State Terrorism and Punishment

At the dawn of Egypt's existence as a complex society, whoever was in charge had realised the advantage to the state of population size. Manpower meant power. Everyone backs a winner in the hope of future personal aggrandise­ment, and there is little incentive needed to cluster around the ‘Big-man'.

The success of this first great experiment in nation building at a practical, mundane level gave rise at the theoretical level to a pregnant philosophical concept. Ma'at, a peculiarly Egyptian notion, conveys the composite idea of cosmic order, societal efficiency, justice and stability. Priority in thinking and practice throws whatever is workable and viable into high profile. That which detracts from right dealing, effectiveness and ease of accomplishment represents the antithesis of ma'at. The gods were said to ‘live' on ma'at; the king offered up ma'at every day in the temples. The absence of ma'at at any given time could not be tolerated, as it threatened the very existence of ordered society.^[698] By a fictional conceit the passage from one reign to another was painted in vivid colours as the time when ma'at settled back into its proper place after the chaos and disorder attendant upon the death of the old king.

Be at ease, O entire land (for) good times have come! The Lord has arisen over all lands, and right dealing has settled in place.

Since adherence to ma'at meant the survival of the state, anyone whose actions were disjunctive and uncooperative was criminalised. His actions were considered rebellion against Pharaoh and the gods. Everyone in Egyptian society had an occupational niche and was under obligation to shoulder the responsibilities and tasks of his or her job. Flight from one's assigned task and place of residence brought pursuit by police and reprisals taken against families in the form of incarceration and hard labour.^[700] Malfeasance, unauthorised intervention and corruption by officials could bring 100 lashes and five open wounds.^[701] In fact, the threat ‘one hundred lashes' is found elsewhere in Egyptian law, for example in the case of the retraction of an oath in court.^[702] Government officials found guilty of unauthorised taxation or tax gouging ran the risk of the penalty of mutilation and exile.^[703] Although such draconian measures may well have been largely mooted for their deterrent effect, and rarely applied, certainly toponymic details suggest a degree of reality.^[704] Misusing temple property and chattels for one's private use could bring the punishment of impalement: ‘let the law be done to him in throwing him down and impaling him beside the temple from which he took any property or any personnel'.^[705] Whether impalement was often the punishment, it was certainly the fate of tomb robbers,^[706] and presumably of those found guilty of treason.^[707] In general cruel and unusual punishments could be authorised only by the king.^[708] Other forms of capital punishment included beheading on a block, a very ancient mode of execution known already in Predynastic times.^[709] Throwing to the crocodiles is attested to, both in a court setting and also as a literary motif.Death by fire was reserved for those plotting against the king, or guilty of sedition. The condemned were either bound and thrown into the flames, or they would be thrust into a fiery furnace, built at the palace gate, where all could see.^[710]