According to traditional interpretation, after the rites in the Valley Temple were completed, the royal body was taken along the causeway, walled and covered to protect the purified body from contamination, to the Mortuary Temple, located at the east base of the pyramid. Final funeral rites were performed here. In addition, the temple offered access to the narrow terrace on which the pyramid stood, enclosed by a wall. But Dieter Arnold, supported by Mark Lehner, now questions this view on practical grounds: rooms, doorways, and corridors seem too small for the funeral procession to pass. Instead, the royal body would have been brought into the pyramid by a more direct route. Arnold then speculates about the function of mortuary temples. In addition to their ritual purpose, whatever that was, these buildings may also have served as a symbolic royal residence, because their layout corresponds, albeit in a very loose way, to that of certain later palaces and mansions.
The Mortuary Temple of Khafre is poorly preserved. It measures 110m x 45m. Like the Valley Temple, it was made of a limestone core faced with granite. Its ground plan displays for the first time the five elements that will be standard in royal mortuary temples of the rest of the Old Kingdom: 1) entrance hall; 2) colonnaded court; 3) statue chamber, typically with five niches for five statues; 4) magazines, or storerooms; and 5) the sanctuary, a tiny room at the rear. The sanctuary contained a stele carved with a false door. Through this, the ka would emerge from the pyramid, and sample the offerings placed daily on the low altar in front of the false door.
World History
