Turin King List

The Turin King List, also called the Turin Royal Canon, is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus compiled around 1245 BC during the reign of Ramesses II, now held in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. It records more than two hundred Egyptian rulers across many dynasties in eleven columns, including mythical figures alongside historical pharaohs and, unusually for an Egyptian king list, the Hyksos foreign rulers marked with a distinguishing sign. The papyrus gives reign lengths in years, months and days for many kings and forms the chronological backbone for reconstructing Egyptian history before the reign of Ramesses II. About half of the original document is lost and the surviving papyrus arrived in Europe broken into more than 160 fragments after its acquisition in 1824, requiring extensive scholarly reconstruction that continues to shape and revise Egyptian chronology.