Carnarvon Tablet


The Carnarvon Tablet is an ancient Egyptian inscription in hieratic recording the defeat of the Hyksos by Kamose.

Contents

On the reverse side of tablet no. 1 is inscribed the beginning of The Maxims of Ptahhotep. On the obverse side of this tablet is a description of Kamose's victory over the Hyksos. The inscription is copied from a stela in Karnak. In the inscription, Kamose exclaims :
Let me understand what this strength of mine is for! prince is in Avaris, another is in Ethiopia, and I sit associated with an Asiatic and a Negro! Each man has his slice of this Egypt, dividing up the land with me. I cannot pass by him as far as Memphis, the waters of Egypt,, behold, he has Hermopolis. No man can settle down, being despoiled by the imposts of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may cut open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics!

Sir Alan Gardiner provides the following alternative translation, noting the control of Upper Egypt by the Kerma culture of Nubia:
On tablet no. 2 there is a heavily damaged inscription.

Discovery

It was found in 1908 by Lord Carnarvon on two wooden tablets covered stucco in fine plaster. It was discovered amongst pottery debris on a ledge close to the entrance of a tomb near the mouth of the Deir el-Bahari valley. Howard Carter believed this tomb to date from the Seventeenth Dynasty.