778
However, the precise nature of the reform and its actual impact on
the use of legal documents cannot be determined.
From the later New Kingdom through the Saite period, Egypt
was subject to massive foreign pressure. Given the long tradition of
private contracts in the Mesopotamian world, some have proposed
foreign influence on the development of Egyptian legal practice.^7
This problem is still to be explored.^8 The geographical distribution
of the legal sources is uneven. Most of the economic documents, for
example, come from Thebes, whence derive almost all of the espe-
cially important abnormal hieratic texts.^9 That is the designation gen-
erally applied to a form of hieratic derived from the New Kingdom
hieratic business script. Used in the Third Intermediate period, abnor-
mal hieratic gradually gave way to Demotic in the Saite period.1.1 Law Code
In his Chronicle, Prince Osorkon (Twenty-second Dynasty—end of
the ninth and beginning of the eighth centuries) describes the laws
(hp.w) as having “perished in the hands of those who rebelled against
their lord.”^10 It has been suggested that sections of the Demotic Legal
Code of Hermopolis (P. Mattha) may derive in part from the Third
Intermediate period.^111.2 Edicts
The major historical texts of the Third Intermediate period contain
a certain amount of legal information. The very important Banishment
Stela^12 (Twenty-first Dynasty) is an oracular decree, dealing with the
appointment of a High Priest of Amun; the basic question is whether(^7) Ibid., vi.
(^8) See the remarks of Eyre, “Adoption Papyrus.. .,” 213. In a paper (“Third
Intermediate Period Antecedents of Demotic Legal Terminology”) read at the
Demotic Conference in Copenhagen (August, 1999), Ritner countered the claim
that Aramaic had a significant impact on the Demotic tradition, presenting earlier
Egyptian antecedents for many of the phrases and terms used to make the argu-
ment for Aramaic influence.
(^9) Malinine, Choix.. ., 8–9; on the distinction between abnormal hieratic and
Demotic, see Vleeming, “Phase initiale.. .,” 38–41.
(^10) Caminos, Osorkon.. ., 42.
(^11) Johnson, “Annuity Contracts.. .,” 114, and “The Persians.. .,” 157; Allam,
“Traces.. .,” 15; Eyre, “Crime.. .,” 92, and “Adoption Papyrus.. .,” 216.
(^12) von Beckerath, “Stele der Verbannten.. .”; Kitchen, Third Intermediate Period...,
255, 260.
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