List of Egyptian kings
- Audio guide stop: 207
- Gallery: Room 4
- Culture: 19th Dynasty
- Date: 1250BC (c.)
- Object type: king-list, temple-relief
- Materials: limestone
- Museum number: EA117
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is a partial king-list carved from limestone, listing 34 names of ancient Egyptian rulers from the 19th Dynasty, around 1250 BCE. This remarkable fragment once adorned the temple of Ramesses II in Abydos, a sacred site dedicated to Osiris. The inscriptions are in hieroglyphic script and contain sections of three rows of cartouches—circular name frames used to highlight royal names.
The carved names trace a lineage of kings, some of whom ruled centuries earlier. The top rows include names of earlier rulers, possibly from the Sixth to the Eleventh Dynasties, while the bottom row features the name of Ramesses II, repeated in alternating positions. Notably, the list omits female rulers and kings from the contested "Intermediate Periods," indicating how rulers sought to legitimize their reigns by emphasizing continuity with a more stable historical past. Such king-lists were tools for reinforcing royal authority, placing the reigning king within a sacred and enduring legacy.
See it in person
List of Egyptian kings is on display in Room 4 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and type its audio guide stop number, 207, from the gallery label, or take a photo of it, to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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