Reviews

048

Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt

Pascal Vernus (trans. from the French by David Lorton)
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2003) 211 pp., $29.95 (cloth)

Reports of scandals are always titillating. Nonetheless, it often comes as a shock to realize that the peccadilloes of the past have a distinctly modern ring. Even dynastic Egypt had its “Harper Valley, P.T.A.,” as well its “Watergate” and “Enron” outrages.

Ancient Egyptian law consisted of a highly effective but heterogeneous set of regulations. Royal edicts were combined with, but rarely superseded, the laws of the gods and local customs. Courts at all levels functioned in accordance with established procedures, and litigants were able to appeal their cases in higher courts. The ideology of ma’at (order, justice, fair-dealing) was supposed to characterize the activity of administrators, whether civil or juridical. The policing of the realm involved several state-supported bodies, but citizens were also obliged to inform on each other. As one common laborer admitted: “Pharaoh l.p.h., my good lord, has administered an oath to the effect that I shall not hear anything, nor witness a theft … and conceal it.”

With its tightly organized and hierarchical social framework, the Egyptian state was well equipped to survive such dangers as internal dissent, invasion or economic crises. But even Pharaoh’s government had difficulty coping with vast environmental disasters, which threatened to throw the powerful Egyptian civilization into anarchy. We know of at least two episodes of extreme climatic change: in the 22nd-century B.C. (perhaps prompting a civil war that ended the 6th Dynasty), and then in the 12th century B.C., when low Nile levels resulted in diminished crops and widespread famine.

The 12th-century B.C. disaster is the focus of Pascal Vernus’s colorful book (first published in 1993 as Affaires et scandales sous les Ramsès). This is the period of Egypt’s 20th Dynasty (1186–1070 B.C.), which is also called the Ramesside period because nine of the dynasty’s pharaohs were named Ramesses. The Ramesside period is better represented in the textual record than most other epochs before the seventh century B.C. According to an archaeological rule of thumb, the records of any period immediately preceding the abandonment or destruction of a community have a better chance of surviving than do those of earlier periods. Because of the environmental disaster, Thebes ceased to function as a major government center at the end of the 20th Dynasty; consequently, the bureaucrats moved away, leaving their homes and “dead files.” In addition, those who worked in the necropolis on the west bank of the Nile were no longer needed, so they also abandoned Thebes, and they also left behind their records. From this rich trove of documents dating to the end of the New Kingdom, Vernus constructs his accounts of scandals, sometimes in vivid detail.

Vernus chooses five outrages: tomb robberies, labor strikes, the crimes of a foreman, the indictment of a priest at Elephantine and the so-called harem conspiracy, which concerns the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Pharaoh Ramesses III (1184–1153 B.C.).^a

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Indeed, the 20th Dynasty seems to have been unusually susceptible to grave robbing, strikes and conspiracies. The late-Ramesside period witnessed the loss of both the Asiatic and African empires, along with the revenues these vassals brought into Egypt. With inflation high and precious metals scarce, Egyptians understandably became curious about the prospects of untold wealth lying in the tombs of the Theban necropolis. In addition, economic hardship meant that employers found it almost impossible to pay their staff, precipitating labor strikes. And troubles in the realm are known to spur the appetites of ambitious men, allowing them to set their sights higher than they once had hoped.

Vernus leads us through all of this material with a practiced hand, deftly bridging the precipice between scholarly presentation of ancient texts and enjoyable story-telling.