An Overview of the Ancient Egyptian Legal System

The Ancient Egyptian legal system, which remained remarkably unchanged from the beginning of the Old Kingdom right through to the end of the Late Period in 33 BC. The ancient Egyptian legal system was therefore a very well organised and coherent infrastructure for the carrying out of justice as well as regulating crime and punishment.

The starting point of the Ancient Egyptian legal system was the Pharaoh himself (occasionally the Pharaoh herself) as justice was performed in the name of the monarch. All the courts, judges, and magistrates within the Ancient Egyptian legal system made decisions and passed judgements in the name of the Pharaoh.

The ancient Egyptian legal system was divided up into local and national courts, with the local courts having less power than the national courts. Ultimately in the most serious cases such as murder, or alleged cases of treason the Pharaoh would make the judgement of a defendants guilt or innocence, as well as deciding on which punishment would be the most appropriate to fit the crime.

Generally the local courts would hear the least serious crimes and misdemeanours such as minor thefts and crimes against the person. Local courts had the power to pass prison sentences, impose financial penalties, and other forms of corporal punishments like cutting off hands for minor thefts.

In the ancient Egyptian legal system the national courts held more power than the local courts. National courts could impose longer prison sentences, insist on the payment of heavier financial penalties, or greater mutilations of the guilty person’s body. Although the national courts could recommend that anybody of the worst crimes such as murder should be executed they did not have the power to impose the death sentence.

In the ancient Egyptian legal system only the Pharaoh himself (or herself) impose the death sentence on any crime that was considered to be a capital one. Alongside murder the most heinous capital crimes in ancient Egypt were robbing tombs (especially royal ones) and plotting against the Pharaoh.

Given that the Ancient Egyptians were strong believers that royalty, the aristocracy, and the priests should bury all their earthly belongings in their tombs the crime of tomb robbing was considered to be the worst crime of all. Anybody caught robbing from royal, aristocratic, or religious tombs would almost certainly executed in the most painful way possible.

Bibliography

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