![]() ![]() The vizier heard court cases himself but also appointed lower magistrates and, sometimes, involved himself with local courts if circumstances required it. The Egyptian vizier had many responsibilities and one of them was the practical administration of justice. (93).Īt the top of the judicial hierarchy was the king, the representative of the gods and their divine justice, and just beneath him was his vizier. It was, however, clearly governed by religious principles: Law was believed to have been handed down to mankind by the gods on the First Occasion (the moment of creation), and the gods were held responsible for establishing and perpetuating the law. Egyptologist Rosalie David comments on this:Ĭompared with other ancient civilizations, Egyptian law has yielded little evidence for its institutions. STRUCTURE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEMĮven if the specifics of their law code are unknown, the principles it derived from are clear. These precedents were then used in judging cases during the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) and onward through the rest of the country’s history. 2613 BCE) as evidenced by their established use in the early years of the Old Kingdom (c. No Egyptian law code has as of yet been found which corresponds to Mesopotamian documents like the Code of Ur-Nammu or Hammurabi’s Code but it is clear that one must have existed because precedent in deciding legal cases was set by the time of the Early Dynastic Period (c. The law in ancient Egypt functioned just as it does in any country today: there was a set of agreed-upon rules which had been formulated by men who were considered experts in the field, a judicial system which weighed evidence of infractions of those rules, and police officers who enforced those rules and brought transgressors to justice. Although there are certainly cases of leniency shown to criminal suspects, the operative legal opinion was that one was guilty until proven innocent since, otherwise, one would not have been accused in the first place. Since the law was founded on so simple a divine principle, and since it seemed clear that adhering to that principle was beneficial to all, transgressors were often punished severely. Humans are not always considerate or mindful, however, and history illustrates well how poorly they maintain balance and so laws were created to encourage people on the desired path. In order to be at peace with oneself, one’s community, and the gods, all one had to do was live a life of consideration, mindfulness, and balance in accordance with ma’at. ![]() 3150 BCE) and would continue, and develop, until Egypt was annexed by Rome in 30 BCE. Egyptian law was based on the central cultural value of ma’at (harmony) which had been instituted at the beginning of time by the gods. Basic laws and legal proscriptions were in place in Egypt as early as the Predynastic Period (c. ![]() Photo by Sémhur, Wikimedia CommonsĪncient Egyptian culture flourished through adherence to tradition and their legal systemĪncient Egyptian culture flourished through adherence to tradition and their legal system followed this same paradigm. ![]() Kagemni was a vizier of pharaohs Djedkare Isesi and Unas (5th dynasty), and Teti (6th dynasty), 24th century BCE. Polychrome relief of Kagemni in his own mastaba, Saqqara, Egypt. ![]()
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