The Shabaka Stone

In 1805, the British Museum acquired one of its first…and most important,
ancient Egyptian artifacts, the Shabaka Stone, an unassuming green breccia millstone. The inscription on the stone sat untranslated in the museum for nearly 100 years before American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted translated it into English in 1901. It was only then that Egyptologists realized the profound significance of what they had in their possession- a copy of the world's earliest (arguably) surviving creation story.

The stone’s inscription begins with a list of King Shabaka’s royal names followed by a dramatic account of the unification of Upper and lower Egypt. The inscription concludes with a description of the Supreme God Ptah’s creation of the gods, the cosmos, and the earth.

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