Royal Annals Of Ancient Egypt

Wilkinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136602474
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

First published in 2000. The kings of ancient Egypt's first five dynasties were responsible for the creation of a unique and enduring civilisation, epitomised by its most impressive monuments, the pyramids. Yet what do we know about the reigns of these kings? Excavations have revealed much, but Egyptology has always been blessed with another rich source of information - the written texts and inscriptions composed by the ancient Egyptians themselves. For the history of the first five dynasties, one particular series of inscriptions has always been of prime importance. This is the collection of inscribed stone fragments known as the Royal An- nals. Now divided between museums in Palermo, Cairo and London, these documents from ancient Egypt have been the focus of countless studies in the century or so since they first came to light, for they seem to record the reigns of Egypt's early kings on a reign-by-reign, year-by-year basis. The information they contain has been translated, interpreted and re-interpreted by generations of Egyptologists, in the hope of achieving a better understanding of the first great period of ancient Egyptian history. And yet amazingly for such crucial documents -- no complete edition of all seven surviving fragments has ever been published. Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt fills this gap. The text is accompanied by specially commissioned, detailed line-drawings of all the fragments.

PART I

THE ROYAL ANNALS IN CONTEXT

THE FRAGMENTS

Introduction

The seven surviving fragments of the early Egyptian royal annals — the Palermo Stone, the five Cairo fragments, and the London fragment — have stood at the core of attempts to reconstruct the chronology and history of Egypt during the first five dynasties. In recent years, important new archaeological evidence, in particular from the early royal cemetery at Abydos, has clarified the order of succession of the Early Dynastic kings, lessening reliance on the annals. However, for most of the twentieth century, they have dominated discussion of early Egyptian history and civilisation. As befits such important artefacts, the annals fragments have been the focus of numerous scholarly studies, ranging from the pioneering to the polemical. They have had an immeasurable influence on perceptions of early Egypt, and continue to occupy a central position in Egyptological discussion. It is all the more surprising, therefore, that the annals have never been published together, as a unified body of material (cf. Godron 1952: 21). The definitive edition of PS is nearly one hundred years old (Schäfer 1902). Many of the translations and interpretations of PS (e.g. Breasted 1906a) have, long ago, been rendered redundant by new information or new insights into the culture of early Egypt. The other fragments of the annals (CF1–5 and LF) have been published only summarily, without full commentaries (Gauthier 1914, 1915; Cenival 1965; Petrie 1916; Reeves 1979). Egyptology in general and the study of early Egypt in particular have progressed far and fast in recent years (Spencer 1993; Wilkinson 1999). In the light of much new evidence, it is surely time for a new, comprehensive edition of the royal annals, bringing the cumulative weight of international scholarship to bear on some of the most influential artefacts from ancient Egypt.

Description

The fragments comprise a series of seven, irregular pieces of stone, each inscribed lightly with a sharp instrument. The fragments vary widely in size. The shield-shaped Palermo Stone measures 43.5 cm in height and 25 cm in breadth (maximum dimensions). The thickness of the stone varies between 5.1 cm and 6.5 cm. The roughly rectangular CF1 is of a comparable size, with maximum dimensions of 42 cm (height) by 26 cm (breadth) on the recto, and 36 cm (height) by 26 cm (breadth) on the verso due to a substantial area of damage at the top. The thickness varies between 6.0 cm and 6.5 cm. Although CF1 is, on average, somewhat thicker than PS, ‘in the matter of thickness there is no evidence indicating that the Cairo fragment and the Palermo fragment were not part of the same stone slab’ (Breasted 1931: 714). The second Cairo fragment (CF2) has a triangular shape, and is the smallest surviving portion of the annals with a maximum height of 8.4 cm and a maximum breadth of 9.2 cm. CF3 and CF4 are irregular in shape. CF3 has a maximum height of 11 cm and a maximum breadth of 9 cm. The maximum dimensions of CF4 are 11.5 cm high and 7.5 cm broad. The squarish CF5 measures 9 cm by 9 cm, and is some 3 cm thick. Finally, the triangular London fragment has a maximum height of 8.5 cm and a maximum breadth of 8 cm on the recto; it is 5.3 cm in thickness.

To aid transcription, photography and study, the inscriptions have been highlighted by the application of chalk (cf. Stewart 1979: 6). Originally, all the fragments were most likely inscribed on both sides. However, four (CF2–5) are now so badly worn that only one face (the recto in each case) is still legible. The Palermo Stone is by far the best preserved of the fragments. The inscriptions on the recto are well executed and easily legible; those on the verso are more worn, but still present no real difficulties. The main Cairo fragment is a very different matter. It seems that CF1 had been used — in antiquity or in more recent times — as a door-sill. The upper part of the verso may have been protected by the door itself, whereas the lower part seems to have been exposed to greater wear (Daressy 1916: 177–8). Given that most of the signs were only lightly engraved in the first place, it is not surprising that much of the original inscription is now worn away and illegible. The whole fragment is badly abraded, rendering the bottom two-thirds of the recto and the bottom half of the verso illegible (Gauthier 1915: 31). Yet, CF1 is still legible on both faces (Gauthier 1915: 30). CF2–4 are badly worn, and reading their inscriptions presents great difficulties. The fifth Cairo fragment and the London fragment are better preserved and are the most easily legible of the small fragments.

The inscriptions are arranged in a series of rectangular compartments, set out in horizontal rows or registers. The width of the compartments shows little variation within a register but varies greatly between registers. The annals of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties are characterised by much wider compartments, and hence more extensive entries, than the annals of the First-Third Dynasties. The compartments of PS r.I and CF1 r.I show very simple entries: each contains the name of a king with a seated royal figure below. In the other registers, the right-hand side of each compartment is formed by a curving palm-rib, the hieroglyphic sign for ‘year’ (rnpt). Hence, each compartment represents a single year in the reign of a king. Within each compartment, hieroglyphs record the principal events of that particular year. (A similar method of naming years was followed by the Old Babylonian kings of Mesopotamia (Schäfer 1902: 13; Gardiner 1945: 12).) It is interesting that the annals attest a practice of date-reckoning quite independent from the king’s reign: the year compartments record civil or calendar years rather than regnal years (Read 1914–15: 40–1; Borchardt 1917: 5; Gardiner 1945: 13, 16). In other words, each year designated by a separate compartment begins on New Year’s Day, the first day of the first month of the inundation; whereas regnal years, regularly used in date formulae from the First Intermediate Period onwards, ran from a king’s accession date to each subsequent anniversary of his accession. Hence, with one exception in PS r.II, the annals begin a new year compartment ‘regardless of the beginning or end of a reign’ (Gardiner 1945: 13). It seems likely that a civil calendar, based upon the solar year, was instituted at a very early period in Egypt.

A separate section at the bottom of each compartment records a measurement generally assumed to be the height of the annual Nile inundation. Most of the registers of compartments are surmounted by a narrower band which contains the titles of the king whose annals appear below. Reign divisions are marked by vertical lines spanning the register and its accompanying titulary band (where present). The arrangement of the annals is broadly historical. The compartments on the recto record the reigns of the First, Second and Third Dynasties, and those of the early Fourth Dynasty. The compartments on the verso record the years of the late-Fourth Dynasty kings and their successors of the early Fifth Dynasty.

There has never been an expert petrological examination of the two principal annals fragments (PS and CF1). Only CF5 has been examined, and the stone was identified as ‘olivine basalt’ (Cenival 1965: 14; Helck 1982: n. 1). Schäfer (1902) calls the material of the Palermo Stone ‘amphibolite’ (hornblend-slate), probably following the statement of Pellegrini (1895: 297). From first-hand examination, Breasted (1931: 718) concluded that PS and CF1 were carved from ‘the same compact black stone, with identical characteristic concentric striations on the fractured surfaces’. Clagett (1989: 47) calls the stone in which the annals are carved ‘black diorite’. The material of LF was described by Petrie as ‘a hard jet-black quartzose rock, like that [of the annals stone] at Palermo’ (Petrie 1916: 120; Stewart 1979: 6).

Acquisition and provenance

None of the annals fragments has a secure provenance. The Palermo Stone was first acquired in or about 1859 by the Italian Ferdinando Gaudiano or his father. The circumstances surrounding its initial discovery remain unclear (Godron 1952: 17–18). The stone was donated to the Archaeological Museum in Palermo on 19 October 1877, where it was given the registration number 1028 (Godron 1952: 18). In 1895, a scheme was proposed whereby the Palermo Museum would give PS to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in exchange for a collection of Egyptian artefacts. Had this succeeded, six out of seven annals fragments — including the two largest pieces — would have been reunited. However, increasing scholarly interest in PS highlighted its importance to the Palermo Museum, and the exchange proposal was dropped (Godron 1952: 18). One of the first scholars to comment on the possible provenance of PS was Naville (1899: 112–13). Noting the frequent references to Heliopolis in the Fifth Dynasty annals, he was certain that the monument came from Lower Egypt, and suggested that it was originally intended for the temple of Ra at Heliopolis. Although a Lower Egyptian provenance is likely for other reasons (see below), the emphasis placed on Heliopolis probably reflects the theological preoccupations of the Fifth Dynasty kings; it seems unlikely that the annals were originally set up in a temple at Heliopolis, although such a possibility cannot be excluded altogether.

In 1910, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo purchased three new fragments (CF1–3) on the local antiquities market. They were registered in the museum’s Journal d’Entrée with the numbers 44859 (CF1), 39735 (CF2) and 39734 (CF3). Their original provenance has never been established satisfactorily. The report that CF1–3 came from the vicinity of el-Minia is ‘scarcely credible’, according to a leading scholar (Helck 1982). If they were found at this location, it would, almost certainly, have been in a secondary context; they may have been transported there from Lower Egypt (Godron 1952: 21). Shortly after the Egyptian Museum bought CF1–3, a fourth fragment (CF4) was uncovered, apparently in situ, amongst the ruins of Memphis. It was rescued from a collection of objects found during sebakh digging (Daressy 1916: 173). It entered the collections of the Egyptian Museum with the Journal d’Entrée registration number 44860. The secure, Memphite provenance of this, the only fragment not purchased from a dealer, has led several scholars to conclude that the original annals stone was set up in a temple in Memphis or nearby (Gauthier 1915: 29, quoting Maspero and Daressy; Godron 1952: 20–1). More specifically, Helck (1970: 85) made the convincing suggestion that the annals stone was set up in a court of the Ptah temple at Memphis, like the monumental Twenty-fifth dynasty inscription known as the ‘Memphite Theology’ (Shabako Stone).

When Petrie bought LF from a Cairo antiquities dealer ‘a few years’ before 1916 (Petrie 1916: 115), he sought to establish its provenance and that of the other fragments. However, the information he obtained was of little value:

“Of that [fragment] at Palermo nothing is known about the source. Three [fragments], now at Cairo, were bought from a dealer, and are said to have come from Minieh [sic]. The fourth [fragment], at Cairo, is said to have been collected from a sebakh digger by one of the Museum guards at Memphis” (Petrie 1916: 115).

The London fragment was said to have been found in Upper Egypt, then taken to Cairo for sale; but this information cannot be verified. Petrie presented LF to University College London, where it forms part of the collections named in his honour at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. It has the registration number UC 15508.

The seventh fragment of the annals (CF5) was bought by Cenival in 1963, once again from a Cairo antiquities dealer. The original provenance of CF5 is not recorded. Cenival presented CF5 to the Egyptian Museum, so that it could be displayed together with four of the other six known fragments (Cenival 1965: 13). CF5 bears the number 18220 in the museum’s Journal d’Entrée (this may be a special registration number, since it seems rather an ‘early’ Journal d’Entrée number for an artefact acquired comparatively recently). As displayed in the Egyptian Museum, CF5 has been assigned the temporary registration number

15/1

75/2.

Without a secure provenance for six of the seven fragments, the discovery of CF4 at Memphis remains a crucial piece of evidence. As we have seen, internal evidence — the nature of the Fifth Dynasty entries themselves — would tend to support a Memphite origin for the annals (cf. Vercoutter 1992: 76). The overall similarity of the annals to the Shabako Stone (inscribed with the so-called ‘Memphite Theology’ text) adds further weight to this theory.

Date

The date at which the annals were compiled and inscribed remains a matter of debate, and is unlikely to be resolved to the general satisfaction of scholars in the absence of new evidence (Helck 1970: 83). The annals themselves end in the early Fifth Dynasty, and this may represent the date at which they were originally compiled (Helck 1956: 2; Stewart 1979: 6; Clagett 1989: 47). Borchardt (1917: 23) certainly believed that the orthography of the six fragments then known pointed to an Old Kingdom date. On the basis of observed differences in the epigraphy between the recto and verso of PS, Tcherezov (1960) suggested that PS recto was carved in the Fourth Dynasty, the verso somewhat later in the Fifth Dynasty reign of Neferirkara. By implication, Gardiner (1961: 63) dated the compilation of the annals to the reign of Niuserra, in the late Fifth Dynasty. Wiedemann (1885) dated the monument to the early Sixth Dynasty, based on first-hand inspection of PS, and this interpretation has been followed recently by Vercoutter (1992: 76). O’Mara (1996: 207–8) detected no fewer than six different scribal hands on PS; he argued that the recto was carved at a single date, probably in the reign of Shepseskaf at the end of the Fourth Dynasty, while the verso was ‘a living stone, begun by Userkaf, continued by Sahura, and finished as a single block under Menkauhor’ (O’Mara 1996: 208 n. 22).

However, it has also been suggested that PS and CF1–4 may represent later copies of an Old Kingdom original (cf. Krauss 1996: 45 n. 16). Pellegrini — the first scholar to publish the Palermo Stone — thought the epigraphy indicative of the Ptolemaic period, though this was subsequently rejected (Fischer and Caminos 1976: 48). Such a late date would be commensurate with the known interest of the Ptolemaic Egyptians in their ancient history, and in copying monuments which recorded past donations to temples and pious foundations (Maspero 1912: 419–20). A convincing argument for a Twenty-fifth Dynasty date was made by Helck (1970). He argued that the type of stone used for the annals fragments was used only for the flooring of mortuary temples in the Old Kingdom (cf. Lucas and Harris 1962: 61), whereas it was definitely used for monumental inscriptions in the Third Intermediate Period (Helck 1970: 83). Citing the Shabako Stone (‘Memphite Theology’) as a parallel, Helck suggested that the annals stone(s) could represent a Twenty-fifth Dynasty copy of an Old Kingdom papyrus document. If this is the case, ‘the long interval between the Old Kingdom … and the Late Period would have a negative effect on the reliability of the text’ (Krauss 1996: 44). Misunderstandings or copying errors on the part of the Third Intermediate Period scribes could account for some of the particularly obscure entries in the annals (Helck 1970: 84).

A decisive piece of evidence in favour of an Old Kingdom date — at least for the original annals, of which the existing fragments may represent one or more later copies — is the rendition of the Early Dynastic royal names. The names of the kings Ninetjer and Khasekhemwy appear in their correct, Early Dynastic form (as confirmed by archaeology), in contrast to the corrupt, garbled variants found in later king lists. This suggests that the original compilers of the annals had access to good, contemporary, Early Dynastic source material (unlike the compilers of the Abydos king list and Turin Canon). This, in turn, suggests that the annals were compiled rather sooner after the events they record than the other extant king lists.

Do the surviving fragments come from a single annals stone?

There has been considerable debate about whether one or more stones is represented among the surviving fragments (Godron 1952: 19–20 for a summary of the debate up to that date). The fact that CF1–3 are said to have come from Middle Egypt, whereas CF4 was found at Memphis, led two early scholars (Gauthier 1914: 495; Daressy 1916: 161) to conclude that at least two original stones were represented by the fragments. Daressy (1916: 173) also noted the different thickness of CF4 and the smaller signs on its surface. Writing at the same time, Petrie noted that the CF1 and PS seem to have been carved ‘by different hands’ (Petrie 1916: 115). The execution of CF1 is less careful, and less regular, than that seen on PS. However, these differences need not point to the two pieces having come from different monuments, since in the carving of a large annals stone ‘it is very likely that more than one engraver would be employed’ (Petrie 1916: 115).

The difference in thickness between some of the fragments has also raised the possibility that more than one annals stone may be represented. Gauthier (1914: 495; 1915: 30) first raised doubts about CF4 because it is significantly thicker than the other fragments; he wondered if CF4 came from a second annals stone. Petrie acknowledged the possibility, but pointed out that variations in width might be expected in a large monument. He argued that more precise measurements of the two large fragments were needed before a reasoned conclusion was possible. However, writing in the same year as Petrie, Read (1916: 216) thought it...