laws and legal codes: Egypt specified law No formal Egyptian legal codes have been preserved, at least not until the seventh century b.c.e., when the demotic language (a simplified form of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing) developed and Egyptians began using written legal documents and contracts instead of the traditional oral agreements of the Pharaonic Period (third to first millennium b.c.e.) That is not to say that the writing down of laws was unimportant at earlier dates in Egypt Specific enactments were issued, published, and consulted as laws The surviving evidence of documents, however, is scanty, preserved in a fragmentary form on stelae (monumental stone slabs), in archives on papyrus, or in funerary texts Important information about crimes and punishment derives mainly from official records rather than private documents Those include decrees on behalf of temples or funerary cults that describe the means by which a decree was to be enforced, records of the Great Prison from the late Middle Kingdom (2040–1640 b.c.e.), and papyri documenting actual criminal investigations of the late New Kingdom (1550–1070 b.c.e.) Quite common in the vocabulary of these enactments is the term hep—like the English term law—which refers to the specific enactment but also to the normative custom and to the law as an abstract moral order Hep belonged to maat It existed from the very beginning of time as the embodiment of the order given to the organized world by the creator god The tight relationship between these two concepts of cosmic and political order and justice was best exemplified by the appearance of the maat goddess symbol as an amulet (charm) motif around a judge’s neck, as described by the ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Diodorus The ultimate authority in the settlement of disputes was the pharaoh, whose decrees were supreme Law in Egypt, especially during the New Kingdom, was specifically “what Pharaoh had said.” The king referred to himself as a “fi xer of laws.” The Great Edict of Horemheb (r ca 1319–1307 b.c.e.) and the Nauri Decree of the Seti I (r 1306–1290 b.c.e.) provide idealized literary expressions of royal control of judging and administering, presented in the form of specific instructions to limit the independence of authority For example, in his edict, Horemheb proclaims that he is “the one who fi xes laws for the king and gives regulations to the courtiers.” Because of the complex nature of legal administration, the pharaoh delegated powers to provincial governors and other officials Most prominent among them was the vizier, who could appoint magistrates as part of his legal duties In modern legal systems there is a clear distinction between public or official law and private cases Public law includes basic penal law, administrative law, and relationships between individuals and functionaries Private law deals with relationships between individuals In ancient Egypt, however, no basic distinction existed between administrative and judicial authority or function “Courts,” or “courts of auditors,” were formed, with officers who held administrative as well as judicial duties and sat “as a court constituted to judge” 623 (according to the Great Edict of Horemheb) All local courts were controlled by the “great court” of Thebes and the court of Heliopolis; both consisted of the most prominent civil or military officers of Upper and Lower Egypt under the vizier’s command Important lawsuits, such as those involving land or influential people, were brought directly to the great court after a written complaint had been laid before the vizier Lesser cases were left to local courts Specialized courts and judges sitting in permanent rooms developed only after the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 b.c.e.) The court was responsible for keeping legal records and documents, such as depositions, and dealt with litigation and punishment The members of the court were responsible for the preliminary investigations of a case—questioning witnesses and suspects, examining the validity and truth of their statements, hearing the depositions of litigants, and examining the written evidence In New Kingdom texts from Thebes (southern Egypt), those agents who were responsible The Rosetta Stone, from Fort St Julien, el-Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt (Ptolemaic Period, 196 b.c.e.); the inscription is a decree passed by a council of priests, one of a series that affirm the contol of the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation (© The Trustees of the British Museum)