811
cular Amuletic Decrees, one may receive divine protection from
“murder.”^2918.2 Injury
Few legal texts refer to injury. An oracular text from Karnak con-
tains the complaint of persons before Amun regarding violence done
against them.^2928.3 Sexual Offenses
8.3.1 Adultery
Adultery is mentioned in the “marriage contracts” as the “great
crime.”^293 If a woman is found guilty of adultery and her husband
leaves her, he is apparently not obligated to give to her the “gift of
a woman,” to which he had agreed in the marriage “contract.”8.3.2 Rape
No legal text from the Third Intermediate period deals with rape.
In a boundary stela, the wife and children of the man damaging the
text will be “raped” by a donkey.^294 The rape and enslavement of
an evildoer’s wife and children also are threatened in the curse of
the Stèle de l’apanage.^2958.4 Theft
While there are traditional affirmations of probity—“(I) stole no
offering-share in the temple, but rather I shared it with the priests”^296 —
no actual private legal texts have to do with theft. In Stela Cairo
JE 66285 (ca. 950), Amun is asked to punish with death all of those
misappropriating the statue endowment of Nemlot at Abydos.^297 A
boundary stela (Twenty-second Dynasty?) contains the statement:
“Amun is the one who knows that I have not taken the least stalk
of grain or the smallest bundle of vegetables.”^298(^291) As translated by Edwards, Oracular Amuletic Decrees.. ., 75.
(^292) Vernus, “Inscriptions.. .,” 215 and ff.
(^293) In P. Berlin 3048, verso (partly restored), see Lüddeckens, Eheverträge.. ., 11;
Rabinowicz, “ ‘Great Sin’...”
(^294) Meeks, “Borne.. .,” 72.
(^295) Jansen-Winkeln, “Zu einigen religiösen.. .,” 255.
(^296) Jansen-Winkeln, Ägyptische Biographien.. ., 218.
(^297) Blackman, “Stela of Sheshonk.. .,” 92.
(^298) So Meeks, “Borne.. .,” 73.
westbrook_f22_775-818 8/27/03 1:34 PM Page 811