Menkaure

Menkaure was a king of Dynasty 4, reigning around 2532-2503 BCE (Shaw's conventional dates), and the builder of the third and smallest of the three great Giza pyramids, whose lower courses were faced in red granite. He is celebrated for a series of finely carved triad statues that pair him with the goddess Hathor and with personified provinces of Egypt, among the finest royal sculpture of the period. In later Greek tradition, transmitted by Herodotus many centuries afterward, he was remembered as a juster and more pious king than his predecessors; that portrait is Greek reception and should not be read as an Egyptian record of his character. His reign is documented chiefly by his pyramid complex and its statuary rather than by any narrative of events.