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The Abydos King List: 76 kings in a row
13 October 2026
In a side passage of Seti I's temple at Abydos, 76 royal cartouches run along the wall in two rows of 38, from Menes, the first king Egyptians remembered, down to Seti himself, around 1290 BC. It is one of the most complete king lists the Egyptians left, and it can be read on the spot: most of the names are throne names built from a handful of signs.
The list belongs to a prayer in which Seti offers to the kings he counted as his rightful ancestors, and the rest are left out.
The scene in the Gallery of the Lists
The list is on a wall of the corridor that leads off the second hypostyle hall toward the rooms behind, often called the Gallery of the Lists. At the left, Seti I stands in the blue crown holding a censer. In front of him, the young prince Ramesses, the future Ramesses II, wears the sidelock of youth and reads from an open papyrus roll.
Six short columns before Seti begin "Words spoken by King Menmaatre". Menmaatre, mn-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ, is his throne name: the sun disc (N5) for Ra, the seated goddess Maat (C10) and the game board (Y5) for mn. It means "Eternal is the justice of Ra".
The three rows make one offering
A line of text runs above the rows. It opens with the offering formula ḥtp-dj-nsw, said "hotep di nesu", "an offering that the king gives", to Ptah-Sokar-Osiris, and asks for a thousand of bread and a thousand of beer. Each cartouche below completes the sentence: the offering goes to that king.
The third row closes every column with "through the gift of" Seti. It repeats his throne name and his birth name, Seti-Merenptah, 19 times each, side by side. The 76 kings of the top two rows receive their bread from him.
The top row opens with Menes
The top row starts with Meni, the Menes of later Greek writers. Many Egyptologists think he is Narmer, the first king of a united Egypt around 3000 BC, whose own monuments wrote his name in a serekh, never a cartouche. Seti's sculptors put all the early kings into cartouches anyway, in names partly unlike the ones those kings used.
Number 16 is Djoser, builder of the Step Pyramid. The first sign of his cartouche was later cut away, for an unknown reason. Numbers 20 to 24 are the pyramid builders of the 4th Dynasty: Sneferu, Khufu, Djedefre, Khafre and Menkaure. Khufu is easy to spot: the round placenta sign (Aa1) for ḫ, a quail chick (G43) for w, the horned viper (I9) for f and a second chick, ḫwfw. Unas follows at 33.
Cartouches 41 to 56 name short-lived kings at the end of the Old Kingdom. For several of them, this wall is the only place their names survive.
Whole dynasties are missing from the wall
Look at cartouche 65, Maakherure, Amenemhat IV of the 12th Dynasty, then at 66: Nebpehtyre, Ahmose I, who founded the 18th Dynasty more than two hundred years later. Every king of the 13th Dynasty and the Second Intermediate Period is missing, the Hyksos among them. The rival kings of Herakleopolis and the first Theban kings of the 11th Dynasty are left out too.
In the 18th Dynasty, Thutmose III's Menkheperre (70) and Amenhotep III's Nebmaatre (73) are there. Hatshepsut is not, nor is the queen Sobekneferu of the 12th Dynasty. After Amenhotep III comes Horemheb (74), so Akhenaten, his short-lived successors, Tutankhamun and Ay are all erased. Ramesses I (75) and Seti (76) end the row.
Six signs read much of the wall
Throne names repeat the same few words:
Raking light brings out the carving
The cartouches stand upright in tidy columns, each ring a frame of its own. Light across the wall brings out carved edges, so a photo taken at a slight angle often shows the signs better than one taken straight on. Never use flash.
Work one cartouche at a time. Fill the frame with a single ring and the live camera will box the signs. On worn names, take a still photo and trace each sign over it. Count from either end to find a king's number, and check it against the order above.
Questions
Why are Hatshepsut and Tutankhamun missing from the Abydos King List?
The list honours the kings Seti counted as legitimate. Hatshepsut was probably left out as a woman who took the throne, and Tutankhamun with the other Amarna kings because of their link to Akhenaten.
Is the Abydos King List in the British Museum?
The one at Abydos is still on the wall of Seti I's temple. A second, broken list from Ramesses II's temple nearby, found by William John Bankes in 1818, was removed in 1837 and is in the British Museum. 32 of its cartouches survive.
Is the Abydos King List a reliable chronology?
For the order of the kings it names, broadly yes, and Egyptologists use it with other lists such as the Turin papyrus and the Saqqara list. It skips whole periods, so it gives neither the full number of kings nor any reign lengths.
Glossary
- birth name
- The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- hypostyle hall
- A temple hall whose roof stood on many columns, like the great hall at Karnak with its 134 columns.
- Maat
- Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
- offering formula
- The prayer ḥtp-dj-nswt, "an offering that the king gives", asking for bread, beer and other good things for the dead. It is written on tombs, stelae and coffins.
- Old Kingdom
- The age of the pyramid builders, about 2686 to 2181 BC, from the 3rd to the 6th Dynasty.
- papyrus
- A writing sheet made from strips of the papyrus reed laid in two crossing layers and pressed. Sheets were glued into long rolls.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- serekh
- A frame showing the front of a palace, with a king's Horus name written above it and the Horus falcon on top. The oldest royal names are written in serekhs.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
People in this article
- Seti I c. 1294–1279 BC
- Ramesses II c. 1279–1213 BC
- Narmer c. 3000 BC
- Djoser c. 2667–2648 BC
- Sneferu c. 2613–2589 BC
- Khufu c. 2589–2566 BC
- Djedefre c. 2566–2558 BC
- Khafre c. 2558–2532 BC
- Menkaure c. 2532–2503 BC
- Unas c. 2375–2345 BC
- Ahmose I c. 1550–1525 BC
- Thutmose III c. 1479–1425 BC
- Amenhotep III c. 1390–1352 BC
- Hatshepsut c. 1473–1458 BC
- Akhenaten c. 1352–1336 BC
- Tutankhamun c. 1336–1327 BC
- Horemheb c. 1323–1295 BC
Where to see it
- Temple of Seti I at Abydos monument
- Abydos site
Sources
More to read
- The Osireion at Abydos The Osireion at Abydos: Seti I's sunken tomb for Osiris, its granite hall, the oldest Book of Caverns and a sky ceiling. What it says and how to read it.
- Reading the tombs of the Valley of the Queens The Valley of the Queens at Luxor: Nefertari's tomb, the tombs of Ramesses III's sons and the guardian gods of the gates on their walls, read in place.
- Reading the Pyramid Texts in the pyramid of Unas Reading the Pyramid Texts in the pyramid of Unas at Saqqara: what the walls say, where to look, the signs to learn first and how to read them on the spot.