Palermo stone

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A fragment of the Palermo stone, on display at the Petrie Museum, London. It is inscribed with part of Khasekhemwy register, and at the top with a sign from the Snefru register.
A fragment of the Palermo stone, on display at the Petrie Museum, London. It is inscribed with part of Khasekhemwy register, and at the top with a sign from the Snefru register.

The Palermo Stone is the common name for a fragmentary ancient Egyptian stela comprised of black basalt that was engraved toward the end of the fifth dynasty during the 25th century BC. It lists the ruling pharaohs of Lower Egypt, beginning with several thousands of years of mythological rulers up until the time of the god Horus, who then handed the throne to the first human pharaoh listed, Menes.[1] It then goes on to list the names of historical pharaohs who ruled Egypt up until the early 5th dynasty, the time of the pharaoh Neferirkare Kakai,[2] though the original stela may have recorded events past his reign. The largest fragment resides in the Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Italy, from where it gets its name.

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[edit] Description

The fragment in Palermo.
The fragment in Palermo.

The stone is inscribed on both sides with what is probably the earliest known Egyptian historical text, often referred to as the "Old Kingdom Annals". The stela was originally about 2.1 metres tall by 60 centimetres wide, but has broken into a number of pieces, many of which are missing. The original location of this stela is unknown.

The original and largest fragment of the Palermo Stone first came to light in 1866[3] and can be found at the Palermo Archaeological Museum. It has been transferred temporarily to Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where it will be available for sightseeing until July 20, 2008[4]. Further pieces of the stela are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Petrie Museum in London.[5]

Manetho may have used it to construct his dynastic chronology in the third century BC. He was Egyptian, and his topics dealt with Egyptian matters, but he wrote in Greek for the Ptolemaic period.

Unfortunately, most of the information on the stone concerning the first and second dynasties has not survived.

[edit] Archaeological history

This largest fragment has been in Palermo since 1866, although it was discovered by a visiting French archaeologist in 1895 and first published, by Heinrich Schäfer, in 1902. It is currently in the collection of the Palermo Archaeological Museum in Sicily. There are further sizeable pieces in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, one discovered in 1910 and another purchased on the market as recently as 1963, and in the museum of University College London that was given by Sir Flinders Petrie.

The original engraved stela must have been about 2.2 m long, 0.61 m wide and 6.5 cm thick, but most of it now is missing. There is no surviving information about its provenance, although a further fragment was excavated at Memphis.[6]

[edit] Significance

The stela is a hieroglyphic list—formatted as a table, or outline—of the kings of ancient Egypt before and after Menes, with regnal years and notations of events up until the time it was created, likely sometime during the fifth dynasty. It also tabulates such information as the height of the flooding Nile, the Inundation for some kings (see nilometer), and information on the festivals (such as sed festivals), taxation, sculpture, buildings, and warfare.[7]

Many king lists that exist from later dates, such as the Turin Canon (13th century BC) and the Karnak List of Kings, identify Menes (c. 3100 or 3000) as the first king of the first dynasty and credit him with unifying Egypt. However, the Palermo stone, which is substantially older, lists rulers who predate Menes. It seems to indicate that the unification of Egypt occurred earlier than Menes's rule and that he simply reunited the nation after a period of fragmentation. The works of Manetho indicate that he used the information contained on this stone as a source for his history of Egypt prior to his time. Scholars are divided on how to interpret the implications of the stone. Some believe the earlier kings existed historically, while others believe that their inclusion in the king list has only ideological value (i.e., there must have been disorder before order).

[edit] Translations and Monographs

[edit] References

  1. ^ Shaw, Ian and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. p.218. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995. ISBN 0-8109-9096-2
  2. ^ O'Neill, John P. Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids. p.349. Yale University Press. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1999. ISBN 0-87099-907-9
  3. ^ Shaw, Ian and Nicholson, Paul. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. p.218. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995. ISBN 0-8109-9096-2
  4. ^ Nedelo, March 2, 2008 page 32
  5. ^ Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2003, ISBN 0192804588, p.4
  6. ^ Brass, Mikey. The Antiquity of Man: Palermo Stone.
  7. ^ Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2003, ISBN 0192804588, p.5
  • St. John, Michael, 2003. The Palermo Stone : An Arithmetical View (London: University Museum London).
  • Wilkinson, Tony A. H., 2000. Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt, (New York: Columbia University Press). [ISBN 0-7103-0667-9]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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