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CHEOPS

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 81 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHEOPS , in See also:

Herodotus, the name of the See also:king who built the See also:Great See also:Pyramid in See also:Egypt. Following on a See also:period of See also:good See also:rule and prosperity under See also:Rhampsinitus, Cheops closed the temples, abolished the sacrifices and made all the Egyptians labour for his See also:monument, working in relays of roo,000 men every three months (see PYRAMID). Proceeding from See also:bad to worse, he sacrificed the See also:honour of his daughter in See also:order to obtain the See also:money to See also:complete his pyramid; and the princess built herself besides a small pyramid of the stones given to her by her lovers. Cheops reigned 50 years and was succeeded by his See also:brother, Chephren, who reigned 56 years and built the second pyramid. During these two reigns the Egyptians suffered every See also:kind of misery and the temples remained closed. Herodotus continues that in his own See also:day the Egyptians were unwilling to name these oppressors and preferred to See also:call the pyramids after a shepherd named Philition, who pastured his flocks in their See also:neighbour-See also:hood. At length Mycerinus, son of Cheops and successor of Chephren, reopened the temples and, although he built the Third Pyramid, allowed the oppressed See also:people to return to their proper occupations. Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus are See also:historical personages of the See also:fourth See also:Egyptian See also:dynasty, in correct order, and they built the three pyramids attributed to them here. But they are wholly misplaced by Herodotus. Rhampsinitus, the predecessor of Cheops, appearsto represent See also:Rameses III. of the twentieth dynasty, and Mycerinus in Herodotus is but a few generations before See also:Psammetichus, the founder of the twenty-See also:sixth dynasty. See also:Manetho correctly places the great Pyramid See also:kings in Dynasty IV. In Egyptian the name of Cheops (Chemmis or Chembisin Di odorus Siculus, Suphis in Manetho) is spelt Hwfw (Khufu), but the See also:pronunciation, in See also:late times perhaps Kheouf, is uncertain.

The Greeks and See also:

Romans generally accepted the view that Herodotus supplies of his See also:character, and moralized on the uselessness of his stupendous See also:work; but there is nothing else to prove that the Egyptians themselves execrated his memory. See also:Modern writers rather dwell on the perfect organization demanded by his See also:scheme, the training of a nation to combined labour, the level attained here by See also:art and in the fitting of See also:masonry, and finally the fact that the Great Pyramid was the See also:oldest of the seven wonders of the See also:ancient See also:world and now alone of them survives. It seems that representations of deities, and indeed any representations at all, were rare upon the polished walls of the great monuments of the fourth dynasty, and See also:Petrie thinks that he can trace a violent religious revolution with See also:confiscation of endowments at this See also:time in the See also:temple remains at See also:Abydos; but none the less the wants of the deities were then attended to by priests selected from the royal See also:family and the highest in the See also:land. Khufu's work in the temple of See also:Bubastis is proved by a surviving fragment, and he is figured slaying his enemy at See also:Sinai before the See also:god See also:Thoth. In late times the priests of Denderah claimed Khufu as a benefactor; he was reputed to have built temples to the gods near the Great Pyramids and See also:Sphinx (where also a pyramid of his daughter Hentsen is spoken of), and there are incidental notices of him in the medical and religious literature. The funerary cult of Khufu and Khafre was practised under the twenty-sixth dynasty, when so much that had fallen into disuse and been forgotten was revived. Khufu is a leading figure in an ancient Egyptian See also:story (See also:Papyrus Westcar), but it is unfortunately incomplete. He was the founder of the fourth dynasty, and was probably See also:born in See also:Middle Egypt near Beni See also:Hasan, in a See also:town afterwards known as " Khufu's See also:Nurse," but was connected with the Memphite third dynasty. Two tablets at the mines of See also:Wadi Maghara in the See also:peninsula of Sinai, a See also:granite See also:block from Bubastis, and a beautiful See also:ivory statuette found by Petrie in the temple at Abydos, are almost all that can be definitely assigned to Khufu outside the pyramid at Giza and its ruined accompaniments. His date, according to Petrie, is 3969–3908 B.C., but in the shorter See also:chronology of See also:Meyer, Breasted and others he reigned (23years) about a thousand years later, c. 2900 B.C. See Herodotus ii.

124; Diodorus Siculus i. 64; Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, s.v.; W. M. F. Petrie, See also:

History of Egypt, vol. i., and Abydos, See also:part ii. p. 48; J. H. Breasted, History. (F. LL.

End of Article: CHEOPS

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