Inscription by Giovanni Belzoni, the first explorer of the pyramid in modern times

The pyramid was likely opened and robbed during the First Intermediate Period. During the Nineteenth Dynasty, the overseer of temple construction took casing stones to build a temple in Heliopolis on Ramesses II's orders.[citation needed]

Arab historian Ibn Abd al-Salam recorded that the pyramid was opened in 1372 AD.[1] On the wall of the burial chamber, there is an Arabic graffito that probably dates from the same time.[2]

It is not known when the rest of the casing stones were robbed; they were presumably still in place by 1646, when John Greaves, professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford in his Pyramidographia, wrote that, while its stones were not as large or as regularly laid as in Khufu's, the surface was smooth and even free of breaches or inequalities, except on the south.[3]

The pyramid was first explored in modern times by Giovanni Belzoni on March 2, 1818, when the original entrance was found on the north side. Belzoni had hopes of finding an intact burial but the chamber was empty except for an open sarcophagus and its broken lid on the floor.[2]

The first complete exploration was conducted by John Perring in 1837. In 1853, Auguste Mariette partially excavated Khafre's valley temple, and, in 1858, while completing its clearance, he managed to discover a diorite statue of Khafre.[4]