The most prominent crimes and types of sanctions in ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptian texts highlighted the status of ethics and the fight against crime with different penalties, which were fundamental to the life of Egyptians in ancient times. The ethics were a great place based on diverse social experiences and traditions throughout their history, while religion played a prominent role in organizing their lives in the family and community.

The old Egyptian's perception of the violation of rights varied and considered it a violation of moral norms. The "religious court of the other world," in which the deceased was tried for his actions, was probably the model of a civil court for discipline in society.

Crime and punishment in ancient Egypt were linked to moral, customary and religious factors, all based on the concept of "Maat", which refers to "truth and justice" in society, which is closely related to the living human conscience.

The concept of "Maat"
In his study "Maat Pharaonic Egypt and the Idea of ​​Social Justice", German scholar Jan Asman says of the French version of the College de France lectures that a man must "unite with a beast, since it is necessary to be committed to the metal and to fill his heart with the metal, He is victorious over the failure of his earthly life and all that is so outrageous, and so lies the mystery of the miraculous nearness of the Egyptian civilization that lasted thousands of years. "
In her study "The Pharaohs in the time of the gods," French scientist Claire Lalweet says Maat is "the symbol of truth and justice, two qualities that are indivisible and necessary to a great extent for the well-being of the society and the world that the ancient Egyptian god has created."

The teachings of Minister Ptah-Hetep from the Fifth Dynasty circa 2500 BC indicate the importance of Maat as quoted in the French translation of Lalweet, quoting the ancient Egyptian text in her study "Sacred Texts and Worldly Texts of Ancient Egypt"

"It is a path that stretches out before the ignorant, but the poor will never allow a berth in any port. But the power of Maat (truth and justice) is that it transcends the days, and one can say about it: it is indeed the wealth that my father possesses. "

The crime in ancient Egypt can be divided into crimes committed against the community, such as murder, adultery, theft of property of individuals, and crimes committed against the state, such as bribery, treason, theft of public property and crimes committed against religious institutions.

Murder
The ancient Egyptian looked at his life with respect and sanctity that made him punish the death penalty in order not to violate his sanctity, but he divided the punishment between "murder" and "manslaughter".

In a study entitled "Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt" in the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, Manal Mahmoud Mohamed, a researcher in the history of ancient Egypt, said that the death penalty was the penalty for the intentional murder, And in certain cases he resorted to psychological sanctions which he considered to be more severe than execution.

"The son who kills one of his parents is subjected to torture before being executed for burning his thorns. In the case of a father killing his son or daughter, the penalty was not the death penalty, but the Greek historian Diodore Skalli pointed to psychological punishment, Or mother, to embrace the body of the son or daughter and tie them together for three days (until they begin to decompose) amid guarding. "


French scientist Francois Douma, in his study of the Pharaonic civilization of Egypt, points out that the death penalty "sometimes meant that the culprit would have been prey to crocodiles. The thorns were certainly used for the crimes of the cemetery thieves. Suicide was apparently a gift for those sentenced to death Folk. "

"I am going to attack you in the desert and kill you," he said.

Although the text did not refer to punishment, some researchers tend to believe that the law may have merely warned.

However, the penalty was different if the wrongful murder was proven, and the death penalty was not, and if the texts did not agree on a specific penalty, a passage from the Old Kingdom, quoting "Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt," says that anyone who kills someone by mistake:

"He could not enter his house before he was cleansed of the sin he committed and offered sacrifice at the grave of the dead," referring perhaps to a reconciliation between the families of the offender and the victim, and the payment of appropriate compensation.

Al-Masri did not overlook the penalty of covering up a murder, or not providing information that might have been committed to prevent it. Anyone who refrained from reporting was considered a partner in the crime and was punished with the same penalty as stated in the Turin judicial papyrus:

"He heard and was not informed, and appeared before the judges to investigate and found him guilty, and left him in place and killed himself himself."

Whoever kills an animal with a symbolic religious character has been assaulted by a sacred nature, deserving of execution if proven intentionally, or a fine in case of manslaughter.

The crime of adultery
Al-Masri was careful not to commit adultery and considered it a religious crime, in which the deceased disowned his confessional confessions before the Council of Gods in the Other World, as stated in the text of the "Day of Exodus", known as the "Book of the Dead": "I have not committed adultery" Adultery with a married woman ".