History of archaeological exploration

Year 430 BCE: Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, first mentions the Pyramid of Chephren in his first full-length historical work ‘Histories’: 'This Cheops, the Egyptians said, reigned fifty years; and after he was dead his brother Chephren succeeded to the kingdom. This king followed the same manner as the other, both in all the rest and also in that he made a pyramid, not indeed attaining to the measurements of that which was built by the former (this I know, having myself also measured it), and moreover there are no underground chambers beneath nor does a channel come from the Nile flowing to this one as to the other, in which the water coming through a conduit built for it flows round an island within, where they say that Cheops himself is laid: but for a basement he built the first course of Ethiopian stone of divers colours; and this pyramid he made forty feet lower than the other as regards size, building it close to the great pyramid. These stand both upon the same hill, which is about a hundred feet high. And Chephren they said reigned fifty and six years’.

Year 60-30 BCE: Diodorus Siculus, an ancient Greek historian, writes the following about the Pyramid in his ‘Bibliotheca Historica’: 'Upon the death of this king his brother Chephren​ succeeded to the throne and ruled fifty-six years; but some say that it was not the brother of Chemmis, but his son, named Chabryes, who took the throne. All writers, however, agree that it was the next ruler who, emulating the example of his predecessor, built the second pyramid, which was the equal of the one just mentioned in the skill displayed in its execution but far behind it in size, since its base length on each side is only a stade.​ And an inscription on the larger pyramid gives the sum of money expended on it, since the writing sets forth that on vegetables and purgatives for the workmen there were paid out over sixteen hundred talents. The smaller bears no inscription but has steps cut into one side. And though the two kings built the pyramids to serve as their tombs, in the event neither of them was buried in them’.

1610: George Sandys, an English traveller, visited the pyramids and agreed with the assumption that they were the tombs of kings.

1637: John Greaves, an English scholar, traveller and professor of astronomy at Oxford University, visited Cairo twice, where he explored and took measurements of the pyramids on the Giza Plateau. After his journey, Greaves reported his observations in his book ‘Pyramidographia’. He disagreed with the view that the pyramids had been built by biblical characters or legendary kings. Based on classical sources, Greaves concluded that the Pyramids had been built by Cheops, Chephren and Menkaure as tombs. He noted that the blocks used in the construction of the Pyramid of Chephren were not as large or as regular as those in the Great Pyramid, but their surface was smooth - no bumps or cracks, except for the blocks on the south side. Most likely, the casing of the Pyramid of Chephren was removed between Greaves’ last visit and 1692, when Benoit de Maillet mentions the casing as remaining only at the summit.

1692-1708: Benoit de Maillet, a French diplomat, Consul-General in Cairo, traveller and naturalist, describes that the casing of the Pyramid was only preserved at its summit.

1707-1726: Claude Sicard, a French Jesuit missionary, traveller, explorer and antiquarian, traveling through Egypt documented twenty major pyramids, twenty-four surviving temples, and over fifty decorated tombs.

1799: Dominique Vivant Denon, Jomard and Malus, as part of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, drafted a brief description and made some sketches of the pyramids at Giza.

1817: Giovanni Battista Caviglia, an Italian explorer, searched for the entrance to the Pyramid, but to no avail.

1818: Giovanni Battista Belzoni, an Italian traveller and discoverer, was the first in modern times to enter the chamber of the Pyramid of Chephren through the upper entrance on its north side. Having cleared the rubble from the chambers, Belzoni described the interior of the Pyramid with detailed drawings. He discovered a granite sarcophagus in the burial chamber, which appeared to be filled only with earth and stones. The bones in the rubble were not found until the day after the Pyramid was discovered, but after being sent to London, it was determined that they were bones of a bull. Closer examination of the burial chamber revealed traces of ancient and medieval treasure hunters, including an iron hammer, and Coptic, Demotic and Arabic inscriptions on the walls. To secure his priority, Belzoni left a huge inscription on the wall: ‘Scoperta da G. Belzoni. 2. mar. 1818' (Discovered by G. Belzoni on 2 March 1818).

1837: Howard Vyse, a British major, together with John Shae Perring, a British engineer and Egyptologist, were the first to carry out the extensive measurement and exploration of the structure, chambers and surroundings of the Pyramid. They found the other, lower entrance to the Pyramid, which was blocked from the inside by three granite blocks. Vyse and Perring cleared the corridor by blowing up the granite plugs that blocked it, cleared the yard on the eastern side of the Pyramid and reported the ruins of the base of the satellite pyramid on the south side of the Pyramid. Perring believed that the two great pyramids on the Giza Plateau had already been breached in antiquity, even before the Arabs ruled, and that this was mentioned in a source from Dionysius Telmaghre. He suggested that the Arabs had got inside the Pyramid of as early as 1196-1197, the same time they had breached the Pyramid of Menkaure.

1842-1843: Karl Richard Lepsius, a German archaeologist and Egyptologist, carried out archaeological excavations of Egyptian pyramids, including the Pyramid of Chephren. Between 1849 and 1856 his monumental twelve-volume work ‘Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien’ was published with many drawings and layout sketches of the pyramids and tombs on the Giza Plateau. Lepsius recorded the Pyramid in the list of Egyptian pyramids under number VIII (8).

1853-1858: Francois Auguste Ferdinand Mariette, a French archaeologist and Egyptologist, the founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, excavated the lower temple (valley temple) of Chephren buried in the sand. While clearing the temple, he blew up some of the large structural elements that had collapsed, to remove them from the temple and ensure safety. Regretfully, Mariette published practically nothing about what he had found inside the temple. However, in a small hole in the floor of the temple he was lucky to discover a magnificent diorite statue of Khafre (Chephren) seated on a throne and the lower part of a diorite dyad - Khafre seated with the goddess Bastet.

1880-1882: William Matthew Flinders Petrie, a British Egyptologist, conducted archaeological studies and took certain accurate measurements of the pyramids on the Giza Plateau including the Pyramid of Chephren. Petrie determined the position of the burial chamber relative to the vertical axis of the Pyramid, and corrected Perring’s measurements. While examining the outer enclosing wall to the west of the Pyramid, he discovered the workers' barracks. A coin dated back to the reign of Sultan an-Nasir Hasan (1347-1361) was found under the south-eastern part of the pavement. Since this sultan's mosque is said to have been built with pyramid stones, this coin suggests that some of the stones for the construction were taken from the base of the Pyramid of Chephren. Petrie mentions that at the time of Palerma (1581) and Albinus (1591) the Pyramid's casing was intact, but at the time of the traveller Sandys (1611) the casing was only at the top of the Pyramid.

1909-1910: Uvo Hölscher, a German architect and Egyptologist, as part of the expedition of Ernst von Sieglin, a German antiquities enthusiast, patron of culture and philanthropist, conducted a large-scale excavation and research of the Chephren Pyramid complex. The aim of the research was to identify the architectural features of the temples and their artistic design. Hölscher investigated the lower and upper temples, the causeway, and cleared the satellite pyramid. He was the first to understand the true purpose of the lower temple (valley temple) of Chephren. The results of the excavations, drawings and restoration were published in 1912 in the first volume titled ‘Das Grabdenkmal Des Königs Chephren', the six-volume work ‘Veröffentlichungen Der Ernst Von Sieglin Expedition in Ägypten’, whose editor was the patron of the expedition himself, Ernst von Sieglin.

1929-1939: Selim Hassan, an Egyptian archaeologist commissioned by Cairo University, organised the first expedition on a scale comparable to those of his foreign colleagues. Hassan’s expedition cleared the mastabas and tombs carved into the rocks of the central area between the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Chephren, as well as the causeway. While clearing the area around the upper temple, Hassan discovered five boat pits on its north and south sides and a deep cleft in the rock on the north-south axis, which he identified as the sixth boat pit. This is the first time that so many boat pits have been found near a single pyramid. The results of his excavations were published in a ten-volume monumental work ‘Excavations at Giza’.

1952: Jacques Vandier, a French Egyptologist, examined the Pyramid of Chephren and made some measurements which were described in his multi-volume ‘Manuel d'Archéologie Égyptienne’.

1960: Abd el-Al Hafeez, an Egyptian archaeologist, while clearing the area around the satellite of the Pyramid of Chephren on its western side, discovered a serdab enclosed by three limestone slabs. Inside the serdab, Hafeez found a wooden box with fragments of cedar wood, which was once a piece of furniture. Later, researchers were able to assemble the fragments and it turned out that the wooden object was a frame in the shape of a 'sah netjer’, or ‘divine box’, for transporting the statue.

1966: Vito Maragioglio and Celesta Ambrogio Rinaldi, Italian architects, published detailed descriptions and large-scale drawings of the interior and exterior of the Pyramid as a follow-up to their two-decade exploration of the Memphis pyramids. They mention that at the time of Jean Chesneau's journey (1548), the Pyramids of Chephren and Menkaure were for the most part still encased.

1967: Luis Walter Alwarez, a Nobel Prize-winning American physicist, explored the Pyramid of Chephren using the muon method. The purpose of the exploration was to look for hidden chambers inside the Pyramid, but the results suggested that there were no cavities.

1974: Ain Shams University worked with the Stanford Research Institute (USA) to conduct electromagnetic sounder experiments at the Pyramids of Giza to search for hidden chambers and voids in and around the pyramids. The study was to no avail because the limestone in both of these large pyramids has a high radio frequency loss due to the high moisture content of the limestone.

1991 until now: Zahi Hawass, and Mark Lehner, Egyptian and American archaeologists respectively, under the auspices of ’Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA)’ have been studying the Giza Plateau, including the Pyramid of Chephren.

1995-1996: Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist, cleared the area to the east of the valley temple, discovering ramps that cross a narrow corridor or channel running from north to south. In front of the Sphinx Temple the canal runs into a drain leading north-east, probably to the embankment buried below the modern tourist square.

2018: Gilles Dormion, a French architect, and Jean-Yves Verd'hurt, published a book about their research into the interior of the Pyramid of Chephren. In their book, they study the design features thoroughly, and point out the possibility of a hidden chamber inside the Pyramid.

2018: Upon consent of the Egyptian authorities, a photogrammetric survey was carried out by the French company Iconem, commissioned by Label News for a documentary, ‘Pyramids: Solving the Mysteries’. The architectural consultant was the French engineer and architect Franck Monnier.