The papyrus was originally a tax roll, but on its back is written a list of rulers of Egypt – including mythical kings such as gods, demi-gods, and spirits, as well as human kings. That the back of an older papyrus was used may indicate that the list was not of great formal importance to the writer, although the primary function of the list is thought to have been as an administrative aid. As such, the papyrus is less likely to be biased against certain rulers and is believed to include all the kings of Egypt known to its writers up to the 19th or 20th Dynasty.
Discovery and reconstruction
Circumstances surrounding the discovery of the papyrus
The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the papyrus are no longer known, and there are many unclear points surrounding them; the archaeological context is lost. All we know is that the Italian traveler Bernardino Drovetti bought it c.1818 in Thebes, Egypt. Purchased in Livorno in 1820, it was shipped to Genoa by sea and then overland to Turin in 1824. The 19th-century Egyptologist Gaston Maspero believed that Drovetti had unintentionally mutilated the papyrus during his journey.[5]
It was acquired in 1824 by the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy and was designated Papyrus Number 1874. When the box in which it had been transported to Italy was unpacked, the list had disintegrated into small fragments. Jean-Francois Champollion, examining it, could recognize only some of the larger fragments containing royal names, and produced a drawing of what he could decipher. A reconstruction of the list was created to better understand it and to aid in research.
Research and processing
The Saxon researcher Gustav Seyffarth re-examined the fragments, some only one square centimeter in size, and made a more complete reconstruction of the papyrus based only on the papyrus fibers, as he could not yet determine the meaning of the hieratic characters. Subsequent work on the fragments was done by the Munich Egyptologist Jens Peter Lauth, which largely confirmed the Seyffarth reconstruction. Giulio Farina, the director of the Museo Egizio from 1928 to 1946 published his analysis and examination of this document in 1938 in a book called The Restored Papyrus of the Kings or Turin Canon; here, he proposed a new placement of some fragments, gave the hieroglyphic transcription of the hieratic text, the translation and an extensive historical-chronological commentary.[6]
In 1997, prominent Egyptologist Kim Ryholt published a new and better interpretation of the list in his book The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. Egyptologist Donald Redford has also studied the papyrus and has noted that although many of the list's names correspond to monuments and other documents, there are some discrepancies and not all of the names correspond, questioning the absolute reliability of the document for pre-Ramesses II chronology.
Despite attempts at reconstruction, approximately 50% of the papyrus remains missing. This papyrus as presently constituted is 1.7 m long and 0.41 m wide, broken into over 160 fragments. In 2009, previously unpublished fragments were discovered in the storage room of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, in good condition.[7] The fragments were found after studying a 1959 study by archaeologist Alan Gardiner. In his writing, Gardiner suggested that there were fragments in the museum that had not been used by scholars in reconstructing the document.[8]
The name Hudjefa, found twice in the papyrus, is now known to have been used by the royal scribes of the Ramesside era during the 19th Dynasty, when the scribes compiled king lists such as the Saqqara King List and the royal canon of Turin and the name of a deceased pharaoh was unreadable, damaged, or completely erased.
Contents of the papyrus
The papyrus is divided into eleven columns, distributed as follows. The names and positions of several kings are still being disputed, since the list is so badly damaged. Pharaohs that are known have the damaged part of the inscribed name in parentheses, if the damaged part is known.
Column 1 – Gods of Ancient Egypt
Column 2 – Gods of Ancient Egypt, spirits and mythical kings
It's possible that a twelfth column once existed that contained Dynasties 18–19/20, but that section has since been lost.
Turin King List with 2013 corrections of positions for some fragments – table representation of rows from the original papyrus, translated into hieroglyphs
The following are the names written on the papyrus, omitting the years.
↑Uniquely the Beginning nswt-bjt part of Djoser's name is written in red ink, no other name in the list is written with this
Sources
Bibliography
Farina, Giulio (1938). Il Papiro Dei Re, restaurato. G. Bardi. or
Farina, Giulio (2019) [1938]. Papyrus Of Kings Restored. Translated by Peter Lundström. or The Papyrus of the Kings Restored PDF in English
Gardiner, Alan H. (1957). The Royal canon of Turin. Oxford: Griffith Inst. ISBN978-0-900416-48-4.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
von Beckerath, J. (1995). "Some Remarks on Helck's 'Anmerkungen zum Turiner Königspapyrus'". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 81: 225–227. doi:10.2307/3821822. JSTOR3821822.
Beckerath, J. V. (1962). "The Date of the End of the Old Kingdom of Egypt". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 21 (2): 140–147. doi:10.1086/371680. S2CID161488411.
Bennett, Chris (2002). "A Genealogical Chronology of the Seventeenth Dynasty". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. 39: 123–155. doi:10.2307/40001152. JSTOR40001152.
Kitchen, Kenneth A. (2001). "King Lists". In Redford, Donald B. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Vol.2. American University in Cairo Press. pp.234–238. ISBN978-977-424-581-7.
Bunson, Margaret (2002). "Turin Canon". Encyclopedia of ancient Egypt. New York: Facts on File. p.413. ISBN978-0-8160-4563-1.
Ryholt, Kim (1997). The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, C. 1800-1550 B.C. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN978-87-7289-421-8.
Ryholt, Kim (2005). "The Turin King-List". Ägypten und Levante (in German). 1 (XIV): 135–156. doi:10.1553/AEundL14s135. ISSN1015-5104.
Málek, Jaromír (1982). "The Original Version of the Royal Canon of Turin". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 68: 93–106. doi:10.2307/3821628. ISSN0307-5133.
Spalinger, Anthony (2001). "The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800-1550 B. C. K. S. B. Ryholt". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 60 (4): 296–300. doi:10.1086/468961. ISSN0022-2968.
Online sources
Description and Translation (History → Turin Kinglist) in Ancient-Egypt.org, by Jacques Kinnaer, MA in Egyptology, based on Gardiner's transcriptions.
Turin King List, in Narmer.pl (Ancient Egypt History & Chronology), based on Gardiner, Farina and Malek
Turin Kinglist, by Ian Mladjov, MA, BA and Ph.D. in History, based on Ryholt
Royal Canon of Turin, in Pharaoh.se, using Gardiner and Farina
Hieroglyphs with translation including Ryholt's new placement of fragments.
Circumstances surrounding the discovery of the papyrus
The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the papyrus are no longer known, and there are many unclear points surrounding them; the archaeological context is lost. All we know is that the Italian traveler Bernardino Drovetti bought it c.
Research and processing
The Saxon researcher Gustav Seyffarth re-examined the fragments, some only one square centimeter in size, and made a more complete reconstruction of the papyrus based only on the papyrus fibers, as he could not yet determine the meaning of the hieratic...
