I. 2 THE TURIN KING-LIST OR SO-CALLED TURIN CANON (TC) AS A SOURCE FOR CHRONOLOGY1 Kim Ryholt Introduction The King-list or “Royal Canon of Turin” is the only true king-list pre- served from ancient Egypt before the Ptolemaic period. It is a “true king-list” in the sense that the compiler of the document aimed at recording all of the kings of Egypt along with their reign-lengths. This stands in striking contrast to the other lists, such as the cultic assem- blages of deceased kings engraved on walls in the temples of Sety I and Ramesses II at Abydos and in the tomb of the priest Tjuloy at Saqqara,2 even if these lists preserve the royal names in forms that are superior to those of the more or less contemporaneous TC. Only two studies on the nature of the TC as such have been pub- lished; the first by Redford in 1986,3 and the other by myself in 1997.4 Studies of the chronological implications and attempts at reconstruc- tions of the list have been more numerous. The most significant advances in the reconstruction touch the Late OK, FIP and the SIP.5 Around 1820 Bernardino Drovetti, French Consul in Egypt, acquired the TC, which eventually passed to the Turin Museum. The script is hieratic, written on the reverse of a discarded tax register dating to the reign of Ramesses II. Thus the king-list could have been written at the earliest in the time of Ramesses II himself. The TC can be accurately 1 For detailed discussion of the Turin king-list, see K. Ryholt, Ä&L 14 (2004), 135–155. 2 See Redford, Annals, 18–24. 3 Redford, Annals, 1–18. 4 Ryholt, Situation, 9–33. 5 Late OK: K. Ryholt, ZÄS 127 (2000), 87–100. FIP: J.v. Beckerath, ZÄS 93 (1966), 18–19. SIP: Ryholt, Situation, 69–75, 94–97, 118–119, 151–159, 163–165; for Frg. 134, cf. J. P. Allen, BASOR 315 (1999), 49–50.—W. Helck, SAK 19 (1992), 150–216, pro- posed a series of new arrangements, none of them based on autopsy. I could verify none of them whereas several can definitely be rejected, cf. Ryholt, Situation, 21. Note that Beckerath, Chronologie, 20, follows Helck’s reconstruction. the royal canon of turin 27 described as a copy, drawn up in a somewhat careless manner on waste paper, from a damaged and imperfect original. The scribe apparently did not attempt to supplement missing information from other sources which may have been available at the time.6 Apart from a section cut off in antiquity, the papyrus was presumably intact upon discovery. It has since been reduced to more than 300 fragments, apparently due to rough handling. Since Champollion first saw and described it in 1824, the papyrus has deteriorated considerably. However, thanks to the efforts of several scholars over the past 150 years, most of the larger fragments have now been joined. Yet, many of the very small scraps remain unpublished, and the position of many important fragments remains conjectural. The papyrus has a large format, measuring 42 cm in height and about 1¾ m in length. There are now 11 columns; one or two were lost in antiquity when the piece of papyrus was cut off. It could have included Dyns. 17, 18 and part of Dyn. 19. What follows refers to a new reconstruction, in progress (Table I. 2.1).7 Table I. 2.1. Concordance between Gardiner’s edition and the new reconstruction Column 1 Gardiner col. I Column 2 Includes Frg. 41–42 (Gardiner col. IX) and Frg. 150–152 and Frg. 22+unnumbered fragment (Gardiner col. X) Column 3 Gardiner col. II Column 4 Gardiner col. III Column 5 Gardiner col. IV Column 6 Gardiner col. V Column 7 Gardiner col. VI Column 8 Gardiner col. VII Column 9 Gardiner col. VIII Column 10 Includes Frg. 105+108 (Gardiner, col. IX), Frg. 138 (Gardiner, col. X) and unnumbered fragments (Gardiner, col. X.13–21) Column 11 Gardiner col. XI 6 Thus, for instance, the names of ten late OK kings are lost from TC and the damaged writings of the names of two following kings are intact in the Abydos List. 7 For the new arrangement of the SIP section (columns 7–11) see Ryholt, Situation, 69–75, 94–97, 118–119, 151–159, 163–165..