Palermo stone, ancient Egyptian stone of black diorite engraved toward the end of the 5th dynasty (2565–2420 b.c.) and containing the earliest extant annals. The stone is only a small fragment of what was once a large slab. It is a hieroglyphic list of the kings of ancient Egypt before and after Menes, with regnal years and notations of events, and also includes such information as the height of the flooding of the Nile in various years. The stone was so named because it is housed in a museum in Palermo, Italy; small pieces of the stone are also in Cairo and in London.
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