The First 'Lawyers'? Judicial Offices, Administration and Legal Pluralism in Ancient Egypt, c.2500-1800BCE

Abstract

Ancient Egypt is the oldest state to have left extensive records of both its judicial administration and its underlying legal thought, and yet it remains a striking case of a pre-Classical legal tradition being almost entirely ignored by historians of law. By addressing evolutions in Ancient Egyptian justice almost two millennia before the Twelve Tables, this chapter seeks to finally begin a long overdue process of filling this major gap in scholarship. This chapter explores the first seven centuries for which records of the Egyptian justice system are in place. Its primary focus is on judicial practitioners, and its main argument is that this period saw them develop from a rather loosely-defined collective of high officials engaging in ad hoc justice alongside many other activities, to a body of highly specialised individuals focused almost exclusively on legal matters: people who might be considered ‘lawyers’ in modern parlance. This evolution occurred within a context of much wider changes in Egyptian society and state administration, encompassing a highly centralised Pharaonic state in the Old Kingdom (c.2500-2200BCE), fragmentation into multiple independent polities in the First Intermediate Period (c.2200-2050BCE), and ultimately their amalgamation into a considerably less centralised Pharaonic state in the Middle Kingdom (C.2050-1800BCE). The weakening of centralised authority allowed greater wealth to remain in provincial centres, which contributed to a proliferation of lower-level officials and scribes away from the original administrative core at Memphis. These people had a transformative effect on the justice system within which they operated. This emerging class of ‘lawyers’ not only conducted justice in a manner different to their more senior but less specialised predecessors, but they also developed a different approach to legal thought. Old Kingdom justice was dominated by the overarching principle of Ma’at, a religious and cosmological concept of ‘right conduct’ which informed the ad hoc decisions taken by judges in the absence of codified law. On the other hand, the Middle Kingdom saw the introduction of a new concept: hpw, which refers to specific laws addressing particular circumstances. While it is unclear whether these were set down in writing or simply represented unwritten customs safeguarded by convention, the guiding principles of Middle Kingdom justice were certainly much more clearly defined than those of the preceding period. While Ma’at remained highly significant, and upholding it was still crucial to justice, hpw now provided the framework for the practicalities of doing so. At the same time, the first theoretical treatises on the nature of Ma’at were written, marking the dawn of recorded Egyptian jurisprudence and creating a tangible body of specialised knowledge for specialised officials. Thus, the justice systems of Ancient Egypt in 2500BCE and 1800BCE differed radically, both in theory and practice. This chapter will discuss how this came about, drawing extensively on the administrative and literary records of the times.