Saqqara Tablet

The Saqqara Tablet is stone from Ancient Egypt. On it is written a list of Egyptian pharaohs from the New Kingdom. It was found in a tomb at Saqqara in 1861. The tomb belonged to Tjenry (or Tjuneroy), an official of the pharaoh Ramesses II. He was a priest and "Overseer of Works on All Royal Monuments".^[1] The stone is now in the Egyptian Museum.

The list names 58 kings, from Anedjib and Qa'a in the First Dynasty to Ramesses II in the Nineteenth Dynasty. The list is in reverse chronological order. It leaves out names of "rulers from the Second Intermediate Period, the Hyksos, and those rulers... who had been close to the heretic Akhenaten".^[2]

Each name is surrounded by a border known as a cartouche). The stone is badly damaged, and only 47 names have survived. There are mistakes in the list. For example, it only mentions four kings of the Third Dynasty. The order is correct only for the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty. The only known photograph of the king list was published in 1865.^[3]