y
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 Helle