kings of Egypt.  When a local chief succeeded in making himself king of All Egypt he did not concern himself with preserving records of the great deeds of the king whose throne he had seized.  When foreign foes invaded Egypt and conquered it their followers raided the towns, burnt and destroyed all that could be got rid of, and smashed the monuments recording the prowess of the king they had overthrown.  The net result of all this is that the history of Egypt can only be partially constructed, and that the sources of our information are a series of texts that were written to glorify individual kings, and not to describe the history of a dynasty, or the general development of the country, or the working out of a policy.  In attempting to draw up a connected account of a reign or period the funerary inscriptions of high officials are often more useful than the royal inscriptions.  In the following pages are given extracts from annals, building inscriptions, narratives of conquests, and “triumph inscriptions” of an official character; specimens of the funerary inscriptions that describe military expeditions, and supply valuable information about the general history of events, will be given in the chapter on Biographical Inscriptions.

The earliest known annals are found on a stone which is preserved in the Museum at Palermo, and which for this reason is called “The Palermo Stone”; the Egyptian text was first published by Signor A. Pellegrini in 1896.  How the principal events of certain years of the reigns of kings from the Predynastic Period to the middle of the fifth dynasty are noted is shown by the following: 

    [Reign of] SENEFERU.  Year ...

    The building of Tuataua ships of mer wood of a hundred capacity,
    and 60 royal boats of sixteen capacity.

    Raid in the Land of the Blacks (i.e. the Sudan), and the bringing
    in of seven thousand prisoners, men and women, and twenty thousand
    cattle, sheep, and goats.

    Building of the Wall of the South and North [called] House of
    Seneferu.

    The bringing of forty ships of cedar wood (or perhaps “laden with
    cedar wood").

    [Height of the Nile.] Two cubits, two fingers.

    [Reign of Seneferu.] Year ...

    The making of thirty-five ... 122 cattle

    The construction of one Tuataua ship of cedar wood of a hundred
    capacity, and two ships of mer wood of a hundred capacity.

    The numbering for the seventh time.

    [Height of the Nile.] Five cubits, one hand, one finger.

The royal historical inscriptions of the first eleven dynasties are very few, and their contents are meagre and unimportant.  As specimens of historical documents of the twelfth dynasty the following may be quoted: 

EDICT AGAINST THE BLACKS