ROBINSON COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Development of the Justice System in Ancient Egypt from the Old to the Middle Kingdom Alexandre Alexandrovich Loktionov January 2019 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 1 Contents List of figures ............................................................................................................................................ 6 Preface ..................................................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................................... 8 Note on citations and appendices............................................................................................................ 9 Note on rendering of names, titles and concepts .................................................................................. 10 Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................................... 11 1: Introduction, theoretical approaches, and methodology .................................................................. 14 The challenges of studying justice systems: the case of Ancient Egypt ............................................. 14 Previous research on Ancient Egyptian justice .................................................................................. 19 Academic divides regarding Egypt as ‘African’ ............................................................................... 23 Overall limitations of existing research .......................................................................................... 24 Ancient Egyptian justice and its connotations for wider legal, historical and ethnographic scholarship ......................................................................................................................................... 25 Aims of the present work ................................................................................................................... 27 Methodology ...................................................................................................................................... 29 Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 32 2: Ethnographic insights into Ancient Egyptian justice .......................................................................... 41 Ethnographic material from Egypt: traditional justice in Western accounts ..................................... 43 Arbitrary and absolute power of presiding judicial officials .......................................................... 44 Power of judicial officials linked to general social seniority rather than legal training ................. 45 Judicial procedure heavily influenced by local relations, patronage, and religion ........................ 46 Relevance of these findings to the Ancient Egyptian setting ......................................................... 47 Uncovering a legal landscape: a legal pluralist view of Egyptian judicial process ................................... 49 Informal conflict resolution: traditional African contexts and Egypt ................................................. 51 Chiefs as holders of non-binding but socially authoritative powers of arbitration ....................... 51 Communal assemblies as places of conflict resolution through lengthy discussion ..................... 52 Theory of justice in traditional sub-Saharan societies ................................................................... 53 2 Religious aspects of justice ............................................................................................................ 55 The power of the spoken word ..................................................................................................... 56 The time and place of justice ......................................................................................................... 57 Interactions of traditional justice with formal state law ............................................................... 58 An additional dimension: a case study of linkage between Egypt and Senegal? .......................... 59 Lessons from ethnography: extra judicial insights from across time and space ................................. 62 3: People and places of judgment in the Old Kingdom ......................................................................... 64 WDo-mdw in inscriptions..................................................................................................................... 64 WDo-mdw in titles ............................................................................................................................... 67 wDo-mdw – 'Divider of words' ........................................................................................................ 67 Hry-sSt# n wDo-mdw – 'Master of secrets of dividing words' .......................................................... 68 sm#o wDo-mdw – ‘Enforcer of dividing words’ ................................................................................ 70 |my-r# wDo-mdw – ‘Overseer of dividing words’ ............................................................................ 71 wD wDo-mdw n Hry.(w)-wDb.(w) – ‘Commander and divider of words of the diverters of offerings’..72 s#b |my-r# sS.w wDo-mdw St# – ‘Dignitary, overseer of scribes and secret divider of words’ ......... 73 Hry-tp mdw n wDo-mdw St# n Hw.t-wr.t – ‘Chief of words of the secret dividing of words of the great enclosure’ ............................................................................................................................. 73 |rr Htp.t n M#o.t m wDo-mdw m#o ro nb D.t – ‘One who makes offerings to M#o.t by true dividing of words every day, forever’ .............................................................................................................. 73 |r.w(?) wD.t wDo-mdw – ‘One who conducts(?) the commands and dividing of words(?)’ ........... 74 Places of wDo-mdw ............................................................................................................................. 74 Ow.t-wr.t – ‘The great enclosure’ / Ow.t-wr.t-6 – ‘Six great enclosures’ ...................................... 74 !#y.t – ‘The (temple) portal’ .......................................................................................................... 78 WsX.t – ‘The broad court’ .............................................................................................................. 80 E#D#.t – ‘The men of the circle’ ..................................................................................................... 81 c.wt Sps.wt – ‘The noble places’ .................................................................................................... 83 Defining the wider legal landscape of the Old Kingdom: other titles regularly found alongside wDo- mdw and sDm in title strings .............................................................................................................. 83 The role of Om-nTr M#o.t – ‘Priest of M#o.t ’ ................................................................................... 86 Imy-r# |p.t/wp.t and the significance of |p/wp ................................................................................ 88 Royal connections .......................................................................................................................... 90 The link between sDm and xry-Hb.t – ‘Lector priest’: coincidence or not? ................................... 91 Officials with shorter title strings: the prominence of sms.w h#y.t – ‘Elder of the portal’ and r# NXn – ‘Mouth of Hierakonpolis’ .................................................................................................... 91 3 Contextualising wDo-mdw: links to the concept of sDm ...................................................................... 93 cDm in titles ........................................................................................................................................ 94 Hry-sSt# n sDm.t wo – ‘Unique master of secrets of hearing’ .......................................................... 94 |my-r# sDm.t nb.t – ‘Overseer of every hearing’ ............................................................................. 95 xry sdm – ‘One charged with hearing’ ........................................................................................... 96 sDm.w-mdw m sSt# nb – ‘Hearer of words in every secret' ............................................................. 96 WDo-mdw and sDm: complementary processes with points of convergence? ................................... 96 Case studies: a selection of Old Kingdom legal officials..................................................................... 98 The official with overwhelmingly judicial focus: #X.t-mHw ............................................................. 98 The judicial official with royal connections: Nnk| .......................................................................... 98 The scribal administrator with judicial focus: ct-k# ........................................................................ 99 The high official engaged in justice alongside much else: MHw .................................................... 99