ANCIENT EGYPTIAN JUSTICE SYSTEM: LAWS, CONTRACTS, DOCUMENTS

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN JUSTICE SYSTEM

Kneeling official

Ancient Egypt had a legal code but their were no such things as lawyers. Parties in disputes had to plead their case directly to government authorities, often people close to the pharaoh. The world's largest known will was made in 2026 B.C. on the walls of the tomb of Nek'ure, the son of pharaoh Khafre. It read that Nek'ure would bequeath 14 towns, two estates and other property to his wife, another woman and three children.

According to a University of Oxford course outline: The Egyptians lived according to maat – a concept that implies proper balance, justice and order in the world. To ensure order in society, laws (hepu) were created and decrees (wedju) announced. Despite its importance, evidence for Egyptian law is rather scattered and is reconstructed from fragments of information found in court documents, royal decrees and fictional tales, among other sources. As a result, scholars still debate whether ancient Egypt even had codified state law, though a fragment of a law book has been found at Hermopolis, dated to the 3rd-century BC; this dealt with property leasing and inheritance rights.

In the New Kingdom of Egypt (1570-1069 B.C.) officials served as police officers prosecutors, interrogators, bailiffs, and also administered punishments. These officials were responsible for enforcing both state and local laws, but there were special units, trained as priests, whose job was to enforce temple law and protocol. These laws often had to do with not only protecting temples and tombs but with preventing blasphemy in the form of inappropriate behavior at festivals or improper observation of religious rites during services.

Courtrooms were usually a courtyard of a temple and judges consisted of the mayor, members of the council of elders, priests and sometimes the pharaoh himself. A "trial" consisted of accusations made by a plaintiff and a reply by the defendant. According to one record from 1375 B.C., "what [the plaintiff]" said" was followed by "what [the defendant] said."

Much of what is known about ancient Egypt’s legal system comes from the New Kingdom period (ca 1539-1075 B.C.) and the archaeological site of Deir el Medina, across the Nile from Thebes, where artisans and workers, who labored in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens lived. Digs at Deir el Medina have yielded more than 250 papyri and some ostraca (fragments of stone and potsherds) containing detailed accounts of legal matters at all levels of society. [Source: Irene Cordón, National Geographic, January 30, 2019]

Websites on Ancient Egypt: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Discovering Egypt discoveringegypt.com; BBC History: Egyptians bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians ; Ancient History Encyclopedia on Egypt ancient.eu/egypt; Digital Egypt for Universities. Scholarly treatment with broad coverage and cross references (internal and external). Artifacts used extensively to illustrate topics. ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt ; British Museum: Ancient Egypt ancientegypt.co.uk; Egypt’s Golden Empire pbs.org/empires/egypt; Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org ; Oriental Institute Ancient Egypt (Egypt and Sudan) Projects ; Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris louvre.fr/en/departments/egyptian-antiquities; KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt kmtjournal.com; Egypt Exploration Society ees.ac.uk ; Amarna Project amarnaproject.com; Abzu: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East etana.org; Egyptology Resources fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

Pharaohs, Religion, Oracles and Ancient Egyptian Laws

Irene Cordón wrote in National Geographic: Egypt’s first laws emerged when the Upper and Lower kingdoms were unified, according to tradition, under King Menes around 2950 B.C. From then on, different pharaohs would bring their own approaches to law and order. Although rulers would change, the unifying principle of the monarch’s sovereignty did not. Pharaohs held supreme authority in settling disputes, but they often delegated these powers to other officials such as governors, viziers, and magistrates, who could conduct investigations, hold trials, and issue punishments. Unlike the legal Code of Hammurabi, developed in the 18th century B.C. in Mesopotamia, ancient Egyptian law was not set in stone, and although power always flowed from the pharaoh, Egypt’s laws were rather like the Nile: fluid, organic, and changing with the times.[Source: Irene Cordón, National Geographic, January 30, 2019]

Maat

Egyptian pharaohs were expected to rule in perfect balance and harmony, which they called "Maat. " The concept signified order, truth, and justice and was embodied by a goddess of the same name who wore an ostrich feather headdress. According to Egyptian theology, Maat's feather would be weighed against a deceased person's heart to measure how virtuous a life had been. Egyptian writings emphasize that the king, as the intermediary between the gods and humankind, had a duty to ensure Maat in Egypt: “Ra has placed the king in the land of the living forever and ever . . . to guarantee Maat and to wipe out Isfet [chaos and injustice],” says a theological treaty written in the time of Queen Hatshepsut (1490-1468 B.C.). The vizier, Egypt’s supreme legal authority, held the title Priest of Maat, and often wore amulets featuring emblems of the goddess.

Viziers often wore a pendant in the form of Maat. Egyptians believed that living according to her precepts — honesty, loyalty, and obedience to the king — would keep chaos at bay. Egyptian kings were not exempt from living by Maat’s principles. They too were expected to uphold order through wise rule, just decisions, and humility before the gods. This belief united commoners and kings in the responsibility for maintaining balance and harmony in society, which may have led to fewer periods of civil unrest in Egypt’s long history.

Religious texts reveal the different ways that people could seek justice. One of the most popular was the use of divine oracles. Oracular statues were also consulted in other parts of Egypt during the New Kingdom. Located close to Thebes, a statue of the god Amun was also consulted on legal matters. Sometimes, those accused by an oracle would protest against the verdict, and ask for the matter to be put before another oracular statue for a second opinion. Inscribed during the reign of Ramses III, papyrus 10335 (now in the British Museum) recounts the theft of five dyed tunics from a temple storehouse. The crime was brought before an oracle. The statue’s answers fingered one suspect from a list of names as the guilty party. The accused vociferously denied the charge and requested a second and then a third opinion. After his last request, the patience of the gods, and the crowd, ran out. He was found guilty, beaten on the spot as punishment, and forced to restore the stolen goods to the temple.

The workers consulted the statue for centuries. One fragment from the Deir el Medina site dates to the 20th dynasty. It records the request of a workman, Nekhemmut, who asked the statue to reveal the identity of a person who was stealing from him. From the records found among the ostraca, most inquiries were similar, mundane matters, centering on real estate and personal property.

Origin of Laws in Ancient Egypt

The laws which guided the king and courts in their decisions are unfortunately unknown to us. Some of them were said to have been of divine origin; a deed informs us that the criminal should be condemned to the “great punishment of death, of which the gods say ' do it to him,' “and it expressly states further that this decree of the gods is written in the “writings of the divine words. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

Diodorus said that he was informed that the sacred books of law had been composed by Thoth the god of wisdom. He may have been right when he said the contents of the old laws includes laws such as the murder either of a free man or of a slave, as well as pcrjury, was punishable with death; treachery with the cutting out the tongue; the forgery of acts or seals with the cutting off the hand. ''' It sounds more doubtful when Diodorus tells us that the infanticide had to hold the corpse of her infant three whole days in her arms; ° the refinement of such a punishment savors rather of the invention of the Greek philosophers. Punishment was regarded as the necessary consequence of crime, which pursued the delinquent to his destruction; he who is punished, “his crime seizes him,' it overtakes him and undoes him.”

Vizier Kagemni

Besides these old sacred laws, there were others originating in historical times. Diodorus informs us expressly of laws made by certain wise kings, and in fact the old chief judge Mentuhotep boasts that he had “given laws. " Under the 12th dynasty the canon of the old laws was not considered finally closed, and the same is probably true of later times.

There were of course particular cases, which formed exceptions to the usual procedure of justice described above. Acts were committed by those immediately surrounding the king which could not be passed over, but which it was not prudent to expose to the eyes of the people. In such cases, as in all autocratic states, the Pharaoh broke through the usual course of justice, and, passing by the highest of his law officials, he intrusted the trial to one of his confidants. We know of a case of this kind as early as the 6th dynasty.

We quote from the autobiography of Unas the favorite of King Pepi, whom we have already frequently mentioned. He relates: “When the lawsuit was conducted secretly in the royal household against the great royal consort 'Emtese, his majesty ordered me to appear in order to direct the proceedings — I alone, no chief judge, nor governor, nor prince was present; I alone, because I was agreeable and pleasant to the heart of his majesty, and because his majesty loved me — I myself, I compiled the written report; I alone and one single judge belonging to the town Nechent. Yet formerly my office was only that of a superintendent of the royal anterior country, and no one in my position had ever in earlier times heard the secret affairs of the royal household. I alone was excepted, his majesty allowed me to hear them because I was more agreeable to the heart of his majesty than all his princes, than all his nobles, and than all his servants. " Unas was not inexperienced in such affairs, for before he was made superintendent of the anterior country, he himself had officiated as assistant to the chief judge (" as judge, belonging to the town Nechent ").

Law in Ancient Egypt

Sandra Lippert of Universität Tübingen in Germany wrote: “When considering “law” in ancient Egypt, it is necessary to try to distinguish between our modern concepts and ancient aspects of Egyptian law. The word hep is most commonly translated as “law” and was used in the sense of “(single) law” throughout Egyptian history, but it also refers to any other type of binding rule. Hepu and, in Demotic, also hep can refer to the totality of laws and therefore come close to our modern understanding of “law.” Although maat is often translated as “justice,” it covered much more than legal justice, making it difficult to identify the Egyptian equivalent of “law” in its more general sense. [Source: Sandra Lippert, Universität Tübingen, Germany, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2012, escholarship.org ]

marriage contract

“It is more difficult to identify the Egyptian equivalent of “law” in its more general meaning; only a comparatively small aspect of maat is concerned with what we would call “legal justice.” 0pw in the plural and, in Demotic, also hp in the singular can be used for the totality of laws and therefore come close to our modern understanding of “law,” but with the reservations made above. The proposition by Kruchten that hp derives from a (not attested) word hp, “leather/papyrus scroll,” and therefore initially meant commands written on papyrus or leather as opposed to those written on stelae (wD, “decree,” “stela”) is not convincing.

“The modern distinction between civil and criminal law is also hard to transfer to ancient Egyptian practice. There was no state prosecution for actions we would consider criminal such as theft or assault, but the injured party had to act as plaintiff. Only crimes against the pharaoh and gods, like conspiracies or theft from royal tombs or temples, were prosecuted by officials. There is no clear evidence for written laws before the Middle Kingdom and only indirect evidence for the period preceding the New Kingdom. The codification under Darius I may have been the first attempt at collecting all earlier laws still valid at that period in one single corpus. This collectionof laws continued to form the basis for Egyptian jurisdiction even during the Ptolemaic Period (304–30 B.C.).

“We expect crimes to be prosecuted by the authorities and punished in a way that shows not only the victim but society as a whole was injured by the criminal. In ancient Egypt, however, there was no state prosecution for theft from or assault of private citizens. The injured party had to act as plaintiff, and the punishment was limited towards amendments for the victim (crime and punishment). Only crimes against the pharaoh and gods, such as conspiracies or theft from royal tombs or temples, were prosecuted by officials. A special oath of loyalty (anx n sDfA tryt) bound them to report and investigate suspicious incidents. Since cases of manslaughter and murder against private persons are not well attested, it remains unclear how they were treated, but there are indications that local officials were expected to solve obscure deaths regardless of whether the families of the victims requested it or not .

Laws in the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt

Sandra Lippert of Universität Tübingen wrote: “There is no evidence for the existence of codified law either in the Old Kingdom (2649–2150 B.C.) or the First Intermediate Period, although Diodorus Siculus attributes the first Egyptian laws to the semi-legendary founder of the Egyptian state, king Mneves. The only sources from which any knowledge about legal norms of that period can be derived are legal documents, which are extremely scarce however. Royal orders (wDw, “decrees”) could also be counted as acts of legislation, although often their purpose was rather specific: those attested from the Old Kingdom concern the appointment of officials, foundations, exemptions from tax and corvée, and protection of temple and funerary domains. [Source: Sandra Lippert, Universität Tübingen, Germany, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2012, escholarship.org ]

“Although no written laws are attested from the Middle Kingdom either, there is indirect evidence for their existence in the Admonitions of Ipuwer, which laments the destruction of the papyrus scrolls of hpw nw xnrt, “the laws of the court/prison-cum-work camp.” Unfortunately, this literary text is not securely dated. An administrative text from the 13th Dynasty mentions several laws about deserters from forced labor, but their content, obviously well known to the officials, is not cited. There are also a few royal decrees from the Middle Kingdom; as in the Old Kingdom they do not contain laws as such but regulate particular circumstances such as offering foundations, protection of sacred areas, or the demotion of a criminal priest.

From the New Kingdom there are finally first direct citations of laws in connection with court proceedings. They are qualified as direct speech of the pharaoh and as “law of pharaoh,” respectively. It is likely that written records of laws were kept at the bureau of the vizier(s), to be consulted when local courts sent in their cases. The forty Ssmw, which, according to the Instruction, are to be laid in front of the vizier during his sessions (actually depicted in the Tomb of Rekhmira), are, however, not leather scrolls containing these laws but most likely leather whips or rods symbolizing the vizier’s punitive authority over the forty administrative regions of Egypt . Some royal decrees of the New Kingdom contain not only decisions and orders for special cases but veritable laws with general import, e.g., the Decree of Horemheb and the Decree of Sety II from Karnak.

“Many details about the legislative process remain unknown: How exactly did the king pass laws? Did he have a staff of advisors who proposed laws or did he decide alone? Did laws remain in effect after the death of the legislating king or did they have to be renewed at the ascension of a new king?”

judgement of the dead in front of Osiris

Law in the Late Period (712–332 B.C.): Introduction of Persians Law to Egypt

Sandra Lippert of Universität Tübingen wrote: “The first unambiguous evidence for an official collection of laws is contained in the report of Papyrus Bibl.nat. 215 vso col. c 6 - 16. According to this text, Darius I ordered in his 3rd year that “the earlier laws of Egypt up to year 44 of Amasis” be collected. For this purpose he had priests, wise men, and military officials unite. The collection is said to have taken 16 years and was finally translated also into Aramaic. The implication is that there were written records of laws and perhaps even partial collections before this (e.g., of laws for specific groups like priests or of laws of certain kings), but the Darian collection seems to have been the first comprehensive one. The purpose of the Aramaic translation of the collection was obviously its use by Persian administrators. This is also suggested by Papyrus Berlin P 13540, which states that the candidates brought forth for the office of lesonis (temple administrator) had to conform to “what Darius the pharaoh has ordered”—a reference that the priestly laws set down in the Darian law collection were to be applied rather than a new law, which entrusted the selection to the satrap (provincial governor), as it is often interpreted. [Source: Sandra Lippert, Universität Tübingen, Germany, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2012, escholarship.org ]

“Although Rüterswörden claims the report of Papyrus Bibl.nat. 215 vso col. c. l. 6 - 16 to be fictitious, a backward projection from the Ptolemaic Period (304–30 B.C.), his explanation does not correspond to the evidence. First, he assumes without explanation that the date of the composition of the text is identical to that of the manuscript (mid-Ptolemaic Period), which is not very likely considering the fact that the same manuscript contains another excerpt of clearly Persian Period origin. Moreover, well established Egyptian traits of royal representation (the king as benefactor and creator of order) are misinterpreted as Hellenistic innovations. Lastly, if the story had been a mere fabrication of the Ptolemaic Period in order to legitimize the Egyptian law in use at that time, as Rüterswörden suggests, it is not plausible that a Persian king would have been credited with its collection instead of an Egyptian pharaoh.

“Although no Persian Period manuscript of this collection survives, a number of fragments of later copies of the Demotic version, dating from the third to the first centuries B.C., have been identified: the longest is the so-called Codex Hermupolis preserving ten more or less complete columns and covering sections on leases of land and enterprises, sanx documents (a special type of annuity documents), inheritance, and miscellaneous subjects including addenda to the preceding sections. Others are the so-called Zivilprozeßordnung and the much more fragmented manuscripts Papyrus Carlsberg 236 and Papyrus Berlin P 23890 rto. The layout throughout all these fragments is similar: the text is subdivided into chapters that sometimes have headings like “the law about leases, if someone makes them about a house or movable object” or “the law about sanx documents”. These chapters are usually subdivided into paragraphs, in some manuscripts set off with blank spaces or line breaks.

While the first is mainly used for simple or static situations, the second type develops a hypothetical case, sometimes in a very elaborate way with possibilities branching off in various directions. In both cases, the aorist or future III main clause contains the legal consequences, e.g., the necessary steps to be taken by the judges. The grammatical structure therefore clearly indicates the text’s character as mandatory regulations; comparable structures are common for the formulation of laws throughout the ancient world (e.g., in the Codex Hammurapi, the Law Code of Gortyn, or the Law of the Twelve Tables). Additionally, the exact same structures are to be found for laws cited in protocols of court proceedings. The collection also contained model documents, e.g., for oaths, promissory notes, lease documents, sanx documents, public protests, etc.

“Unfortunately, Egyptologists have been discouraged to identify these texts as law codes by legal historians, who claimed that codified law simply could not have existed in ancient Egypt. The main argument for this is the unsubstantiated assertion that a systematic collection of laws had not been of interest to ancient Near Eastern societies...If regarded objectively, the Darian law collection fulfills all the necessary criteria for a codification: it was ordered by state authorities (i.e., the king, albeit a Persian ruler), claimed to be comprehensive, and aimed to serve as the basis of future jurisdiction in the Egyptian satrapy. The Aramaic version of the law code quickly became obsolete after the end of the Persian rule in Egypt; no manuscripts have hitherto been identified. But there is indirect evidence for its existence. The similarities in type, style, and phrasing between some Aramaic legal documents from fifth century Elephantine and Demotic documents suggest that the model documents contained in the Darian law collection, in their Aramaic translation, were used as prototypes.”

Law in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods

Sandra Lippert of Universität Tübingen wrote: “During the early Ptolemaic Period, the indigenous law courts were acknowledged as juridical institutions for the Egyptian population under the Greek term laokritai; in the same context, Egyptian law (nomoi tês chôras) was sanctioned as the basis of their judgments. The Demotic law code used by the Ptolemaic laokritai and cited in court protocols was likely none other than the one collected under Darius. Thus Egyptian law continued to be applied during the Ptolemaic Period, with a few limitations: royal jurisdiction seems to have taken over the department of criminal law (except theft), and royal decrees, which mainly concerned fiscal matters, could override Egyptian laws (and also Greek city laws). Instead of the obsolete Aramaic translation, a Greek one was produced for reference by the Greek officials, which was still copied in the second century CE. [Source: Sandra Lippert, Universität Tübingen, Germany, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2012, escholarship.org ]

“Additionally, a didactic commentary for the Egyptian legal code existed since at least the Ptolemaic Period. Manuscripts of this text survive in Papyrus Berlin P 23757 rto and the so-called Legal Book of Tebtunis of which fragments are preserved in Florence and Copenhagen. The text is divided into short sections, which are hardly ever thematically connected to each other. Each section consists of a question and an answer. Laws from the code are cited and, at least in the surviving passages, often identified by a year date, but without the name of a king—the same method of citation can also be found in Ptolemaic court protocols referring to Egyptian laws (see above). These citations therefore refer to a section of the code that was organized chronologically in the first place and thematically only in the second, if at all. As a result, it would have been difficult for someone to find the laws applicable to a given case without a vast knowledge of the code as a whole. The aim of the commentary was obviously just this: to quiz the (most likely priestly) students for the position of judge about their knowledge of the legal code, which they were supposed to have memorized to a large extent.

Indigenous (and Greek) courts in Egypt were entirely replaced by Roman officials soon after the Roman takeover. The “law of the Egyptians” (nomos tôn Aiguptiôn), which is mentioned occasionally in legal proceedings before Roman officials, might refer at least in part to the Greek translation of the Egyptian legal code, especially since this was still transmitted in the second century CE (see above). Modrzejewski tries to argue that all legal rules thus labeled are purely Greek and not Egyptian, but this estimate is based partly on argumenta e silentio, partly on outdated interpretations. Therefore we have at least to consider that the Romans subsumed Greek and Egyptian law of Egypt under this heading. Regulations (prostagmata) and ordinances (diagrammata) of Ptolemaic kings were also still referred to, but neither seems to have been binding so that it was up to the Roman officials acting as judges to consider them or not. Thus the relevance of Egyptian (and Greek) law diminished quickly although an outright ban never seems to have been enacted.

“Since the Constitutio Antoniniana (212/213 CE) through which all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire became Roman citizens, a general acceptance of Roman law should be expected; however, local traditions seem to have been strong and vestiges of Egyptian (and Greek) law can still be found in legal documents from later periods.”

marriage contact on Ancient Egypt

Contracts in Ancient Egypt

In regards to civil law there are few materials. Non-criminal law documents are often so badly damaged they are hard to read. Private letters and bills offer some insights. Fortunately for our subject we have a number of contracts (the sealed, as the Egyptians called them), such as were frequently concluded by people of rank in order to ensure certain revenues for religious services after death. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

Such are the ten contracts concluded with the priesthood of his town by Hapd'efa'e, a nomarch of Aysut in the time of the Middle Kingdom; they are in perfect preservation and deserve more study. It does not seem that Hapd'efa'e had much to gain by them; he wished to secure that his five statues, which he had placed in his tomb and in the temples of Aysut, should receive from the priesthood a yearly offering of bread, beer, and meat. He wished also to provide for the “kindling of the lights," such as the illumination of the statues, which took place on many festivals; he therefore bound the priest, who had the care of the lamps in the temple, regularly to provide the wicks for this illumination. The objects which Hapd'efa'e secured by his ten contracts appear to us very insignificant — besides these he had bequeathed for his tomb worship an endowment of “fields, servants, cattle, gardens, and other things “— and we scarcely understand why he did such honour to these ten deeds, as to write them down for us in extenso in sixty gigantic lines in his tomb.

The priesthood, with whom he concluded his contracts, would naturally do nothing without a corresponding return; he had to pay them for all the offerings they were to offer. He did this partly by gift of lands in his own possession, partly by surrendering certain rights. As he himself belonged by birth to the priestly college of the god 'Epuat, he had a right to a share of the temple rations, supplied out of the temple property to the individual priests; in order to pay his colleagues it was therefore the simplest way for him to renounce part of these rations on behalf of himself and his heirs.

These deeds of purchase of Hapd'efa'e are all couched in the same strictly regular form: “Contract concluded between A and B, that B should give x to A, whilst A should give y to B. Behold, B was therewith content." All sorts of clauses are interpolated, which for the most part contain more detailed business provisions. This plan ought fully to content lawyers. It is in no wise a deed on the conclusion of the completed contract (this would run: a contract was concluded, etc. ), but it is in fact rather the superscription, or the tabic of contents of the contract. We might almost imagine that the scribe had ventured to change the formula somewhat when these deeds were inscribed in the tomb.

Examples of Ancient Egyptian Contracts

The seventh contract gives us an example of one of the shortest: “Contract, concluded between the late chief prophet Hapd'efa'e and the great priest of Anubis for three wicks to be delivered to him (to the priest); the same to be burnt in the lamps of the temple of Anubis: one on the fifth intercalary day, on the New Year's Eve, another on New Year's Day, another on the eve of the festival of Uag. For this he shall give him: 1,000 field measures from the estate of his fathers, as the price for these three wicks, which he shall deliver to my funerary priest, in order to burn in the lamps. Behold, he was therewith content. "

Contract for a wet nurse to suckle son with both breasts

Others, however, are more detailed and are provided with many clauses and reasons, as such as the third: “Contract, concluded by Hapd'efa'e the prince and chief prophet, with the official staff of the temple, that they should give him bread and beer on 18th Thoth, the day of the festival of Uag, whilst he should give them: 24 temple days, out of his property from the estate of his fathers, and not in any way out of the property of the estate of the nomarch; in fact, four days for the chief prophets, two days for each of them. “Behold, he said to them: 1) A temple-day is g — y of the year. If all the bread, beer, and meat that is received daily in this temple be divided... the bread and beer and of everything that is received in this temple, is a temple-day which I give to you. 2) It is my property from the estate of my fathers, and not in any way from the property of the estate of the nomarch, because I am indeed a son of a priest as each of you are. 3) These days shall form the remuneration for each future staff of priests, that they may deliver to me this bread and beer, which they shall give to me.

“Behold, they were therewith content”. A list is appended, which shows how the requisition of bread and beer was to be divided between the ten members of the "official staff" of the temple; each should give 2 jugs of beer and 200 rolls of bread, but the chief priest, who was to be paid by four temple-days, was to supply 4 jugs of beer and 400 rolls of bread.

These three clauses of the document are very interesting. The first declares what Hapd'efa'e means us to understand by the day's ration of the temple. It was never to be taken as the receipts of any given day, but the receipts of the whole year were to be added together and ijj(j of the same was to be regarded as the average ration. The other clauses were to protect him from the suspicion, which might be suggested...that he was disposing of revenues which were not his own by inheritance; he declares that he belongs by birth to the priesthood, and has, therefore, full rights to the revenues of that position. Finally, the third clause again points out what were the good offices for which he renounces to his colleagues the fifteenth part of his yearly income as priest.

Legal Documents in Ancient Egypt

The tomb of Hapd'efa'e contains extracts at any rate of one other document of legal nature — the provision which he exacted from his funerary priest, when he endowed him “with fields, with servants, with herds, with tanks, and with all kinds of other things. " The office of funerary priest was usually hereditary in one family, there was therefore danger that the properties belonging to that office should at some time be split up by inheritance. Hapd'efa'e forbids this expressly: “these things shall only belong to one of thy sons, the one whom, above thine other children, thou dost desire to be my funerary priest . . . and he again shall not divide it amongst his children. " Similar statutes concerning the funerary tomb-priests, exist of the time of the Old Kingdom, they also contain detailed provisions about the inheritance of endowed property, and directions are given how disputes are to be settled between individuals entitled to it. Unfortunately these sadly damaged inscriptions do not explain to us the particulars of the stipulations, yet they show us that there existed in that old time such an organised system of jurisprudence. [Source: Adolph Erman, “Life in Ancient Egypt”, 1894]

The decree of this statute alone ensured sufificient protection against the encroachments even of posterity. The favorite prayer to the gods, commonly used in other parts of the world, on occasions of similar endowments, finds no place here; it is enough that the founder of the endowment should express his will in a formal manner.

annuity contract

It was quite otherwise in later times; such as when the chief officer Amenhotep, son of Hapu, who lived under Amenhotep III., founded the little temple of Der-el-Medineh dedicated to Amun Ra in Thebes, he did not consider his foundation sufficiently safe without calling down the anger of the gods on any one who should injure it. On the 8th of Koiak in the 21st year, when the king visited the new sanctuary, the following decree was published by certain high officials of the state — Amenhotep the governor, Meryptah the superintendent of the house of silver, and the scribes of the army: “Hear the decree, issued at the establishment of the temple of Kak, belonging to the hereditary prince, the royal scribe, Amenhotep called Huy, the son of Hapu . . ., that his temple of Kak, with the slaves belonging thereto both male and female, should endure eternally from son to son, from heir to heir, and that no one should ever transgress this decree, for as long as this temple stands upon earth, it is sacred to Amun-Ra, king of the gods, who is king eternally and the protector of the dead.

“If the general and scribe of the soldiers, who shall be my successor, shall find that the temple of Kak has fallen into decay, and that certain belonging thereto have been taken away from the slaves who raise the grain for my endowment — if he then uphold all the laws and ordinances of Pharaoh, then shall his bodily life be satisfied.

“But those who transgress them and render no account thereof, upon them shall fall the destruction of Amun, the lord of Thebes, who will not allow them to be satisfied in their office of royal scribe of the army, which they have received for me! He will deliver them up to the wrath of the king on the day of his anger, his snake diadem shall spit fire on the crown of their head destroying their sons. It shall eat their body, and they shall become like the snake Apophis (the enemy of the sun-god), on the New Year's Day. They shall be drowned in the ocean, which shall conceal their bodies; they shall not receive the funeral services of the just, they shall not eat the food of the god Qerte, they shall not cool themselves on the water, on the course of the river. Their sons shall not succeed them, their wives shall be used shamefully even in their sight. Honourable men shall not enter their houses as long as they are upon earth, and they shall not enter, nor be led into the palace (?). They shall not hear the voice of the king when he rejoices. They shall be slain on the day of destruction, and men shall call them miserable. Their bodies shall be sick, they shall hunger without food; their bodies shall die! Above all, this curse shall fall upon the governor, the treasurer, the superintendent of the storehouse, the first prophet, the holy fathers, the priests of Amun to whom this edict has been read, which has been issued for the temple of Kak, belonging to the hereditary prince, the royal scribe Amenhotep the son of Hapu, if they do not take care of his temple of Kak.

“If, however, you shall take care to protect the temple of Kak, with the slaves both male and female, who raise grain for my property, then shall all good befall you. Amun-Ra, king of the gods, shall reward you with a happy life. . . . Honours shall be heaped upon you; you shall see the sons of your sons, and the heirs of your heirs. You shall be sent on embassies which the king shall reward. Your bodies shall rest in the netherworld after a life of I i o years. Your food-offerings shall be increased as well as what otherwise is due to you.

“What I have said shall fall also upon those officers of the militia which belong to the district of the prince of the western town, called Chefther-nebs, who shall not maintain my endowment for each day, and all my festivals at the beginning of the months; their bodies shall not thrive. But if they attend to all these words, which are issued as a command, and are obedient, and do not turn aside from them, good shall befall them, even as to the just. They shall rest in the city of the dead after a good old age. "

The man who issued this decree, so rich in curses, was considered by later generations as the model of a wise man.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated August 2024