it is only very rarely that men are depicted riding on animals, and never before the New Kingdom.
The dog was of many varieties as early as the XIIth Dynasty, when the greyhound and turnspit and other well-marked forms are seen. The cat was sometimes trained by the sportsman to catch birds. Monkeys were commonly kept as pets. The sacred beasts in the various temples, tame as far as possible, were of almost every conceivable variety, from the vulture to the swallow or the goose, from the lion to the shrew-mouse, from the hippopotamus to the sheep and the monkey, from the crocodile to the tortoise and the cobra, from the carp to the eel; the scorpion and the scarab beetle were perhaps the strangest in this strange company of deities.
For agriculture see J. J. Tylor and F. Ll. Griffith, The Tomb of Paheri at El Kab, in the XIth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Together with hunting and fishing it is illustrated in many of the Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of the same society. See also Lortet and M. C. Gaillard, La Faune momifiée de l’ancienne Égypte (Lyons, 1905).
Law.—No code of Egyptian laws has come down to us. Diodorus names a series of Egyptian kings who were law-givers, ending with Amasis (Ahmosi II.) and Darius. Frequent reference is made in inscriptions to customs and laws which were traditional, and perhaps had been codified in the sacred books. From time to time regulations on special points were issued by royal decree: a fragment of such a decree, directed by Horemheb of the XVIIIth Dynasty against oppression of the peasantry by officials and prescribing penalties, is preserved on a stela in the temple of Karnak, and enactments of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Euergetes II. are known from papyri. In the Ptolemaic age matters arising out of native contracts were decided according to native law by λαοκριταί, while travelling courts of χρηματισταί representing the king settled litigation on Greek contracts and most other disputes. Affairs were decided in accordance with the code of the country, τῆς χώρας νόμοι, the Greek code, πολιτικοὶ νόμοι, modelled, it would seem, on Athenian law or royal decrees, προστάγματα. “Native” law was still quoted in Roman times, but the significance of the expression remains to be ascertained. In ancient Egypt petitions were sent to the king or the great feudal landowners in whose territory the petitioner or his adversary dwelt or the injury was committed: courts were composed of royal or feudal officials, or in the New Kingdom of officials or responsible citizens. The right of appeal to the king probably existed at all times. The statement of the case and the evidence were frequently ordered to be put in writing. The evidence was supported by oath: in criminal cases, such as the harem conspiracy against Rameses III., torture of the accused was resorted to to extract evidence, the bastinado being applied on the hands and the feet. Penalties in the New Kingdom were death (by starvation or self-inflicted), fines, beating with a certain number of blows so as to open a specified number of wounds on as many different parts of the body (e.g. five wounds, i.e. on hands, feet and back?), also cutting off the nose with banishment to Nubia or the Syrian frontier. In the times of the Old Kingdom decapitation was in use, and a decree exists of the Middle Kingdom degrading a nomarch of Coptos and his family for ever from his office and from the priesthood on account of services to a rival pretender.
As to legal instruments: contracts agreed to in public or before witnesses and written on papyrus are found as early as the Middle Kingdom and perhaps belong to all historic times, but are very scarce until the XXVth Dynasty. Two wills exist on papyrus of the XIIth Dynasty, but they are isolated, and such are not again found among native documents, though they occur in Greek in the Ptolemaic age. The virtual will of a high priest of Ammon under the XXIInd Dynasty is put in the form of a decree of the god himself.
From the time of the XXVth Dynasty there is a great increase in written documents of a legal character, sales, loans, &c., apparently due to a change in law and custom; but after the reign of Darius I. there is again almost a complete cessation until the reign of Alexander, probably only because of the disturbed condition of the country. Under Ptolemy Philadelphus Greek documents begin to be numerous: under Euergetes II. (Physcon) demotic contracts are particularly abundant, but they cease entirely after the first century of Roman rule.
Marriage contracts are not found earlier than the XXVIth Dynasty. Women had full powers of inheritance (though not of dealing with their property), and succession through the mother was of importance. In the royal line there are almost certain instances of the marriage of a brother with an heiress-sister in Pharaonic times: this was perhaps helped by the analogy of Osiris and Isis: in the Ptolemaic dynasty it was an established custom, and one of the stories of Khamois, written in the Ptolemaic age, assumes its frequency at a very remote date. It would be no surprise to find examples of the practice in other ranks also at an early period, as it certainly was prevalent in the Hellenistic age, but as yet it is very difficult to prove its occurrence. The native contracts with the wife gave to her child all the husband’s property, and divorce or separation was provided for, entailing forfeiture of the dowry. The “native law” of Roman times allowed a man to take his daughter away from her husband if the last quarrelled with him.
Slavery is traceable from an early date. Private ownership of slaves, captured in war and given by the king to their captor or otherwise, is certainly seen at the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty. Sales of slaves occur in the XXVth Dynasty, and contracts of servitude are found in the XXVIth Dynasty and in the reign of Darius, appearing as if the consent of the slave was then required. Presumably at this late period there were eunuchs in Egypt, though adequate evidence of their existence there is not yet forthcoming. They must have originated among a more cruel people. That circumcision (though perhaps not till puberty) was regularly practised is proved by the mummies (agreeing with the testimony of Herodotus and the indications of the early tomb sculptures) until an edict of Hadrian forbade it: after that, only priests were circumcised.
See A. H. Gardiner, The Inscription of Mes (from Sethe’s Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ägyptens, iv.); J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, passim, esp. i. § 190, 535 et seqq., 773, ii. 54, 671, iii. 45, 367, iv. 416, 499, 795; F. Ll. Griffith, Catalogue of the John Rylands Demotic Papyri; B. P. Grenfell and J. P. Mahaffy, Revenue Laws of Philadelphus (Oxford, 1896); B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, Tebtunis Papyri, part i. (London, 1902); Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, tome iv. (Paris, 1907).
Science.—The Egyptians sought little after knowledge for its own sake: they might indulge in religious speculation, but their science was no more than the knowledge of practical methods. Undoubtedly the Egyptians acquired great skill in the application of simple means to the fulfilment of the most difficult tasks. But the books that have come down to us prove how greatly their written theoretical knowledge fell short of their practical accomplishment. The explanation of the fact may partly be that the mechanical and other discoveries of the most ingenious minds among them, when not in constant requisition by later generations, were misunderstood or forgotten, and even in other cases were preserved only as rules of thumb by the craftsmen and experts, who would jealously hide them as secrets of trade. Men of genius were not wanting in the long history of Egypt; two doctors, Imhōtp (Imuthes), the architect of Zoser, in the IIIrd Dynasty, and Amenōphis (Amenhotp), son of Hap, the wise scribe under Amenōphis III. in the XVIIIth, eventually received the honours of deification; and Hardadf under Cheops of the IVth Dynasty was little behind these two in the estimation of posterity. Such men, who, capable in every field, designed the Great Pyramids and bestowed the highest monumental fame on their masters, must surely have had an insight into scientific principles that would hardly be credited to the Egyptians from the written documents alone.
Mathematics.—The Egyptian notation for whole numbers was decimal, each power of 10 up to 100,000 being represented by a different figure, on much the same principle as the Roman numerals. Fractions except 23 were all primary, i.e. with the numerator unity: in order to express such an idea as 913 the Egyptians were obliged to reduce it to a series of primary
