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THE PALERMO STONE a

76. The content of this document, remarkable as it is, is perhaps not more valuable than the revelation it furnishes of the existence of royal annals of an official character, regularly kept by the kings of Egypt in the Old Kingdom and extending back into the time of the two kingdoms of the North and South. They reveal a great and powerful kingdom from the beginning of the dynasties, enjoying ordered government under a highly developed and aggressive state, and exhibiting a high degree of culture and civilization such as we could not have anticipated in this remote age.

77. While a translation of the document, owing to its unique and archaic character, is accompanied by many uncertainties, yet the whole is of an importance which justifies a sufficient presentation of the content to make clear the character, scope, and arrangement of these oldest annals of Egypt. The voluminous commentary necessary for the explanation of many obscure references and allusions is unavoidably omitted here; but the obscurity of these par

*A fragment of "Diorite anfibolica," 6.5 cm. thick, 0.435 m. high, and 0.25 m. wide; since 1877 in the Museum of Palermo, and commonly known as the "Palermo Stone." It was published by Pellegrini (Archivio storico Siciliano, nuova serie, anno XX, 297-316, and 3 plates); by Schaefer, who first recognized its real character (Ein Bruchstück altaegyptischer Königsannalen [Anhang zu den Abhandlungen der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie, 1902], with 2 plates); and by Naville (La pierre de Palerme, Rec. XXV, 1-20, with 2 plates). Besides the interpretations of the above scholars, see Maspero (Revue critique, 1899, I, 1, and 1901, I, 383), who was the first to recognize the character of the year-names; also Spiegelberg, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache, XXXV, 10.

bThe following translation is largely an editing of the rendering of Schaefer and Sethe; but, although space and time for commentary fail me, I have made some changes and additions, like the expedition of Snefru to Syria.

ticular points does not affect the significance of the whole document, which will be clear to everyone.

78. The fragment herewith presented was broken out of the middle of a large slab some seven feet long and over two feet high, as it stood on the long edge. It was inscribed on both sides with a series of royal annals, beginning with the predynastic kings of the period before the union of the North and the South, and continuing into the dynastic age to the middle of the Fifth Dynasty. The arrangement of these records can be best understood from the figure (—). The upper line of the front contains at present nine names of predynastic kings of Lower Egypt (the Delta). If the line was full, there were possibly some 120 predynastic kings here enumerated, each rectangle of line 1 (front) containing one name, with no indication of how long each king reigned." In the Fifth Dynasty, therefore, the predynastic kings, the last of whom had reigned some seven centuries before the preparation of this table, were already merely a series of names. Other reasons for the mere citation of the bare names are, however, quite conceivable, such as lack of interest in the predynastic kings on the part of the scribe.

79. But, while the length of the predynastic reigns remains totally uncertain, the date of the beginning of the dynastic period is certainly established by this monument within narrower limits than ever before; and the period from the accession of Menes to the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty is determined within reasonable margins for the first time. The dynastic kings are probably arranged as

aMeyer has identified the place of these kings of Lower Egypt in the Turin Papyrus, where no corresponding kings of Upper Egypt were included, and in Manetho (Aegyptische Chronologie, 199 ff., 203 f.). They follow the gods and precede the "Worshipers of Horus," the immediate predecessors of the dynasties.

bMeyer believes that this row must have begun with the gods (ibid., 203).

follows: the First Dynasty occupied 11. 2 and 3, following directly upon the predynastic kings; ll. 4 and 5 contained the Second Dynasty; there is some uncertainty about the disposition of reigns in 1. 6, but as the first line of the back contained the end of the Fourth Dynasty, the last two linesb (7 and 8) of the front must have contained the bulk of the Fourth, which in all probability throws the Third Dynasty back to 1. 6, including possibly the end of 1. 5. The larger part of the back was occupied with the three reigns of the Fifth Dynasty, which filled up ll. 2-5, and perhaps continued (in two lines) into the reign of Nuserre.

C

80. The arrangement of each reign (except 1. 1, front) was so that in the narrow horizontal space above each line the name of the king was placed, while below it the years of his reign were distributed in successive rectangles, one year in each rectangle. As the space occupied by the years of each reign far exceeded the length of the king's name, the latter was placed over the middle, thus:

KING'S NAME

Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year

81. The vertical line on the right of each rectangle has the form of the hieroglyphic sign for "year." Each year-rectangle contains the chief events which occurred in that year, one of which furnished the official name for that year. Thus we have the "Year of the Battle and Smiting

*The Turin Papyrus of kings shows no clear dynastic division for this period, and hence such division rests solely on the lists of Manetho. But Sethe has shown (Untersuchungen, III) that such division is practically certain in our monument, and Meyer indicates that it is probable in the Turin Papyrus.

bor three lines may have followed 1. 6.

cSee § 86.

of the Northerners," dating a jar of King Besh (Bš) in Philadelphia; or the "Year of Smiting the Troglodytes" in our fragment (front, l. 6, § 104). This was parallel with the same usage in early Babylonia, as has been long known. As time passed, it became more and more common to name the year after the corresponding fiscal enumeration, thus: "Year of the Second Occurrence of the Numbering of all Large and Small Cattle of the North and the South" (§ 339), or "Year of the Seventh Occurrence of the Numbering of Gold and Lands" (front, l. 5, §135). This was often abbreviated to "Year of the x'th Occurrence of the Numbering," or still more to "Year of the x'th Occurrence."

82. All other events were then gradually abandoned as designations of the years, and by the Fifth Dynasty the fiscal numberings were almost exclusively used. These occurred every two years, in uninterrupted sequence, irrespective of the changes in reign, and hence it was necessary to call a year when no numbering took place, the "Year after the x'th Occurrence (of the Numbering)." Finally, when the numberings became annual, each year received the name of a new numbering, and this was the system of dating in Egypt from the Sixth Dynasty on. It amounted to numbering the years themselves, and gradually became nothing else. The Palermo stone thus furnishes us the origin of the Egyptian system of dating.

83. In addition to the chief events of the year, each yearrectangle contained, at the bottom in the middle, a datum giving a number of cubits, palms, and fingers, which have been thought to be the height of the inundation for each year; but this is very uncertain.

a Measured from some fixed point only a few cubits below high water; but the fine subdivisions in the measurements (down to fractions of a finger-breadth) are against the theory.

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