 However, it is still hotly debated whether there was realistic portraiture in Ancient Egypt.The purpose of the life-sized reserve heads found in burial shafts or tombs of nobles of the Fourth dynasty is not well understood; they may have been a discreet method of eliding an edict by Khufu forbidding nobles from creating statues of themselves, or may have protected the deceased's spirit from harm or magically eliminated any evil in it, or perhaps functioned as alternate containers for the spirit if the body should be harmed in any way.Architectural works such as the massive Great Pyramid and two smaller ones built during the Old Kingdom in the Giza Necropolis and (much later, from about 1500 BCE) the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were built for royalty and the elite.