[2] The term "Palermo Stone" is sometimes applied to all seven surviving fragments of the Royal Annals, including those held in museums in Cairo and London.

The Palermo Stone and other fragments of the Royal Annals preserve what is probably the oldest historical text that has survived from Ancient Egypt and form a key source for Egyptian history in the Old Kingdom.

[4] The Royal Annals stele, of which the Palermo Stone formed part, may originally have been about 60 cm high and 2.1m wide.

The inscription on the "front" (recto) of the Palermo Stone consists of six horizontal bands or registers of hieroglyphic text running right to left.

The second and subsequent registers contain portions of royal annals for pharaohs of the First to Fourth Dynasties, that is lists of the key events in each year of the reign of each king, arranged chronologically.

The second register on the Palermo Stone begins with the final year entries for a king of the First Dynasty whose name is not preserved, but who is generally assumed to be either Narmer or Aha.

The text continues on the "back" (verso) of the Palermo Stone, cataloguing events during the reigns of pharaohs down to Neferirkare Kakai, third ruler of the Fifth Dynasty.

It seems clear from the content of the inscription that even if the Royal Annals, as preserved by the Palermo Stone and other fragments, were not carved during, or soon after, the period they describe, they are directly based on an Old Kingdom original.

The ancient historian Manetho may have used information similar to the complete Royal Annals stele to construct his chronology of the early dynasties of Egypt, forming part of his Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt), written during the third century BCE, although the surviving king list most closely related to his work (as preserved by later ancient and later writers) is the Turin Canon.