What Happened If You Broke the Law in Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, no written criminal code has ever been found, and prison was only a holding cell before trial. So what actually happened to a thief, a tomb robber, or a corrupt judge? This video follows the surviving papyri from Thebes around 1110 BCE to show how Egyptian courts worked, how confessions were extracted, and who paid the price. You'll hear the confession of the stonemason Amenpnufer, who tunneled into the tomb of King Sobekemsaf. You'll see how a feud between two Theban mayors drove a tomb-robbery investigation. And you'll learn how the judges in the harem conspiracy against Ramesses III ended up punished themselves. We also look at what the evidence can't tell us: these records come from one region, one era, and one literate elite, so the justice ordinary villagers faced is mostly lost. Sources include the Abbott Papyrus, the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, and Egyptological studies of Ramesside crime and punishment. #AncientEgypt #Egyptology #AncientHistory #TombRobbers #NewKingdom #RamessesIII