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Kings of the Fourth dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, built the great pyramids of Giza, the largest of which is still one of the wonders of the world. Its huge granite blocks are planed with mathematical exactitude, and, according to Professor Flinders Petrie, have been worked by means of tubular drills fitted with the points of emeralds or some equally hard stone.
This distinguished man was born in the reign of Menkaurā, the builder of the Third Pyramid at Gīzah, and he was educated with the king's children, being a great favourite of the king himself. The next king, Shepseskaf, gave him to wife Maātkhā, his eldest daughter, in order to keep him about the Court.
There is reason to think that the three sons of Rut-tetet became the three kings of the fifth dynasty who were known by the names of Khāfrā, Menkaurā, and Userkaf.
The stories given above are valuable because they contain elements of history, for it is now well known that the immediate successors of the fourth dynasty, of which Khufu, Khāfrā, and Menkaurā, the builders of the three great pyramids at Gīzah, were the most important kings, were kings who delighted to call themselves sons of Rā, and who spared no effort to make the form of worship of the Sun-god that was practised at Anu, or Heliopolis, universal in Egypt.
Its original perpendicular height was not less than 480 feet, the length of its side 764 feet, and the area covered by it more than thirteen acres. Near it are the small pyramids, which were the sepulchers of his wives and other relatives. The statues of Khafra remain, and the wooden mummy-case of Menkaura, with the myth of Osiris recorded on it.
The most typical pyramids are those of the three great kings of the IVth Dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, at Giza near Cairo. But, as we have seen, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, also had one pyramid, if not two; and the most ancient of these buildings known to us, the Step-Pyramid of Sakkâra, was erected by Tjeser at the beginning of that dynasty.
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