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Khufu's name in hieroglyphs: his cartouche and symbol, sign by sign
13 October 2026
Khufu's cartouche holds four signs: a round placenta, a quail chick, a horned viper and a second quail chick. Read ḫ-w-f-w, they say Khufu, said "KHOO-foo". The name is short for Khnum-Khufu, "Khnum protects me", and that longer form also turns up inside his cartouche.
Khufu, called Cheops by the Greeks, built the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty, around 2589 to 2566 BC by one common dating. The pyramid's rooms carry no hieroglyphs, so his name survives mostly where his builders, officials and family wrote it.
Four alphabet signs spell Khufu
The first sign is a circle filled with horizontal lines (Aa1). Egyptologists call it a placenta, though nobody is sure what it pictures. It stands for ḫ, the rough "kh" of Scottish loch. Next comes the quail chick (G43), the sound w, which the vowel-free writing also uses for u.
The horned viper (I9) writes f. A second quail chick closes the name with another w. All four are alphabet signs, each worth one sound, so Khufu is one of the easiest royal names to read letter by letter.
In a column the signs stack from top to bottom. In a row they face the start of the line: the chick and the viper look towards the reader's starting point.
Khnum-Khufu is the full name
The full name puts the ram-headed god Khnum, a creator worshipped at Elephantine, in front of the verb. Khnum's name can be written with the stone jug with a handle (W9), read ẖnm, "khnem". The result, ẖnmw-ḫwf.w(j), asks the god for protection, and the short form simply drops the god.
Both forms appear in the red paint marks found in 1837 in the low chambers above the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid. The work gangs named themselves after the king, as in "The white crown of Khnum-Khufu is powerful", and Khufu's name appears there more than a dozen times. These marks are the main written proof of whose pyramid it is.
His Horus name was Medjedu
Old Kingdom kings had several names, and the cartouche was still fairly new in Khufu's time. His Horus name, Medjedu, is written inside a serekh, a rectangular frame topped by a falcon (G5) for Horus. It is usually translated "he who strikes (for Horus)", though renderings differ.
The Horus name matters for the only complete statue of Khufu known: an ivory figure about 7.5 cm tall, found by Flinders Petrie at Abydos in 1903. The head turned up three weeks after the body. Medjedu is carved by the king's knee. Most Egyptologists date it to his reign. Zahi Hawass has argued it was made much later.
Greek writers remembered Khufu badly
Herodotus, about two thousand years later, calls him a tyrant who shut the temples and forced Egyptians to labour. Egyptologists treat these stories as legend.
Papyri found in 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, his harbour on the Red Sea, include the logbook of an official called Merer, mostly from about the 27th year of the reign. Merer's crew shipped limestone from Tura to Giza, and the log calls the pyramid Akhet Khufu, "Horizon of Khufu", again and again. The name inside it is the same four signs.
Court tombs at Giza show his name
At Giza, the Great Pyramid itself shows no hieroglyphs in the rooms visitors enter. Its painted marks are in chambers closed to the public. The tombs of the court are where to look. The chapel of Queen Meresankh III, his granddaughter, has some of the best-kept painted hieroglyphs on the plateau, and officials' tombs build his cartouche into titles and estate names.
The Grand Egyptian Museum shows his first boat, rebuilt from cedar planks found in a pit beside the pyramid. In Paris, the Louvre has the painted stela of Nefertiabet, a slab from Giza probably made under Khufu. The ivory statuette has long been shown at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Khufu's cartouche is quick to draw
Draw a tall oval with a short bar at its base. Put the striped circle at the top, then the chick, the viper with its two horns, and the second chick. The viper lies flat, so it fits beside or under the chicks.
Four signs make a quick cartouche to learn by heart. Once it is familiar, it jumps out of the long titles of Giza officials.
Questions
What is Khufu's symbol?
Egyptian kings had no single emblem. A king was known by his names. For Khufu the best-known mark is his cartouche: placenta, quail chick, horned viper, quail chick. On the ivory statuette he is named by his Horus name, Medjedu, in a serekh.
Is Cheops the same as Khufu?
Yes. Cheops is the Greek form used by Herodotus. Manetho wrote Suphis. Khufu is the Egyptian name as Egyptologists read it.
Are there hieroglyphs inside the Great Pyramid?
The rooms open to visitors have none. The only ancient writing inside is the builders' red paint in the sealed chambers above the King's Chamber. A hieroglyphic text above the entrance dates from 1842: Richard Lepsius's Prussian expedition carved it for King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
How long did Khufu reign?
The Turin King List gives 23 years, but dated papyri and graffiti point to 27 years or more. Most estimates fall between 23 and 29. Herodotus said 50 and Manetho 63, both thought to be too high.
Glossary
- alphabet sign
- A hieroglyph that stands for one consonant, such as the horned viper for f. Egyptian has about 25 of them, used beside signs for two or three sounds.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- Horus name
- The oldest of a king's names, written in a serekh under the Horus falcon. It names the king as the god Horus on earth.
- Old Kingdom
- The age of the pyramid builders, about 2686 to 2181 BC, from the 3rd to the 6th Dynasty.
- papyrus
- A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- serekh
- A frame showing the front of a palace, with a king's Horus name written above it and the Horus falcon on top. The oldest royal names are written in serekhs.
- stela
- An upright stone slab carved with words and pictures, set up in tombs and temples or to mark a border.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Giza Pyramids site
- Great Pyramid of Khufu monument
- Tomb of Meresankh III monument
- Grand Egyptian Museum museum
- Louvre, Paris museum
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo museum
Sources
More to read
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- Seti I's name in hieroglyphs: his cartouche read sign by sign Seti I's cartouche in hieroglyphics: the throne name Menmaatre and the birth name Seti Merenptah read sign by sign, and where in Egypt to see them.
- Sneferu in hieroglyphs: King Sneferu's name, cartouche and pyramids Sneferu's name in hieroglyphics: his cartouche read sign by sign, what the name means, one of the first cartouches, and where to see it at Dahshur.