were based. In the Palermo Stele it is recognized that we possess a
primitive chronicle of this character.

(1) See Breasted, _Ancient Records_, I, p. 4, II, pp. 163
ff.

Drawn up as early as the Vth Dynasty, its historical summary proves that
from the beginning of the dynastic age onward a yearly record was kept
of the most important achievements of the reigning Pharaoh. In this
fragmentary but invaluable epitome, recording in outline much of the
history of the Old Kingdom,(1) some interesting parallels have long been
noted with Babylonian usage. The early system of time-reckoning, for
example, was the same in both countries, each year being given an
official title from the chief event that occurred in it. And although in
Babylonia we are still without material for tracing the process by which
this cumbrous method gave place to that of reckoning by regnal years,
the Palermo Stele demonstrates the way in which the latter system was
evolved in Egypt. For the events from which the year was named came
gradually to be confined to the fiscal "numberings" of cattle and land.
And when these, which at first had taken place at comparatively long
intervals, had become annual events, the numbered sequence of their
occurrence corresponded precisely to the years of the king's reign. On
the stele, during the dynastic period, each regnal year is allotted its
own space or rectangle,(2) arranged in horizontal sequence below the
name and titles of the ruling king.

(1) Op. cit., I, pp. 57 ff.

(2) The spaces are not strictly rectangles, as each is divided
vertically from the next by the Egyptian hieroglyph for "year".