Sneferu reigned for a period of twenty-four years, a long reign by Egyptian standards. He married a daughter of Huni (who may have been a full or half-sister) called Hetepheres. Hetepheres was the mother of Sneferu’s son and successor, Khufu and is also well know because of the survival of some of her splendid funerary equipment, discovered in a tomb at Giza.

From inscriptions we know that Sneferu led military campaigns to secure the boundaries of Egypt, notably to the south in Nubia, where fortifications were erected at the First Cataract at Aswan to protect and control the important trade of commodities from the south, such as gold, ivory, ebony, ostrich feathers and ostrich eggs.

Rock inscriptions in the Sinai show Sneferu smiting his enemies and it is clear that he campaigned in this area too, probably to ensure that the important mining of copper and turquoise was not disrupted by nomadic Bedouin tribes on the borders of Egypt.

It is clear that most of Sneferu’s reign must have been peaceful, stable and prosperous, as evidenced by the massive building works he undertook, which shows that the country was stable and well organised.

The Bent Pyramid, like Meidum, appears never to have been used. Sneferu’s last pyramid, known today as the "Red Pyramid" was built to the north of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur and was probably the one in which he was buried, though no trace of his body or funeral equipment has been found.

The stela shown here, which bears the only identified image of Sneferu, is modest in scale. It will be for his Pyramids that he will always be remembered. As founder of the Fourth Dynasty, he saw the beginning of one of the most prosperous and important periods of Ancient Egyptian history, which saw the construction of the largest buildings ever built in antiquity (and indeed in modern times up to the end of the Nineteenth Century).