Saqqara King List

The Saqqara Canon (a.k.a. Saqqara Tablet) contains a list of Egyptian pharaohs. Mariette wrote of the discovery to his patron Vicomte de Rougé in March of 1860, but the list was not published until 1864.

It was inscribed on a wall in a funerary shrine above the tomb of a lector-priest by the name Tjunery (ṯwnry), who lived during the reign of Ramesses II. The location of the tomb is lost, but supposedly south of Djoser's step pyramid, close to the pyramid of Unas, between the Monastery and Sekhemkhet’s enclosure.

The inscription originally listed 58 kings in two rows of 29 kings each, in reverse chronological order, starting with Ramesses II, going backwards to Adjib. The remains of the wall was dismantled into eight parts, the missing sections were not found. It was assigned inventory number JE 11335 (CG 34516), and is on display at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo where it was given yet another designation: GEM 45485.

It was written in the tradition of Lower Egypt, i.e. preferring honored ancestors with a strong affinity in Lower Egypt. The purpose of the list was to show celebrated "ancestors," and was not meant to be a complete chronological list, apparent by the exclusion of Hatshepsut and the heretic Amarna pharaohs.

Cartouche 39 was recorded by Mariette in 1864 containing the name Menkaura, but this is the only attestation for this. In all subsequent line drawings, the cartouche is drawn as unreadable, so the reading cannot be trusted, it was likely added by Mariette.

Content of the list

Curiously, the New Kingdom kinglists have differing numbers of kings for the Fourth Dynasty. Abydos holds six kings (20-25), Saqqara nine (43-35) and the Royal Canon of Turin eight (4.9-16). At some point, the records of the Fourth Dynasty suffered damage that resulted in incompletely preserved archives for posterity. Centuries later, scribes accessing the archives for information about the ancient kings either failed to realize that the records were incomplete, or misinterpreted the contents. The variation in the three king lists is puzzling.