Saqqara Tablet

The Saqqara Tablet, now in the Egyptian Museum, is an ancient stone engraving surviving from the Ramesside Period of Egypt which features a list of pharaohs. It was found in 1861 in Saqqara, in the tomb of Tjuneroy (or Tjenry), an official ("chief lector priest" and "Overseer of Works on All Royal Monuments") of the pharaoh Ramesses II.

The inscription lists fifty-eight kings, from Anedjib and Qa'a (First Dynasty) to Ramesses II (Nineteenth Dynasty), in reverse chronological order, omitting "rulers from the Second Intermediate Period, the Hyksos, and those rulers... who had been close to the heretic Akhenaten".

The names (each surrounded by a border known as a cartouche), of which only forty-seven survive, are badly damaged. As with other Egyptian king lists, the Saqqara Tablet omits certain kings and entire dynasties. The list counts backward from Ramesses II to the mid-point of the First Dynasty, except for the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, which are reversed. A well known photograph of the king list was published in 1865. Detailed and high resolution images are able to be viewed online and inside the book Inside the Egyptian Museum with Zahi Hawass



Kings in the list
The names are listed in reverse chronological order from the upper right to the bottom left, as they were meant to be read.

Proposed reconstruction
As names 5-10 and 35-39 are missing or badly damaged, the following names are suggested to have once been listed here. Note that this reconstruction is based on other kings lists and circumstantial evidence.

Other New Kingdom royal lists

 * Abydos king list
 * Karnak king list
 * Turin King List
 * Medinet Habu king list