Three smaller pyramids line the east face of the Great Pyramid, built for the royal women of Khufu's court — most likely his mother Hetepheres and two of his queens. They are not small in absolute terms: the largest (G1-a) would tower over any medieval building. Compared to the 146-metre Great Pyramid behind them, they appear modest.
Hetepheres I's tomb shaft — a vertical pit discovered in 1925 by accident when a photographer's tripod leg broke through the desert floor — yielded the richest intact royal burial of the Old Kingdom. The actual mummy was gone, presumably moved, but the burial equipment was exquisite: gilded furniture, silver jewellery, alabaster canopic jars. All of this is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The three queens' pyramids each have their own small mortuary chapel, the ruins of which are still visible. One interior is open on a rotating basis.