Egyptian Scholars, Priests and Temples between Autonomy and State Authority

Abstract

Abstract Egyptian temples and priests reshaped the Egyptian legal system throughout the first millennium BCE, as a result of both temple autonomy and state authority. In the early Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069–850 BCE), royal enforcement of laws diminished, and temples filled this vacuum by extending the use of judicial oracles, both to resolve disputes, and to document transactions. In the late Third Intermediate Period (c. 850–664 BCE), the temples decreased the use of judicial oracles, and introduced temple notary contracts to document transactions. Temples thereby established that written documentation took precedence over verbal witnesses, and they also developed systems of legal procedures employing these temple notary contracts. In doing so, the temples encouraged individuals to invest in private property. In the Saite and Persian Periods (664–332 BCE), resurgent royal and later imperial authorities brought uniformity to the forms of temple notary contracts, and to the system of legal procedures employing them. The temples may have produced codes of laws and legal procedures at this time, if they had not done so already in the late Third Intermediate Period. Priests also introduced the practice of antiquarian legal scholarship, to establish ancient legal precedents. Finally, in the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE), the royal authorities continued to regulate temple courts and temple notaries. Nonetheless, they accepted at least some claims based on antiquarian legal scholarship by priests.