page_title: Palermo Stone
section_title: Archaeological history
hierarchical_section_title: Palermo Stone / Archaeological history
caption_attribution_description: Drawing of the Royal Annals of Egypt with its various fragments including the Palermo Stone (P), the London fragment (L) and the Cairo fragments (1-5).
context_page_description: The Palermo Stone is one of seven pieces left of a much bigger stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele has a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty. It also listed important events in each year of their rule. It was probably made during the Fifth Dynasty. The Palermo Stone is in the Antonio Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it gets its name.
  The name "Palermo Stone" is sometimes used for all seven pieces of the Royal Annals, including those in museums in Cairo and London. The pieces are also sometimes known as the "Cairo Annals Stone". The name "Cairo Stone" is also used to mean only those pieces kept in Cairo.
  The Royal Annals are probably the oldest historical writing from Ancient Egypt. They are very important for the study of Egyptian history in the Old Kingdom.
context_section_description: It is not known where the stele came from. None of the seven pieces has a proper archaeological history. One piece in Cairo is said to have come from at an archaeological site at Memphis. The three other pieces in Cairo were said to have been found in Middle Egypt. No one has ever said where the Palermo Stone was found.
  The Palermo Stone was purchased by a Sicilian lawyer, Ferdinand Guidano, in 1859. It has been in Palermo since 1866. On 19 October 1877, it was presented to the Palermo Archaeological Museum by the Guidano family.
  There are five pieces of the Royal Annals in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Four of these were put in the Museum between 1895 and 1914. The fifth was purchased in 1963. One small piece is in the Petrie Museum of University College London, forming part of the collection of the archeologist Sir Flinders Petrie.
  In 1895 a visiting French archaeologist realized the Palermo Stone was important. The writing on the stone was translated in 1902 by Heinrich Schäfer.
caption: The Royal Annals of Egypt, showing what it might have looked like and the positions of the seven pieces. P is the Palermo Stone, nos. 1-5 are the Cairo pieces, and L is the London piece.
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