Little is known about him, other than that he led several significant military campaigns and built the mudbrick fort known as Shunet El Zebib.

According to Toby Wilkinson's study of the Palermo Stone in Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt, this near contemporary 5th dynasty document assigns Khasekhemwy a reign of 17.5 or nearly 18 full years.

(or c. 18 years 2 months and 23 days from the main fragment of the Palermo Stone) Khasekhemwy is normally placed as the successor of Seth-Peribsen, though some Egyptologists believe that another Pharaoh, Khasekhem, ruled between them.

[7] Khasekhem may have changed his name to Khasekhemwy after he reunited Upper and Lower Egypt after a civil war between the followers of the gods Horus and Set.

Khasekhemwy built enclosures at Nekhen, and at Abydos (now known as Shunet ez Zebib) and was buried there in the necropolis at Umm el-Qa'ab.

Prior to some recent discoveries from the 1st dynasty, its central burial chamber was considered the oldest masonry structure in the world, being built of quarried limestone.

There were also small, glazed objects, carnelian beads, model tools, basketwork and a large quantity of seals.