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The Palermo Stone is an ancient Egyptian stone of black diorite engraved toward the end of the 5th dynasty (twenty-fifth century BC) and is probably the earliest Egyptian historical text. Now in a number of fragments, it lists the details from the reigns of the first Egyptian kings through the middle of the 5th dynasty.
The main fragment has been known since 1866 and is currently in the collection of the Palermo Archeological Museum, Sicily, although there are also further sizeable pieces in the Egyptian Museum (Cairo), and the Petrie Museum (London). The engraved stone must originally have been about 2.2 m long, 0.61 m wide and 6.5 cm thick, but most of it its now missing, and there is no surviving information about its provenance.
It is a hieroglyphic list of the kings of ancient Egypt before and after Menes, with regnal years and notations of events, and also includes such information as the height of the flooding of the Nile in various years, information on cult ceremonies, taxation, sculpture, buildings and warfare.
Translations
- 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.
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