Djedefra, the successor and son of Khufu,…

A severe famine strikes Mesopotamia in 2550 BCE as water levels fall and crops die.

Khafra or Khafre (Greek Chephren), an Egyptian pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty, with his capital at Memphis, is according to some authors the brother and successor of Khufu, but it is more commonly accepted that Djedefra was Khufu's successor and Khafra was Djedefra's.

There is no agreement on the date of his reign; some authors say it was between 2558 BCE and 2532 BCE; this dynasty is commonly dated around 2650 BCE–2480 BCE.

While the Turin King List figure for his reign was lost in a lacuna, and Manetho's exaggerates his reign as sixty-six years, most scholars believe it was between twenty-four to twenty-six years, based upon the date of the Will of Prince Nekure which was carved on the walls of this Prince's mastaba tomb.

The will is dated anonymously to the Year of the Twelfth Count and is assumed to belong to Khafra since Nekure was his son.

Khafra built the second largest pyramid at Giza, possibly the Great Sphinx, and a temple, which is the only surviving example of a temple of this Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

His name, Khaf-Ra, means "Appearing like Ra" for some translators and "rise Ra!"

for others; the meaning is most probably the first, according to the hieroglyphic representing his name, which includes that crown.

Enmerkar, whom the Sumerian king list describes as the builder of Uruk in Sumer, is also known from a few other Sumerian legends, most notably Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, where a previous confusion of the languages of mankind is mentioned.

In this account, it is Enmerkar himself who is called 'the son of Utu' (the Sumerian sun god).

Aside from founding Uruk, Enmerkar is said here to have had a temple built at Eridu, and is even credited with the invention of writing on clay tablets, for the purpose of threatening Aratta into submission.

Enmerkar furthermore seeks to restore the disrupted linguistic unity of the inhabited regions around Uruk, listed as Shubur, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (the region around Akkad), and the land of the Martu ("tent dwellers"—considered to be Amorites).

Three other texts in the same series describe Enmerkar's reign.

In Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, while describing Enmerkar's continued diplomatic rivalries with Aratta, there is an allusion to Hamazi having been vanquished.

In Lugalbanda and the Mountain Cave, Enmerkar is seen leading a campaign against Aratta.

The fourth and last tablet, Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird, describes Enmerkar's year-long siege of Aratta.

It also mentions that fifty years into Enmerkar's reign, the Martu people had arisen in all of Sumer and Akkad, necessitating the building of a wall in the desert to protect Uruk.

In these last two tablets, the character of Lugalbanda is introduced as one of Enmerkar's war chiefs.

According to the Sumerian king list, it was this Lugalbanda "the shepherd" who eventually succeeded Enmerkar to the throne of Uruk.

Lugalbanda is also named as the father of Gilgamesh, a later king of Uruk, in both Sumerian and Akkadian versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Menkaura (2532–2504 BCE; Mycerinus in Latin; Mykerinos in Greek) is the successor of Khafra (Chephren).

Some authors date his rule between 2532 BCE–2504 BCE or twenty-eight years but the Turin King List data of eighteen years for him is regarded as being closer to the truth since several of his statues were unfinished upon his death—suggesting a much shorter reign—while his pyramid is the smallest of the three royal pyramids at Giza.

Two alabaster vase fragments inscribed with the name of Enmebaragesi, the earliest ruler on the king list whose name is attested directly from archaeology, were found at Nippur, a Sumerian spiritual center where, according to the Sumerian Tummal Chronicle, he is said to have built the first temple.

Enmebaragesi is also mentioned in a section of the original Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (Gilgamesh and Aga) as the father of the Aga who laid siege to Unug.

The Sumerian king list and the Tummal Chronicle concur with the Epic of Gilgamesh in making him the father of Aga, who was the final king of the First dynasty of Kish.

Thus, the fragments verifying Enmebaragesi's historicity enhance the notion that Gilgamesh is also historical.

Eannatum of Lagash, grandson of Ur-Nanshe, creates one of the first historically known empires, albeit a short-lived one.

Eannatum annexes practically all of Sumer, including Kish, Uruk (controlled by Enshakushanna, who is on the King List), Ur, Nippur, Akshak (controlled by Zuzu), and Larsa, and reduces to tributary status the city-state of Umma, arch-rival of Lagash, making every person pay a certain amount of grain into the treasury of the goddess Nina and the god Ingurisa.

In addition, his realm extends to parts of Elam, including the city Az on the Persian Gulf.

He allegedly smites Subartu or Shubur, and demands tribute as far as Mari.

Parts of his empire are often in revolt, however.

During Eannatum’s reign, many temples and palaces are built, especially in Lagash.

The city of Nina, probably a precursor of Nineveh, is rebuilt, with many canals and reservoirs being excavated.

Eannatum is notable for the policy of having deliberately introduced the use of "terror" as a matter of policy—his stele of the vultures has been found, showing violent treatment of enemies.

The full stele, carved of limestone and approximately five feet eleven inches (one point eight meters) high, is set up around 2600–2500 BCE as a monument of the victory of Eannatum over Enakalle of Umma.

Found in fragments in Ngirsu, (modern Telloh) Iraq, in 1881, the stele is now in the Louvre.

Eannatum’s empire collapses shortly after his death.

Enmebaragesi, king of Kish, is the oldest Mesopotamian ruler from whom there are authentic inscriptions.

These are vase fragments, one of them found in the temple oval of Khafajah (Khafaji).

In the Sumerian king list, Enmebaragesi is listed as the penultimate king of the First dynasty of Kish; a Sumerian poem, “Gilgamesh and Aga of Kish,” describes the siege of Uruk by Aga, son of Enmebaragesi.

The discovery of the original vase inscriptions was of great significance because it enabled scholars to ask with somewhat more justification whether Gilgamesh, the heroic figure of Mesopotamia who has entered world literature, was actually a historical personage.

The indirect synchronism notwithstanding, the possibility exists that even remote antiquity knew its “Ninus” and its “Semiramis,” figures onto which a rapidly fading historical memory projected all manner of deeds and adventures.

Thus, though the historical tradition of the early second millennium believes Gilgamesh to have been the builder of the oldest city wall of Uruk, such may not have been the case.

The palace archives of Shuruppak (modern Tall Fa'rah, one hundred and twenty-five miles southeast of Baghdad), dating presumably from shortly after 2600, contain a long list of divinities, including Gilgamesh and his father Lugalbanda.

More recent tradition, on the other hand, knows Gilgamesh as judge of the nether world.

However that may be, an armed conflict between two Mesopotamian cities such as Uruk and Kish would hardly have been unusual in a country whose energies were consumed, almost without interruption from 2500 to 1500 BCE, by clashes between various separatist forces.

The great “empires,” after all, formed the exception, not the rule.

The successor of Khafra (Chephren) is Menkaura (or Men-Kau-Re; Mycerinus in Latin; Mykerinos in Greek), the pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty (around 2620 BCE–2480 BCE) who orders the construction of the third and smallest of the Pyramids of Giza.

His main queen is Khamerernebty II.

Some authors date his rule between 2532 BCE–2504 BCE or twenty-eight years but the Turin King List data of eighteen years for him is regarded as being closer to the truth since several of his statues were unfinished upon his death (suggesting a much shorter reign) while his pyramid is the smallest of all the three royal pyramids at Giza.

His name means "Last long (Men) the vital forces (Kau) of Ra."

Menkaura, according to Herodotus, is the son of Khufu (Greek Cheops), and alleviated the suffering his father's reign had caused the inhabitants of ancient Egypt.

Herodotus adds that he suffered much misfortune: his only daughter died before him, whose corpse was interred in a wooden bull (which Herodotus claims survived to his lifetime); and that the oracle at Buto predicted he would only rule six years, but through his shrewdness, Menkaura was able to rule a total of twelve years and foil the prophecy (Herodotus, Histories, 2.129-133).

Other conflicting sources state that Menkaura was not the son of Khufu, but of Khafra, who in turn is the son of Khufu.

Shepseskaf breaks with tradition and builds his tomb as a great mastaba at Saqqara, now known as Mastabat Fara'un.

He is usually considered, and may actually have been, the last Egyptian Pharaoh of the Fourth dynasty.

That is, if he was not succeeded by a certain Djedefptah, as recorded in Egyptian literature and indirectly, by the Turin Canon, which has an unnamed pharaoh after Shepseskaf who ruled for about two years.

Djedefptah is a shadowy figure whose existence is questionable.

Manetho, however, lists a king Tamphthis (probably a corrupted form of ptah-djedef), and notes that he reigned for nine years.

Very little else is known about him; he may have been a son of Shepseskaf.

The third and smallest of the three large Giza pyramids, that of Menkaure, is completed by 2494 BCE, at which point the Fifth Dynasty succeeds the Fourth.