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Laws and Justice

 

            The societal process was never something I carefully considered and thought about. There is an apparent structure that can be clearly seen but who’s to say that it was the same about a few hundred years back. This can be asked even for the surrounding areas of which we are comfortable. This was one thought train that led me to really being curious about the laws and justice of ancient Egypt. I wondered how similar the laws and justice system of ancient Egypt were to ours in the United States. More curiously though, what were some of the main aspects of the laws and justice system of ancient Egypt?

            As an overall perspective, there are a few similarities like having specific court cases be dealt with at certain locations, which meant there were crimes, police, and crime investigations. As times and money got tougher the crime increased, as can be seen in most areas not just in the U.S. As we zoom into the details though of how ancient Egypt dealt with their crime waves we begin to see the differences. In ancient Egypt “the legal and administrative systems seem not to have been well defined” (touregypt.net).  This not only led to kings and viziers having the power to deal with any law breaking but also the harsh punishment if caught.

            In ancient Egypt, the idea of truth, law, and order was known under Ma ’at. The Egyptian Goddess of Justice was of high importance and “was considered to be the most important principle of the world” (duhaime.org). Though the concept of justice was held at such high standards the fact and happenings of “chaos, evil, and lies” (duhaime.org) could not be stopped, as stated in the previous paragraph. If caught, “their punishment could be savage” (reshafim.org).

            Besides the up-keeping of the laws and justice on the higher end of things, there was also the lower and basic “framework of society” (Petrie, Ch. 1) that kept it running. In the beginning, there was the hunter/gatherer phase which didn’t really see much violence but definitely had use for the phrase “Trespassers will be prosecuted” (Petrie, p. 2). As time went on, crops became the source of food and income. “In this period the storage of corn was the only form of capital which could be used to pay for united action, and purposes which were beyond the powers of a village” (Petrie, p. 4). Lastly, ancient Egyptian society saw the arrival of metals and then it was “used to pay for labour” (Petrie, p. 4).

            The main aspect and similarity of ancient Egyptian laws and justice was how it was ran by “money” and superiority. It is a big thing to not only know you have money or wealth but to know you have power because of that. In many societies, this is a major problem and, unfortunately, probably, always will be an issue. At the bottom of the economy pyramid we have those who struggle and, at the top, those who prosper. It is just a known fact that causes the chaos and crime that keep the system going.

 

 

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Final Edit: November 30, 2014

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