside around AD 820, the sarcophagus was already empty.

No original lid, coffin or burial goods have survived either. The best-preserved burial from his family is the hidden shaft of his mother, Hetepheres I, and even her sarcophagus held no body.

The Khufu Boat

Khufu Solar Boat Beside the Great Pyramid

In 1954 the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh found a sealed pit beside the south side of the Great Pyramid. Inside lay a dismantled cedar ship in 1,224 pieces, buried around the time of Khufu's death.

Restorer Ahmed Youssef Moustafa spent years putting it back together. The finished Khufu ship is about 43.6 meters long and is one of the oldest and best-preserved large boats in the world. It may have carried the king's body to Giza or been meant for his journey with the sun god in the afterlife.

For decades it stood in a museum next to the pyramid. In 2021 it was moved in one piece to the Grand Egyptian Museum, where it is now displayed. A second Khufu boat, lifted from a neighboring pit by a Japanese team, is being restored there too.

Monuments and Statues of King Khufu

Few kings built bigger, yet few left fewer portraits. Apart from the pyramid, almost all of Khufu's statues and temple reliefs were broken up or reused in later buildings.

The best-known image is the ivory statuette that Flinders Petrie found at Abydos in 1903. It shows Khufu seated, wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt and holding a flail, and it is kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Blocks from his mortuary temple were later built into the pyramid of Amenemhat I at Lisht, and fragments of his reliefs have turned up across Egypt. A few granite and limestone heads in museums, including one in the Brooklyn Museum, have been linked to Khufu, though none is certain.

What Did Khufu Look Like?

King Khufu Real Face Through His Ivory Statuette

Based on the ivory statuette, Khufu had a broad face, a strong jaw, a short neck and full cheeks. He sits upright on a throne, which is the classic pose of a king.

Because the figure is only about 7.5 centimeters tall and may have been made after his lifetime, it gives only a general idea of his features. No painted portrait or mummy survives, so any modern reconstruction of his real face is largely guesswork.

What Was Khufu's Religion?

Khufu followed the traditional religion of ancient Egypt, worshipping many gods while being seen as a god on earth himself. As king he was the living Horus, and his name placed him under the protection of the creator god Khnum. You can meet these deities in our guide to the ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses.

The sun god Ra grew in importance during his dynasty. The pyramid's shape may echo the rays of the sun, and narrow shafts from the King's and Queen's Chambers seem to point toward the northern stars and the belt of Orion, where the king's spirit was believed to rise.

Khufu himself did not use the title "Son of Ra." His son Djedefre was the first king to take it, a sign that the sun cult was becoming central to kingship.

Kingdoms of King Khufu

Khufu's memory lived on long after his death. In the Old Kingdom his cult was still running at Giza in the Sixth Dynasty, with dozens of priests serving his pyramid. Famous kings such as King Djoser had earlier pioneered pyramid building, but Khufu took it to a scale never matched again.

In the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, the Westcar Papyrus told stories set at his court, including the magician Djedi, who foretold that a new line of kings would follow Khufu's family.

By the Egypt New Kingdom, Giza had become a place of pilgrimage around the Great Sphinx. During the Saite Twenty-sixth Dynasty, about 2,000 years after his death, priests revived his cult and a temple of Isis, "Mistress of the Pyramids," stood beside one of his queens' pyramids.

Where to See King Khufu's Legacy Today

King Khufu Legacy at Giza and the Grand Egyptian Museum

The best place to start is the Giza Plateau, where you can stand beside the Great Pyramid, look into the pit where his boat was found and walk among the mastabas of his family. With a separate ticket, you can climb inside to the Grand Gallery and the King's Chamber.

To see his father's earlier pyramids as well, the Day Tour from Cairo to Pyramids, Saqqara, and Dahshour visits Giza, the Great Sphinx and Sneferu's Bent and Red Pyramids in one day.

After Giza, the Grand Egyptian Museum shows the Khufu boats and treasures from his mother's tomb. For more options, browse our Cairo day tours, many of which combine the pyramids and the museum.

Khufu's pyramid is only one chapter of a much longer story. Before you go, read the full history of the Egyptian pyramids, from the first step pyramid to the giants of Giza.

Embark on An Adventure Journey to Egypt

Follow Khufu's footsteps from the Giza Plateau to the temples of Upper Egypt. Our Egypt tours combine the pyramids with Luxor, Aswan and the Red Sea, with expert Egyptologist guides throughout.

You can also relax between the sites on one of our Nile river cruises, sailing past the temples and villages that have lined the river since the age of the pyramids.

Conclusion

King Khufu ruled for barely three decades, yet he left the most famous monument on Earth. His family tree, filled with viziers, queens and future kings, still lines the streets of tombs around his pyramid. His mummy is lost and his face survives only in a tiny ivory figure from Abydos. Still, his boat, his workers' notes and his towering pyramid tell his story, a legacy carved in eternal stone.