ancient egypt civilization began roughly 7 000 years ago it might be hard to believe but even in those times egypt had laws and rules like we have today but while on one hand they had humane practices of equal rights to women and all social classes on the other they had piles of amputated limbs heads and phalluses depicting how ruthless and cold their justice system could be welcome to nutty history and let's find out what laws and punishment were like in ancient egypt egypt's first laws emerged when the upper and lower kingdoms were unified under king menace around 2950 bc also known as the beginning of the old kingdom local laws during the old kingdom and middle kingdom of egypt was a private affair order was kept by the local officials who had their own private guards just like how seven kingdoms had their respective armies in game of thrones there were two types of prosecution for violating the moral norms the first was the religious court of the underworld where the deceased is tried in front of osiris for his actions and the second was a civil court where the discipline of the community was imposed most of the judicial matters were controlled by the vizier the pharaoh's right hand criminal justice necessitated a hierarchy in the judicial system depending on the severity of the charge the most heinous criminals could be judged only by the pharaoh often with the vizier conducting the investigation and turning to the pharaoh for final judgment in some cases the pharaoh appointed a special commission with full authority to pass judgment punishment for serious crimes included penal servitude and execution while mutilation and flogging were often used to punish offenders of lesser crimes the local court or ken bett was made up of community leaders who would hear the cases and decide who's guilty and who's innocent the jejot or the imperial court was headed by the vizier who was the ultimate supreme judge as long as we do not count to pharaoh but most cases were handled by the lower magistrates although there was an administrative building called the judgment hall in every city the court could be held almost anywhere even in the marketplace or on the street there were no lawyers or appeals the priest of amen were the ones who decided the verdict as the people trusted them to give a just hearing and to make the right judgment this was bureaucratic judgment instead of weighing evidence and testimonies priests would confer with their god to reach a verdict you can imagine how fair this system must have been during the middle kingdom which was established around the 20th century bc judiciary became a more rational and logical paradigm in the contemporary world professional judges presided over the courts and the judicial system operated based on reason and cause this period also saw the creation of the first professional police force which enforced the law took suspects into custody and testified in court later with the dawn of the new kingdom egypt adopted the idea of a centralized police force which evolved from the nubian allies of egypt the medjay these superior and more organized police officers were equipped with staff and dogs or baboons to catch criminals they took special pride in serving pharaohs as the guards of egypt and in their policing neither the rich nor poor were above the law although punishment for criminal offenders could be severe and in the modern viewpoint barbaric egyptian law was nevertheless admirable in its support of basic human rights the pharaoh bocaris for example promoted individual rights suppressed imprisonment for debt and reform laws relating to the transferal of property greek salon's judicial system of reforming athens penal code was mostly inspired by the egyptian codes there were two types of crimes in ancient egypt the first kind was committed against the community such as murder adultery theft of personal property and crimes committed against the state such as bribery treason theft of public property and any kind of crimes committed against religious institutions citizens guilty of any crime were prone to punishment ranging from confiscation of property beatings and mutilation to death without a proper burial death without a proper burial was considered the worst fate as the egyptians believed that a proper burial was essential for entering the afterlife so the threat of this last punishment was a real deterrent one of the reasons why egypt survived so long as a civilization was due to the no tolerance policy they had against corruption among the most serious crimes of the state's administrative work was mainly bribery it was punished by dismissal from office and the degrading of the stature of a farmer on the other hand the penalty for stealing the property of individuals was to pay a fine up to two or three times as stolen objects and as for the theft of public property the thief would pay up to 180 times the number of stolen materials the accused would be ordered to return to stolen goods after a full confession but that was not the end of their punishment for he was a subject of a beating a hundred strokes by hand followed by force in the guilty to swear an oath this whole punishment would be executed publicly to shame the culprit and make sure they never repeat it again and if they did well repeating offenders would be thrown into the river to become the delicious lunch of crocodiles based on the inscriptions of ani the bullock papyrus and the lead papyrus ancient egypt condemned adultery and considered it punishable by death if a complaint was raised by the spouse of the person involved in adultery if found guilty of adultery the accused would pray for death by immolation as the alternative to that punishment was having their genitals mutilated the sexual violation was considered an equally heinous and reproachable crime the ancient egyptians had their moral stance on sexual transgressions harassment and sexual assault were considered greater crimes according to moral papyrus which is now located in the british museum any harm done to a female was met with severe punishment [Music] the ancient egyptians appreciated the sanctity of life and respected it that's why they used the death penalty exclusively to not violate the sanctity this is why the penalty of killing a human was divided between murder and manslaughter this was pretty humane for ancient times but at the same time an example had to be made in order to preserve the non-violation of the death penalty the death penalty was for intentional murder and even resorted to psychological sanctions that were viewed as more severe than execution for example a son or daughter killing one of his parents would straight up go on a pyre and be immolated but in the case of the father killing a son or daughter the body of the killer was tied with the corpse of the victim for three days until the moment of decomposition all while under the protection of guards talk about a guilt trip as grave robbing was considered a huge sin if one was found guilty the death sentence would be given to the accused an example was made out of anyone guilty of murders to act as a deterrent for anyone who threatened to kill anyone martyrdom was a gift granted to those sentenced to death by the people as for involuntary manslaughter there was no specific penalty as the doer wouldn't enter his house until he cleans himself of the sin makes offerings seeks forgiveness from the family of the offender and made appropriate compensation the penalty did not overlook whoever covers up the murder or held information regarding the crime as they were to stand in front of judges and if found guilty he would stay in his place and take his life whoever kills an animal with a symbolic religious significance would be executed if it was done intentionally treason and treachery were other crimes for which the highest punishment was reserved they treated treachery with the highest disdain and it almost always ended with certain death in the cards the closer the offender was to the pharaoh the higher the chances were of them losing their heads if found guilty and like in the case of most other such crimes there were no great privileges or rights for the punished grave robbing was considered the greatest sin of all in ancient egypt and thus getting caught meant becoming pretty much lunch for crocodiles or being impaled to death if the tomb belonged to a royal figure like a king queen or prince there was no escaping death however in other cases the laws provided an exemption they simply cut off offenders hands quite merciful isn't it contrary to the modern world ancient egypt believed that a suspect was guilty until proven otherwise which made life very difficult for anybody who was accused of any charges and you wouldn't believe it but it never ended even after they were proven innocent which rarely happened especially in earlier kingdoms and the ordeal wasn't just for the suspect alone the witnesses were roped in as well and even they were beaten harshly to make sure they spoke the truth once a person was charged with a crime even if one was finally found innocent one's name was kept on record as having been a suspect as such public disgrace seems to have been as great a deterrent as any other punishment even if one were completely exonerated of all wrongdoing one would still be known in one's community as a former suspect a false charge was considered a grave offense and not only because it disgraced an innocent citizen but because it called into question the efficacy of the law the law was pretty much considered derived from the divinity of the goddess ma'at the goddess of justice virtue and wisdom if an innocent person could be punished by a system they claimed divine origin then either the system was wrong or the gods were and the authorities were not interested in having people debate those points anybody who purposely and only lied to the court about a crime could expect any kind of punishment from amputation to death by drowning so what do you think would you dare to take a chance of committing a crime in ancient egypt tell us in the comments and if you enjoyed this video check out this video about what punishment was like in ancient greece or if you want more egyptian content check out creepy things that were normal in ancient egypt and as always thanks for watching nutty history [Music] you