King Menkaure | Mycerinus
Facts King Menkaure
The death of King Khafre paved the way for King Menkaure (likely the son of King Khafre) to rule Ancient Egypt for 18 years or a little more, making him the fifth king of the Fourth Dynasty.
King Menkaure succeeded his “father” in power, and the Greek historian “Herodotus” praised him more than any other king, describing him as preceding in his justice all previous kings, King Khafre, who left to him the quarrels that were between him and the sons of the “Daf-Ra” dynasty.
As soon as King Menkaure ruled Ancient Egypt, he married his sister, the second princess Kha Merar Nabti, with whom he fathered his successor to the throne, Shepses Kaf, who completed the pyramid set of his father, who died before it was completed.
King Menkaure was unable to complete his pyramid complex, as he passed away before many of the pyramid's granite cladding blocks could be polished. The funerary temple and the private valley temple were supposed to consist of huge blocks of granite-clad limestone, but were actually built using white adobe bricks.
The king who was mistakenly called “Menkaure” did not follow in the footsteps of his predecessors during the construction of his pyramid, he did not use the same material that his ancestors used to build the outer shell of the pyramids, which is limestone, and used granite material brought from Aswan, which was much more difficult than limestone in shipping and transportation.
Only the lower quarter of the pyramid is covered with granite, while the rest of the pyramid was covered with limestone, a matter that sparked controversy in Egypt during the past period after the Supreme Council of Antiquities, with the participation of an Egyptian-Japanese mission, decided to start a project to study and document the granite blocks of the Mankhaura pyramid that represent its outer cladding.
