A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

8.4 Punishment

Among the penalties in the exemption decrees of the Old Kingdom

and the First Intermediate period are the family’s loss of hereditary

office, loss of office and attendant income, and loss of free status.^325

In an exemption decree (Fifth Dynasty), those who disobey the king

and compel priests of that temple to do corvée labor, will be “given

over to the granite quarry.”^326 Lorton believes that one possible Old

Kingdom penalty might have been the denial of burial rights in the

royal cemetery.^327 There is evidence for beating as the punishment

for nonpayment of taxes.^328

8.4.1 In the Exemption Decree Coptos D, disobedience results in

being brought before the court, which may lead to a condemnation

and loss of property and income.^329 The guilty person loses social

status as well, since he is forbidden to act as a priest in connection

with the royal cult.

8.4.2 Not all of the exemption decrees contain punishments for

infringements. A text from the time of King Pepi I, for example,

lacks such provisions.^330

8.4.3 Coptos R is a detailed listing of the punishments facing those

who damage the statues of a high offical or otherwise harm prop-

erty belonging to his mortuary estate.^331

8.4.4 According to Willems, an Ankhtyfy inscription (9th Dynasty)

provides the “earliest” evidence for the death penalty in Egypt.^332

(^325) Lorton, “Treatment.. .,” 11–12, 50. See also Boochs, Strafrechtliche Aspekte...,
75, 77.
(^326) Lorton, “Treatment.. .,” 7, follows Goedicke’s restoration in this very dam-
aged section; Goedicke, Königliche Dokumente.. ., 31.
(^327) Lorton, “Treatment.. .,” 10–12 (inscription of Demedjibtawy, Ninth Dynasty?).
(^328) Ibid., 24 (but punishment is not the result of judicial proceeding). See further
Goedicke, “Bilateral Business.. .,” 80.
(^329) Goedicke, Königliche Dokumente.. ., 217.
(^330) Ibid., 77.
(^331) Ibid., 214.
(^332) “Crime.. .,” 27. Cf. Fischer, Varia Nova.. ., 219; Goedicke, “Juridical...,”
29, Königliche Dokumente.. ., 221–22, and Rechtsinschriften.. ., 58–59.
      131
WESTBROOK_F3_91-140 8/27/03 1:40 PM Page 131