Egyptologists believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu ( Cheops in Greek ) over a 10 to 20-year period concluding around 2560 BC.

The main part of the Giza complex is a setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu ( one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile ), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller " satellite " pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles.

It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and was constructed over a 20 year period.

Some Egyptologists suggest this Lower Chamber was intended to be the original burial chamber, but Pharaoh Khufu later changed his mind and wanted it to be higher up in the pyramid.

One of the stones in Campbell's Chamber bears a mark, apparently the name of a work gang, which incorporates the only reference in the pyramid to Pharaoh Khufu.

Map of Giza pyramid complex-" Pyramid of Khufu " refers to the Great Pyramid.

Hidden beneath the paving around the pyramid was the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, sister-wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu.

The Giza pyramid complex, which includes among other structures the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, is surrounded by a cyclopean stone wall, the Wall of the Crow, and outside of which Mark Lehner has discovered a worker's town, otherwise known as " The Lost City ", dated by pottery styles, seal impressions, and stratigraphy to have been constructed and occupied sometime during the reigns of Khafre ( 2520 – 2494 BC ) and Menkaure ( 2490 – 2472 BC ).

Because of their fame, Khufu and his pyramid are object of several modern receptions, similar to kings and queens such as Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Tutankhamen.

The novel The Legend of The Vampire Khufu, written by Raymond Mayotte in 2010, deals with king Khufu awakening in his pyramid as a vampire.

Khufu and his pyramid are furthermore object of pseudoscientific theories which deal with the idea that Khufu ´ s pyramid was built with the help of extraterrestrials and that Khufu simply seized and re-used the monument, ignoring all archaeological evidences or even falsifying them.

Khufu and his pyramid are even thematized in several computer games such as Tomb Raider-The last revelation, in which the player must enter Khufu ´ s pyramid and face the god Seth as the final boss.

In this game the player must guide Uncle Scrooge through a trap-loaded Khufu ´ s pyramid.

The " Khufu ship ", a 43. 6-meter-long vessel that was sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC, is a full-size surviving example which may have fulfilled the symbolic function of a solar barque.

In 1939, Nagib Mahfuz wrote the novel Khufu's Wisdom, which leans on the stories of Papyrus Westcar ; In 1997, French author Guy Brachet composed the novel series Le roman des pyramides, including five volumes, of which the first two ( Le temple soleil and Rêve de pierre ) are picking out Khufu and his tomb as a theme.

Well known cinematic movies, which deal with Khufu or at least have the Great Pyramid as a theme, are Howard Hawks ' Land of the Pharaohs from 1955, a fictional account of the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and Roland Emmerich ´ s Stargate from 1994, in which an extraterrestrial device is found near the pyramids.

* c. 2601 BC – c. 2515 BC: Great Pyramids at Giza are built for Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu.

While Manetho names Necherophes and the Turin King List names Nebka as the first ruler of the Third dynasty, many Egyptologists now believe Djoser was first king of this dynasty, pointing out that the order in which some predecessors of Khufu are mentioned in the Papyrus Westcar suggests Nebka should be placed between Djoser and Huni, not before Djoser.

All other reliefs and statues were found in fragments and many buildings of Khufu are lost today.

Furthermore several alabaster and travertine fragments of seated statues, which were found by George Reisner during his excavations at Giza, were once inscribed with Khufu's full royal titulary, today the complete or partial preserved cartouches with the name Khufu or Khnum-Khuf are left over.

Up to this day it is passionately disputed who exactly gave the order to build it: the most possible candidates are Khufu, his elder son Djedefra and his younger son Khaefra.

In 1997, French author Guy Brachet composed the novel series Le roman des pyramides, including five volumes, of which the first two ( Le temple soleil and Rêve de pierre ) are picking out Khufu and his tomb as a theme.

Well known cinematic movies, which deal with Khufu or at least have the Great Pyramid as a theme, are Howard Hawks ' Land of the Pharaohs from 1955, a fictional account of the building of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and Roland Emmerich's Stargate from 1994, in which an extraterrestrial device is found near the pyramids.

Khufu and his pyramid are furthermore object of pseudoscientific theories which deal with the idea that Khufu's pyramid was built with the help of extraterrestrials and that Khufu simply seized and re-used the monument, ignoring all archaeological evidences or even falsifying them.

Because these quarries are known to have been used by Khufu, Reader concludes that the Causeway ( and the temples on either end thereof ) must predate Khufu, thereby casting doubt on the conventional Egyptian chronology.

In cryptography, Khufu and Khafre are two block ciphers designed by Ralph Merkle in 1989 while working at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center.

Because the key-setup time is quite time consuming, Khufu is not well suited to situations in which many small messages are handled.

Khufu is a Feistel cipher with 16 rounds by default ( other multiples of eight between 8 and 64 are allowed ).

Such a story fomented the creation of Passion for Innovation and since then it helped on several projects such as Xplorair, Khufu or Ice Dream for example.

Within Egypt, Khufu is documented in several building inscriptions and statues.

Khufu sent several expeditions in attempt to found turquoise and copper mines.

Khufu is personal depicted in several relief fragments found scattered in his necropolis and elsewhere.

From this period of time several priests of Isis, which were also priests of Khufu, worked here.

Because of his fame, Khufu is object of several modern receptions, similar to kings and queens such as Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Tutankhamen.

His significance led to early theophoric names of him, for children, such as Khnum-khufwy – Khnum is my Protector, the full name of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid.

And Khufu himself would have never allowed the display of such a comparatively sloppy work.

Zahi Hawass displays a Ptolemaic statue discovered at Taposiris Magna on May 8, 2010Hawass spearheaded a movement to return many prominent unique and / or irregularly taken Ancient Egyptian artifacts, such as the Rosetta Stone, the bust of Nefertiti, the Dendera zodiac ceiling painting from the Dendera Temple, the bust of Ankhhaf ( the architect of the Khafra Pyramid ), the faces of Amenhotep III's tomb at the Louvre Museum, the Luxor Temple's obelisk at the Place de la Concorde and the statue of Hemiunu, nephew of the Pharaoh Khufu, builder of the largest pyramid, to Egypt from collections in various other countries.

* c. 2601 BC – 2578 BC — reign of Pharaoh Khufu of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty

Whilst the burial chamber is identified by its large sarcophagus made of polished granite, the use of the " queen's chamber " is still disputed – it might have been the serdab of the Ka-statue of Khufu.

* Zahi Hawass: Khufu – Builder of the Great Pyramid

In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela ( estimated Dynasty XXVI, c. 678 – 525 BC ), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand.

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes ( headdress ) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx and concluded that the style is more indicative of the Pharaoh Khufu ( 2589 – 2566 BC ), builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafra's father.

In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d ' Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced that he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known Pharaoh Djedefre ( 2528 – 2520 BC ), Khafra's half brother and a son of Khufu.

This pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction – it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume.

The structure is also the third largest pyramid in Egypt – after the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre at Giza.

The present building dates back to the times of the Ptolemaic dynasty and was completed by the Roman emperor Tiberius, but it rests on the foundations of earlier buildings dating back at least as far as Khufu ( known as the pyramid builder Cheops, the second king of the 4th dynasty 2613 – c.

Khafre's Pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu Pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction – it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume.

The workers ' town discovered appears to date to the middle 4th dynasty ( 2520 – 2472 BC ), after the accepted time of Khufu and completion of the Great Pyramid.