Kheops’ successor, Djedefre, decided to move some 8 kilometres to the north of Giza, to Abu Rawash, for his own burial. According to some Egyptologists, Djedefre thus wanted to distance himself from his father’s rule. Against this, however, it must be noted that Kheops too choose to be buried at another cemetery than his father, who in turn built his funerary monument at a different location than his predecessor.

Djedefre is not totally unattested in Giza, as he apparently did some quarrying there. Some scholars have even proposed that it was Djedefre, rather than his younger brother Khefren, who has created the great Sphinx to the south-east of Kheops’ pyramid. In front of the Sphinx, a temple was built in its honor.

Khefren, Djedefre’s successor and younger brother returned to Giza where he built his pyramid to the south-west of Kheops’. This pyramid is slightly smaller than its neighbour is, but because it was built on a higher part of the Giza plateau, it appears to rise higher. At its top, some of the limestone blocks that originally encased the entire pyramid are still present. To the south of the pyramid once stood a smaller satellite pyramid, of which only traces remain today. Contrary to most other royal pyramids of the 4^th Dynasty and later, Khefren’s is not accompanied at all by any queen’s pyramids. A tomb built for Khamernebti, Khefren’s wife, has been found at a small distance south of the great Sphinx at Giza. Another wife of Khefren, Meresankh III, was buried in a mastaba originally prepared for her mother, to the east of Kheops’ pyramid.

The massif pillars and walls of the valley temple, which was constructed right next to the great Sphinx, are well preserved. None of the walls contains any decoration, but several statues of the king, his head protected by the god of divine kingship, Horus, were discovered in the 1860s during the excavation of the valley temple. From the valley temple a causeway, of which the original paving is still preserved, runs up the plateau, to the remains of the mortuary temple.

Khefren’s son and successor, Mykerinos, built the third and last pyramid at Giza. Located to the south-west of Khefren’s, this pyramid is significantly smaller than its two neighbours. This has often been explained as a sign that the royal treasury had been depleted by the megalomaniac building projects of Kheops and Khefren, or as a sign that Mykerinos was a much more benevolent king than his father and grandfather. It must be noted, however, that most pyramids that were built after Mykerinos’ reign, were all about the same size. The smaller size of Mykerinos’ pyramid can thus more likely be explained as a standardisation of pyramid building.

Contrary to the two larger pyramids, Mykerinos’ had the palace-façade motif carved on some of its interior walls. This motif consists of some recessed panels and represents the outer walls of a palace. The sarcophagus that once stood in the burial chamber was lost at sea in 1838 during an attempt to transport it to England.

Three queens’ pyramids were built to the south of Mykerinos’

. The mortuary temple was built against the east face of the main pyramid. It was unfinished at the time Mykerinos died and completed in mud-brick by Mykerinos’ successor, Shepseskaf. Several statues, representing the king in the company of the goddess Hathor and another deity, were found during excavation works in this temple. These statues are on display in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. The mortuary temple was connected to the valley temple in the east by a causeway.

Between the valley temples of Mykerinos and Khefren, a tomb was built for the enigmatic queen Khentkaus I. Her titulary can be translated as "mother of two kings" or as "king, mother of a king". In the latter case, she may have ruled Egypt for some time herself. Shaped after a large sarcophagus, her tomb is of the same type as Shepseskaf’s at Saqqara South. This is an indication that Khentkaus I lived at the end of the 4^th Dynasty.
Whatever her role, she was apparently the last important member of the royal family of the 4^th dynasty to have been buried at Giza. With Shepseskaf’s move back to Saqqara, royal attention turned away from Giza. As much as we do not know why Kheops choose Giza in the first places, we do not know why it was abandoned as royal cemetery after Mykerinos and Khentkaus I.

During the New Kingdom some renewed interest was shown in the site. Amenhotep II built a temple dedicated to the great Sphinx, at that time believed to be the god Harmakhis. His son, Thutmosis IV, erected a stela between the paws of the sphinx narrating how he fell asleep in the desert after a hunt and how the god Harmakhis had promised him kingship if he were to free the sphinx from the sands.

The southernmost queen’s pyramid of Kheops was extended to the east with a small temple dedicated to the goddess Isis during the Late Dynastic Period. During the 26^th Dynasty, this temple was enlarged and the pyramid of Mykerinos was restored. Several tombs were constructed next to the causeway of Khefren’s mortuary complex, indicating that the site had regained some of its religious importance. This would continue to be used for private burials until the first Persian domination.
(Jacques Kinnaer)