The courses are rough and irregular for the first half of its height but a narrow band of regular masonry is clear in the midsection of the pyramid.

Close examination reveals that the corner edges of the remaining casing stones are not completely straight, but are staggered by a few millimeters.

An alternative theory postulates that the slope on the blocks was cut to shape before being placed due to the limited working space towards the top of the pyramid.

[8] 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.

[9] 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.

An alternative theory is that, as with many earlier pyramids, plans were changed and the entrance was moved midway through construction.

Khafre's sarcophagus was carved out of a solid block of granite and sunk partially in the floor, in it, Belzoni found bones of an animal, possibly a bull.

There are two small rectangular holes in the walls of the burial chamber facing each other, greatly resembling the openings of the 'air shafts' found in the Great pyramid burial chambers.In the 1960s, Luis Alvarez used muon transmission imaging to search for hidden chambers in the pyramid.

After the war, the effort continued, recording and analyzing the penetrating cosmic rays until 1969, when he reported to the American Physical Society that no chambers had been found in the 19% of the pyramid surveyed.

The square pillars of the T-shaped hallway were made of solid granite, and the floor was paved in alabaster.

[17] Though devoid of any internal decoration, this temple would have been filled with symbolism: two doors open into a vestibule and a large pillared hall, in which there were sockets in the floor that would have fixed 23 statues of Khafre.

Opening to a hall with 24 columns, each with its own statue, two sanctuaries and symmetric design, it is possible but unsure if this temple had any symbolism attached to the finished plan.