A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

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EGYPT

DEMOTIC LAW

Joseph G. Manning

1. S L

1.1 Demotic

1.1.1 Demotic represents a distinct phase in the Egyptian language

and script, and we are justified in speaking in terms of Demotic

law,^1 representing as it does a new episode in Egyptian legal history.^2

There are, however, for the period covered by the term “Demotic

law,” other scripts and languages, hieroglyphic and the so-called

“abnormal (better: “cursive”) hieratic” for the early Demotic period,

and Greek, which became increasingly important, for the Middle

period of Demotic law. The use of Demotic as an independent lan-

guage of legal texts was in decline by the late Ptolemaic period,

although the last Demotic contract is dated 175/176 C.E.^3 Demotic

continued to be used for tax receipts into the first century C.E. (and

for temple accounts and literary texts well into the second century

I would like to thank Hans-Albert Rupprecht (Marburg), Dorothy Thompson

(Cambridge), Sandra Lippert (Würzburg) and Koen Donker Van Heel (Leiden) for

reading earlier versions of this chapter and for offering criticisms and suggestions.

(^1) Previous general surveys of Demotic law were written by El-Amir, “Introduc-
tion.. .,” and Edgerton, “Demotica.. .” Taubenschlag, Law.. ., incorporates Demotic
material into his large survey of the law of the papyri, as does Seidl, Ptolemäische
Rechtsgeschichte, 19. For Demotic texts, see Zauzich, “Die demotischen Dokumente,”
and DePauw, Companion.. ., 123–48. Articles concerned with Demotic and Greek
law in the papyri are reviewed by Hengstl in the Archiv für Papyrusforschung, “Juristische
Literaturübersicht,” now continued by the same author in the Journal of Juristic
Papyrology, and by Mélèze-Modrzejewski in the Revue historique de droit français et étranger.
Because of the limits of space and the overlap between early Demotic and abnor-
mal hieratic at the beginning of the period of coverage here, and of Demotic and
Greek texts at the end, this survey can in no way make a claim to complete coverage
of the law of Egypt from 650–30 B.C.E.
(^2) Malinine, Choix de textes..., xv–xxvi; Pestman, “L’origine.. .” There are cer-
tainly strong connections between Demotic law and earlier Egyptian legal tradi-
tions, clearly seen in the legal language and in conception.
(^3) P. Tebt Botti 3. On the decline of Demotic as a legal language, see Lewis,
“Demise...”
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