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The History of Ancient Egypt : Revision Forthcoming : More Fragments of the Turin Canon of Kings (Kinglist, Papyrus) are Discovered in Italy

By Andis Kaulins

Evidence, evidence, evidence.

THIS IS SENSATIONAL NEWS for everyone who has an interest in the history of civilization, Ancient Egypt and the chronology of the Ancient Near East, which is based to a large degree on Egyptian chronology, and that in turn is based on a papyrus known as the Turin Canon of Kings.

More fragments of the Turin Canon have been found in Italy, so that the British Museum will now be re-reconstructing an already reconstructed papyrus, and that may give us some very new results about the Pharaonic Dynasties. See New fragments of the Turin King List : Fresh light on the pharaohs by Robyn Gillam, Discovery News, Ancient Tides, and La Stampa, Vittorio Sabadin ?I faraoni scomparsi nel buco:Trovati nei sotterranei dell'Egizio di Torino i frammenti mancanti del "Papiro Reale": sovrani sconosciuti e una storia da riscrivere ? (see Google Translation into English), Roger Pearse , Muhlberger's Early History, NewKerala.com , News from the Valley of the Kings , and Tim - The Egyptians.

I have a special "evidentiary" interest in that papyrus.

As I wrote a number of years ago at LexiLine:

"As some of you know, I have several times recommended the re-study of the Turin Canon by new thermoluminescence methods, since I am sure some of the pieces of this important historical papyrus have been mis-pasted in the reconstruction process. Thermoluminescence would easily determine where the pieces should properly be pasted (by grains on the paper, etc.). My suggestions have fallen on deaf ears in Egyptology, for the ... reason [that] - the object is "too important" to study - it might be damaged.

And so, erroneous conclusions drawn from a - surely - falsely reconstructed document are used to map the chronology of ancient Egypt, for which the Turin Canon is of eminent importance."

We provide our decipherment of columns I and II of the Turin Canon (viz. Turin Papyrus, Turin Kinglist) here, here, here and here. These digress from the erroneous ideas of mainstream Egyptology.

Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News at Fragments of Ancient Egyptian Papyrus Found writes:

"[S]tored between two sheets of glass in the basement of the Museo Egizio in Turin, the fragments belong to a 3,000-year-old unique document, known as the Turin Kinglist....

Scholars from the British Museum were tipped off to the existence of the additional fragments after reviewing a 1959 analysis of the papyrus by a British archaeologist. In his work, the archaeologist, Alan Gardiner, mentions fragments that were not included in the final reconstruction on display at the museum. After an extensive search, museum researchers found the pieces....

The finding could help more accurately piece together what is considered to be a key item for understanding ancient Egyptian history.

This is one of the most important documents to reconstruct the chronology of Egypt between the 1st and 17th Dynasty," Federico Bottigliengo, Egyptologist at the Turin museum, told Discovery News.

Unlike other lists of kings, it enumerates all rulers, including the minor ones and those considered usurpers. Moreover, it records the length of reigns in years, and in some cases even in months and days....

Some of the finest scholars have worked on the papyrus last century, but disagreement about its reconstruction has remained," Bottigliengo said. "It has been a never-ending puzzle....

We are confident that a new examination with modern scientific techniques will enable a much improved reconstruction to be achieved," Richard Parkinson, curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, told Discovery News."

As written by Robyn Gillam at Suite101.com, in a longer article which provides the most detailed coverage of this development:

"With permission of the Italian government, the Turin Kinglist will travel to British Museum in London, where it will be subjected to advanced techniques that examine not only its content but the state and content of the document itself before being conserved in a way that ensures its more permanent preservation. The incorporation of the unplaced fragments and an overall rearrangement promise to usher in a whole new era in our understanding of Egyptian history and chronology."

This is a great day for the study of Ancient Egypt, because it means that the reconstruction of the Turin Papyrus will finally be corrected by the necessity to fit in the new fragments - which of course will demand that the old reconstruction also be reviewed. I am certain that my decipherment of Columns I and II will be shown to be accurate.

Full post as published by LawPundit on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).