Palermo Stone

Palermo Stone
The Palermo Stone, the fragment of the Egyptian Royal Annals housed in Palermo, Italy
Height	43.5 cm
Width	25 cm
Created	c. 2338 BC
Discovered	before 1859
Present location	Palermo, Sicily, Italy

The Palermo Stone is one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty (c. 3150–2890 BCE) through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2392–2283 BCE) and noted significant events in each year of their reigns. It was probably made during the Fifth Dynasty.^[1] The Palermo Stone is held in the Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name.^[2]

The term "Palermo Stone" is sometimes applied to all seven surviving fragments of the Royal Annals, including those held in museums in Cairo and London. The fragments are also sometimes described collectively as the "Cairo Annals Stone",^[3] although the term "Cairo Stone" is also used to mean only those fragments of the Royal Annals now in Cairo.

The Palermo Stone and other fragments of the Royal Annals preserve what is probably the oldest historical text that has survived from Ancient Egypt and form a key source for Egyptian history in the Old Kingdom.^[4]