Carnarvon Tablet

The Carnarvon Tablet is an <a href="/facts/Ancient_Egypt/BDsEGK4g">ancient Egyptian</a> inscription in <a href="/facts/Hieratic/EPUEN25f">hieratic</a> recording the defeat of the <a href="/facts/Hyksos/ovB4Sp5J">Hyksos</a> by <a href="/facts/Kamose/jWVJC39n">Kamose</a>.
Discovered in 1908 by <a href="/facts/George_Herbert%2c_5th_Earl_of_Carnarvon/GLL5rG1e">Lord Carnarvon</a>, it consists of two wooden tablets covered in stucco and fine plaster. The tablet, believed to be a schoolboy's exercise, contains a text that has proven to be historically significant. It preserves a copy of an inscription originally from commemorative stelae of Pharaoh Kamose, detailing his campaign against the Hyksos rulers in northern Egypt during the late <a href="/facts/Second_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt/gKX4X08u">Second Intermediate Period</a> (c. 1550 BCE).
The Carnarvon Tablet was found near the entrance of a tomb in the <a href="/facts/Deir_el-Bahari/0FjRhwSA">Deir el-Bahari</a> valley. Initially thought to date from the <a href="/facts/Seventeenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt/jhcIl1As">Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt</a>, it is now attributed to the early <a href="/facts/Eighteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt/aT7N6fPT">Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt</a>. The obverse of the first tablet describes Kamose's victory over the Hyksos, while the reverse contains the beginning of <a href="/facts/The_Maxims_of_Ptahhotep/yunWvW3j">The Maxims of Ptahhotep</a>. The second tablet bears a heavily damaged inscription.
The text's authenticity and historical importance were confirmed in the 1930s when fragments of the original stelae were discovered at <a href="/facts/Karnak/WereaCCV">Karnak</a>. The Carnarvon Tablet has since become a valuable source for understanding the political climate of Egypt at the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom.

Carnarvon Tablet open-in-new

Carnarvon Tablet