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Palermo stone
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The Palermo Stone is a large fragment of a stela called the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It contains the clearest inscriptions of the records of the pharaohs of the first dynasty through the fifth dynasty.
This fragment resides in the Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name. The term Palermo Stone sometimes is applied incorrectly in reference to the entire Royal Annals, which includes it and other fragments located in Cairo and London museums, that have never been in Palermo.
The Royal Annals is the correct name for the fragmentary ancient Egyptian stela comprised of black basalt that was engraved toward the end of the fifth dynasty during the twenty-fifth century B.C.
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Encyclopedia
The Palermo Stone is a large fragment of a stela called the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It contains the clearest inscriptions of the records of the pharaohs of the first dynasty through the fifth dynasty.
This fragment resides in the Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name. The term Palermo Stone sometimes is applied incorrectly in reference to the entire Royal Annals, which includes it and other fragments located in Cairo and London museums, that have never been in Palermo.
The Royal Annals is the correct name for the fragmentary ancient Egyptian stela comprised of black basalt that was engraved toward the end of the fifth dynasty during the twenty-fifth century B.C. It lists the ruling pharaohs of ancient Egypt, once Lower Egypt (near the Nile River Delta) in the north and Upper Egypt (extending from the middle of contemporary Egypt to the southern border with Nubia) were united. Both regions had rulers for many years without documentation, since there is archaeological evidence of prehistorical human occupation of these areas that reaches back as far as eight thousand years, but this engraved stone is the earliest formal documentation found to date. Its records begin with several thousands of years of rulers—presumed by many as mythical—predating the rise of the deity, Horus, who according to the stela then conferred the role of pharaoh to the first human listed, Menes. He is given credit for the unification on the stela. A pharaoh was not only a ruler, but was considered to become a deity upon death and a religious leader while alive. Narmer is thought to be another name for that first recorded pharaoh, but it might be the name of the next.
The engravings on the stela go on to list the names of the pharaohs who ruled the united Egypt up until the early fifth dynasty, the time of the pharaoh, Neferirkare Kakai, although the original stela may have recorded events after his reign on portions that have been lost. Those pharaohs listed became historical by being recorded in this manner and surviving long enough to be recorded further and compared with other records of the culture that have survived.
Description
The original stone was inscribed on both sides with what probably is the earliest known Egyptian historical text, often referred to as the "Royal Annals" or "Old Kingdom Annals". The stela originally was 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, but a portion of it has been found at an archaeological site in Memphis.
The Palermo Stone fragment first entered a museum collection in 1866 as part of the permanent collection of the Palermo Archaeological Museum.
Other pieces of the stela are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Petrie Museum in London. Unfortunately, most of the information on the stone concerning the first and second dynasties has not survived.
The ancient historian, Manetho, may have used the whole stella to construct his dynastic chronology, which he wrote in the third century B.C. He was Egyptian, and his topics dealt with Egyptian matters, but he wrote in Greek for the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt was occupied by Greeks who conquered and ruled Egypt with the intent to retain its cultural heritage. They founded a new dynasty, composed of Greeks, without native Egyptian rulers. Many Greek terms and ideas were used to interpret the old culture for the contemporary Greek Empire, however, and there is a distinct difference in cultural aspects after that date. Parallels to Greek religion and history were drawn to enhance the origins of Greek culture. Efforts were made to translate ancient historical data into Greek because the two earlier writing systems of Egypt were not known by those in the greater Greek empire, many of whom traveled to Egypt to study the ancient culture and to trade in its products.
Archaeological history
This largest fragment of the stela has been in Palermo since 1866, although unrecognized for its importance. It was discovered there by a visiting French archaeologist in 1895 and its contents first published in 1902 by Heinrich Schäfer. It is currently in the collection of the Palermo Archaeological Museum in Sicily. There are other sizeable pieces in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, one discovered in 1910 and another purchased on the antiquities 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 another fragment of the stela was excavated at Memphis.
Significance
The stela is a hieroglyphic list—formatted as a table, or outline, of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt before and after Menes, with regnal years and notations of events up until the time it was created, likely sometime during, or up until, the fifth dynasty since that is when its chronology ends. It also tabulates such information as the height of the flooding Nile, the Inundation for some pharaohs (see nilometer), and information on the festivals (such as Sed festivals), taxation, sculpture, buildings, and warfare for some.
Many 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 documentation of the history of Ancient Egypt. Scholars are divided on how to interpret the implications of the stela. Some believe the earlier pharaohs existed historically, while others believe that their inclusion in the list has only ideological value (i.e., there must have been disorder before order).
Translations and Monographs
- A partial and dated English translation of this text can be found in J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. I sections 76-167.
- A of the stela that the Palermo stone belonged to, with translations of the hieroglyphs.
- A
See also
External links
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