The news covered newspapers, televisions and radios yesterday; and is not for less. A new study published by ‘Nature’ has confirmed the existence of a secret passage in the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that is still standing. And, as expected, the Egyptologists launched their theories: “In my opinion, because of how this passage is built, it may hide or be protecting the burial chamber of Cheops.” Because yes, the monarch continues, millennia later, focused on the present.
However, what tends to be forgotten is that – in addition to the enigmas that this tomb already treasures – there are many others attributed to the monarch who had it built. It is said of him that he was a cruel sovereign and that he was so obsessed with finishing his mausoleum that he came to prostitute his daughter in order to pay the expenses. A theory that does not share Era Velasco, historian specializing in Ancient Egypt and author of the web page ‘Lost Papyri’: «There are many black legends in relation to Cheops (Jhufu)». Today, it is proposed to demolish it myth by myth, and boy is there not.
Despot
Once his reign began, Cheops went down in history as a cruel and tyrannical king who ruled the people with a heavy hand. This attitude contrasted with that of his father. However, the reality is that this very negative vision has survived to this day thanks to Herodotus of Halicarnassus; a Greek historian who, eager to compile the history of the pharaohs, traveled to Egypt two millennia after the death of Jhufu and dedicated himself to creating a profile of our protagonist based on local testimonies. This is how he formed opinions like the one that claimed that Cheops was a despot. Something that he leaves on paper in his texts:
«Until the reign of Rampsinito, according to the priests, Egypt was in the best order and in great prosperity; but Cheops, who reigned afterwards, precipitated the Egyptians into utter misery. First, he closed all the temples and prevented them from offering sacrifices; He then ordered everyone to work for him.”
The most widespread idea about Cheops is the one that affirms that he was a despot. However, the reality is that this vision was offered to Herodotus by the Egyptian priests of the time. The heirs of those religious from whom the monarch seized power at the time he succeeded his father. “The most reliable documentation tells us that Cheops centralized power over his person in a brutal way and eliminated many of the privileges that priests had, which caused great aversion towards him and generated a black legend that has survived to this day,” he points out. Aroa Velasco.
Authors like Jose Ignatius Velasco MoBefore they are of the same opinion and point out that Cheops took the reins of the country with a “strong hand” towards the clergy, since he replaced many of the high priests of Egypt to put, in their place, relatives he trusted or people related to him. he. «He was a rigid king who did not allow the guild to use him, but instead placed them in his place. He possibly recovered a large part of the power that was in the hands of the clergy and, above all, he must have collected a large part of the exaggerated wealth that they had in hundreds of temples throughout the entire Nile, “determines the expert.
Deity
Cheops also charged against the priests by stating that he was the greatest religious exponent of Egypt thanks to his divinity. This way of understanding the cult increased, even more if possible, the existing tensions between the pharaoh and prominent temples such as those dedicated to the divinities of Path and On. «Khufu adopts a very special attitude towards these influences and resolves situations in his own way. For this he begins a stage of family nepotism and reliable friendships », Montes points out.
This is another of the myths of Cheops: the one that affirms that he established his own cult. Some experts such as the specialist professor in Egyptology Robert M Schoch determine that the name of this pharaoh was considered synonymous with holiness and good luck. It was even written on the graves of the deceased as a “symbol of holiness and protection.” However, he also points out that this monarch-centered religion fell out of favor “during the Middle and New Kingdoms.”
Prostitution
Herotodos, who affirmed in his texts that Cheops reigned for 50 years, even dared to point out that our protagonist prostituted his own daughter in order to pay for the completion of his Great Pyramid:
«Cheops reached such an extreme of evil that, lacking money, he put his own daughter in the brothel with orders to earn a certain sum, they did not tell me exactly how much. Her daughter complied with the order on her behalf, and even she wanted to leave a monument on her behalf, and she asked each one of those who visited her to give her a single stone; and they said that with these stones they had built the pyramid that is in the middle of the three, in front of the great pyramid, each of whose sides has a plethrum and a half.
Truth or fallacy? It is impossible to corroborate this legend, although it is true that the small pyramid that is found near Cheops, which presumably would have been built with each of the stones that the clients of the brothel would have offered to the pharaoh’s daughter, seems to belong to a stepsister of Jhufu. Velasco understands that everything is an invention of the priests in a new attempt to turn the memory of Cheops black.
economic chaos
The Egyptian historian, as explained by Aroa Velasco, also argued that Cheops depleted Egypt with the sole obsession of finishing his gigantic pyramid and leaving his mark on posterity. All this, after having proclaimed himself god. «He identified himself as Ra, the god of the Sun, This is known thanks to the fact that some of his children were called ‘sons of ra‘. He inaugurated this trend at a time when solar religiosity was in full swing. It is as if, now, a person proclaimed himself Pope, “the historian completes this newspaper.
According to Velasco, nothing could be further from the truth: «It is a legend that Herodotus wrote and that historians have subsequently replicated. Reliable documentation tells us that he did not fleece Egypt. In fact, his successors were able to build two more pyramids after his death. The reality is that Cheops was a very good administrator who concentrated a lot of power in his person ».
In the end, it could be said that this pharaoh did something that, in the end, would become general: dedicate all his efforts and those of the Egyptian people to build a funerary monument that would go down in history. Something that his father had already done.