Turin King List Papyrus

This crucial historical document is safely housed in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) located in Turin, Italy. The museum purchased the heavily fragmented papyrus from a collector named Bernardino Drovetti in the early 1820s.

The ancient 13th-century BCE papyrus is a vital document because it provides a comprehensive, chronological list of hundreds of Egyptian pharaohs alongside their exact reign lengths in years, months, and days. It is one of the few documents that bridges the historical gap between the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom.

The task of translating the heavily damaged text in the mid-19th century was famously undertaken by the Italian Egyptologist Champollion. Later, German scholars like Carl Richard Lepsius provided incredibly detailed transcriptions that helped piece the tiny fragments back together.

Unlike later, heavily edited king lists like the one found at Abydos, the Turin King List uniquely included the names of ancient Egyptian deities and mythological rulers believed to have ruled before mortal humans. This highlights how the ancient Egyptians viewed their deep mythological history as inseparable from their political reality.