The start of the king list, showingSeti I and his sonRamesses II on the way to making an offering toPtah-Seker-Osiris, on behalf of their 75 ancestors: the contents of the king list. Ramesses is depicted as a prince holdingcensers.
TheAbydos King List, also known as theAbydos Table or theAbydos Tablet, is a list of the names of 76 kings ofancient Egypt, found on a wall of theTemple of Seti I atAbydos, Egypt. It consists of three rows of 38cartouches (borders enclosing the name of a king) in each row. The upper two rows contain names of the kings, while the third row merely repeatsSeti I'sthrone name andnomen.
Besides providing the order of theOld Kingdom kings, it is the sole source to date of the names of many of the kings of theSeventh andEighth Dynasties, so the list is valued greatly for that reason.
This list omits the names of many earlier pharaohs. The bulk of these appear to have been left out because although they claimed royal titles and rule over all Egypt, their actual authority was limited to only part of the country. This category includes all the rulers of theNinth andTenth Dynasties, the early rulers of theEleventh Dynasty (Mentuhotep I,Intef I,Intef II, andIntef III), all the rulers of theThirteenth Dynasty, and all of the rulers ofSecond Intermediate Period (including theHyksosFifteenth Dynasty, who may also have been seen as illigitimate because they were not native Egyptian). The rulers of the chaoticAmarna Period (Akhenaten,Smenkhkare,Neferneferuaten,Tutankhamun, andAy), seem to have been removed for reasons of political propaganda or as a form ofdamnatio memoriae; their reigns were within living memory in Seti's day, and the repudiation of the Amarna Period had been state policy since the reign ofHoremheb (who had chosen Seti's fatherRamesses I to succeed him). Two pharaohs known to have been women,Sobekneferu andHatshepsut, are also excluded, most likely due to their gender. Finally,Mentuhotep IV may have been excluded for political reasons (having possibly been overthrown by his vizer and successorAmenemhat I) or simply because his brief and poorly documented reign was unknown to Seti and his scribes.[1]
