New Perspectives on Human and Divine Judgment in Ancient Egypt: Interplays of Ritual, Literary, and Judicial Spheres

Abstract This article brings together evidence that the exercise of justice in Ancient Egypt acted as a crucial liminal sphere of interaction between the worlds of the living and the supernatural. It argues that the judicial sphere provided a conceptual and physical environment that lay at the heart of a belief framework centred on integrating beings who were alive and beings who were not into a single ontological experience—a shared existence where they could interact with one another. It argues that a person’s participation in a legal process while alive could have a significant bearing on their prospects in the afterlife, and that evidence for this is plentiful in both the textual and archaeological records. Topics considered include the divine tribunal, the involvement of gods and the deceased in human courts, oracular justice, oaths, and the mythology of rightful inheritance surrounding the Contendings of Horus and Seth. These are set against the background of the physical settings in which justice occurred, including temple gates at the threshold of sacred precincts that by virtue of their location occupied the middle ground between earthly and otherworldly realms. Following an initial survey of material relevant to these broader themes, the article then focuses on a detailed case study of one particular physical environment replete with textual and architectural symbolism: the Memphite tomb chapel of Mose. This tomb chapel, containing scenes and descriptions of justice in both this world and the parallel world, can serve as a vehicle for interrogating the way in which overarching judicial themes could bind daily and mythological existences together, transforming the very nature of the litigant from a relatively minor participant in a court case to a transcendent being integrated into imagery of myth and its underlying logic.