they considered tomb robbery one of the most heinous
crimes. Tomb robbers became so rampant and bold that they
even began robbing the graves of the pharaohs during the
rule of Ramses IX (ca. 1131–1112 b.c.e.). Death was generally
the penalty for tomb robbing. One man, believed to be a grave
robber from the Twenty-Fift h Dynasty (which began around
700 b.c.e.), is reported to have been buried alive. Most crimes
against the government resulted in execution, as did most
murders, whether committed by a free citizen or a slave. Th e
death penalty was also administered for perjury, which the
Egyptians viewed as irreverence toward the gods as well as a
crime against society.
Nevertheless, some historians believe that Egypt made
relatively little use of the death penalty, at least in comparison
with other ancient cultures. Part of the reason may be that
Egyptians considered disgrace and designation as a “nonper-
son” to be a harsher penalty to endure than death. (Some-
times brands or cuts were used as visible signs of dishonor.)
Furthermore, a dead person could not serve the pharaoh or
government. Considering that those disgraced could regain
their honor and lost rights only by performing heroic or val-
iant deeds, an individual punished with disgrace could ulti-
mately prove benefi cial to society.
In addition to death and disgrace, Egyptian law met-
ed out a variety of other punishments, with beatings being
among the most common. Many punishments were barbaric
by modern standards. Mutilation—especially cutting off the
nose, ears, hand(s), or tongue—was a common punishment
for a variety of crimes. For example, a woman caught in adul-
tery had her nose cut off , not only as punishment but also
to destroy her attractiveness and thus prevent her from com-
mitting the crime again or enticing a man into adultery. As
in most ancient cultures, women oft en suff ered more severe
penalties than men. A man caught in adultery with a mar-
ried woman received a beating as a penalty, usually a thou-
sand strokes with a stick. However, if a man raped a freeborn
woman, he was castrated.
Despite the harshness of many penalties, Egypt pos-
sessed some concepts of basic human rights. For example,
when a pregnant woman received the death penalty, she was
not executed until her child was born, because the Egyptians
considered the child guilty of no crime and therefore not to
be punished for the mother’s misdeed. Pharaoh Bocchoris
(ca. 717–712 b.c.e.) suppressed the use of bondage or impris-
onment for debtors.
Th e Egyptians also had some unusual concepts of cer-
tain crimes and unique penalties for dealing with them. For
example, parents convicted of murdering their child were not
put to death, because they were considered to have given life
to the child. Instead, they were punished by having to hold
the baby’s dead body in their arms for three consecutive days
and nights, a penalty designed to evoke repentance and deter
them from committing the crime again. For a time the Egyp-
tians also tried dealing with the exploding problem of com-
mon theft (exclud i ng t heft involving tombs or temples) in a
unique way. Th ey set up a system in which thieves had to reg-
ister with a “captain of thieves” and report all the goods that
they stole, which the robbed person could then ransom for
one-fourth of the value. Despite this attempt to control theft
and restitution, it is believed that other punishments for theft
predominated throughout ancient Egypt’s history, including
death, fi nes, and various corporal punishments.
While confi nement was not a common form of punish-
ment for free citizens of Egypt, prisons did exist, dating to
the Middle Kingdom Twelft h and Th irteenth Dynasties (ca.
1991–1640 b.c.e.). Th e prison population was made up mostly
of servants and foreigners; for citizens penalties such as pub-
lic beatings, fi nes, or execution predominated. Some temple
depictions of prisons show decorative rows of panels that
contain the name of a conquered country or people, with the
heads and shoulders of bound prisoners above the panels.
Each panel is attached to a rope, and the pharaoh is depicted
as holding all of the ropes. Historians believe that the Egyp-
tian prisons were generally operated in an orderly manner
and kept relatively clean.
Th e infl uence of Egyptian laws related to crime and pun-
ishment was wide ranging. For example, the Greek Solon, who
became lawgiver in Athens in 594 b.c.e., visited Egypt and is
believed to have adopted some Egyptian views on crime and
punishment, including the idea of applying the same punish-
ment prescribed for a crime to someone who falsely accuses
another of that crime. Th e Greek idea of idleness as a crime
may also have come from Egypt, where free citizens had to
declare in writing how they made a living and could be putPapyrus with part of the “Tale of the Eloquent Peasant” from Egypt, around 1800 b.c.e.; a major literary text of the Middle Kingdom, this is the
story of crime and its punishment in a way that questions social and divine justice. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)
298 crime and punishment: Egypt