A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

6.3.3 In the fragmentary text of O. Gardiner 55, a man arranges

to give his entire wealth to his family.^419 In the Will of Senimose,

the wife retains property until she attains old age. At this point the

property is divided among her children.^420 Steps may be taken to

assure the future of women in case of their husband’s death. McDowell

observes that huts were often left to women at Deir el-Medina.^421

Woman could also inherit land in Deir el-Medina.^422

6.3.4 Property could remain undivided (under the control of a

family head) after the death of both parents.^423 According to the

Legal Text of Mes, for example, the authorities of the great qenbet

court, responsible for the division of the estate, appointed Urnero as

rw≈“trustee,” not for her children, which seems to have been legally

self-understood, but for her siblings.^424 Although the inheritance under

law was divided into parts, it remained economically in the control

of a single person, who conducted the entire process as a “trustee”

or “representative.”^425

The estate was administered, then, by a single trustee, especially

necessary in the case of Mes’s family, because it was torn by inter-

nicine squabbles. This trustee would have been effectively the head

of the family.^426 It was he or she who cultivated the estate and

divided the income into separate shares. This trustee was apparently

able to exclude those whom he or she did not recognize as family

members. Such people obviously received no shares (p“.w) from the

estate.^427

6.3.5 The undertaking to bury an individual apparently gives the

one financing the burial the right to inherit from the deceased.^428

(^419) Allam, Hieratische Ostraka.. ., 160, 161 (no. 157); Allam, Verfahrensrecht.. ., 18.
(^420) See Spalinger, “Will of Senimose.. .,” 633. See also Théodoridès, “Le testa-
ment dans l’Égypte ancienne,” 440–61.
(^421) McDowell, “Agricultural Activity.. .,” 202.
(^422) Ibid., 205.
(^423) Inscription of Mes; see Allam, “Les Obligations.. .,” 97.
(^424) Eyre, “Feudal Tenure.. .,” 120. On the role of the rw≈, see also Janssen-
Pestman, “Bulaq X.. .,” 169–70.
(^425) Allam, “Obligations.. .,” 97, remarks that the familial patrimony may be kept
undivided following the death of the parents, citing Mes.
(^426) Eyre, “Feudal Tenure.. .,” 116.
(^427) Cf. ibid.
(^428) Janssen and Pestman, “Bulaq X.. .,” 168. Cf. O. Petrie 16 (Allam, Hieratische
Ostraka.. ., 232); O. DeM 225; (ibid., 105–6).
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