KING KHAFRE

The reigns of the kings of the later Fourth Dynasty, particularly of Khafre, the builder of the second pyramid at Giza highlight another example of the remarkable ability of those Egyptian architects who were responsible for the planning and decoration of the temples or the other immense public

(a)

(b)

(c)

Buildings which are amongst the principal achievements of that age. This was the careful siting of statuary within the monumental buildings that contained them and the conditions under which they were displayed for the eyes of the dead king and his companion gods who, theoretically at least, were those for whom their presentation was alone intended.

It may seem that such considerations are relatively slight; it may also appear that to talk of statuary being deliberately sited or of the deliberate presentation of the sculptor’s work is fanciful, imputing to the artificers of the past considerations which depend upon the application of the criteria of today to such distant times. Yet such is clearly the case.

There is evidence from Khafre’s Valley Temple that the monumental statues of the king were designed to be seen largely in isolation from each other. More than this, special consideration was given to the lighting of the great statues and in the case of those of King Khafre they were top-lit by illumination from clerestories, allowing the sun or the moonlight to move down the line of figures, each set into its niche, in a majestic progression. More subtle still, the statues were also sited so that the light would strike the rose-granite floor at the feet of the great figures and reflect upwards, giving the statues the hues of something like living flesh.

It seems likely that lighting techniques of this order were also employed in Netjerykhet’s great mortuary complex at Saqqara; clerestories in the upper reaches of the colonnade which led into the courtyard may have lit statues there. It is testimony once more to the Egyptians’ brilliant powers of observation that some phenomenon in nature, light reflected on a pool perhaps or piercing through a breast in the upper levels of a reed structure, was absorbed and transformed into the light pouring down from a clerestory and forming a pool of reflection or from a slit in the upper reaches of a building’s walls, which allowed the light to focus on to a particular piece of statuary.

Khafre’s portraits, of which there are many, are amongst the most striking from the Fourth Dynasty, a time of the particular advance in portrait

Figure 8.2 King Khufu was succeeded on his death by his son, Djedefre, who died after an eight-year reign. Then another son of Khufu became king, Khafre, whom some authorities believed Djedefre had usurped. His pyramid complex as a whole is the most complete surviving from the Fourth Dynasty. In addition to the Great Sphinx, which is attributed to him, his Mortuary Temple survives and, linked with a long causeway to the foot of his pyramid, the Valley Temple (a). This is of a monumental, almost Cyclopaean construction (b) and, with the exception of the so-called Tomb of Osiris at Abydos, is unique in the Egyptian architectural canon. It is significantly anomalous, with massive stone lintels, some weighing upwards of two hundred tons, the manipulation of which represent formidable engineering challenges. The original limestone from which the core structure of the Valley Temple was built and which evidently was severely abraded, has been overlaid by a granite skin (c), the reverse sides of which have been carved to fit over the abraded limestone.

Sources: photographs; author. (a) The Interior of the Valley Temple; (b) ‘Cyclopaean’ masonry; (c) Overlaying of the granite ‘skin’ on the abraded limestone.

Figure 8.3 This famous portrait statue of King Khafre is one of the most perfect encapsulations of the idea of the divine kingship. The genius of the sculptor has effected an astonishingly life-like sense to the immensely hard stone in which the statue is carved. The figure of the royal god, Horus, rests his wings protectively about the king’s head.

Source: The Cairo Museum. Photograph John G. Ross.

Sculpture.25 The king is depicted with a particularly penetrating, almost manic gaze, unlike the generally tranquil expression which seems to have been the accepted mode of royal portraiture. Sometimes his expression is not a little daunting, at other times peculiarly compelling.