How did Ancient Egyptians deal with rapists?

CAIRO – 6 January 2020:  Day after day new incidents of rape and physical abuse emerge.

Although the law, religions and custom forbade these actions, there are sick souls still carrying out such shameful acts, which have been rejected by human morals since the dawn of history.

Perhaps the last of those crimes that spread on social media is a person sexually assaulting a university student at the Faculty of Medicine, who works as a babysitter for his children.

For the pharaohs, the punishment for adultery was the death penalty by burning, and the cutting of the genital organ, based on the inscriptions of Ani, the Bulaq papyrus, and the Leed papyrus.

In addition, the attempt to commit adultery or rape, sometimes faced the same punishment, or sometimes less, depending on the harm done to the female, as mentioned by the French scientist Kabar, one of the leading specialists in the study of ancient Egyptian criminal law.

According to the archaeological researcher Magdy Shaker, an Egyptian papyrus dating back to the year 1200 BC revealed an incident of harassment in the city of Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt, which is currently located in the city of Luxor in Upper Egypt.

“The ancient Egyptians had their moral stance on sexual transgressions, for they were originally forbidden fornication, and thus harassment and rape became a greater crime,” said Shaker.

This moral papyrus which recorded the crime of Paneb was discovered in the 19th century and is in the British Museum.

It describes a litany of morally corrupt actions by the chief master craftsmen Paneb, who oversaw construction work on the pharaohs' tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

The Egyptian professor adds that the fate of Paneb is not mentioned, but he was most likely executed because of the horror of his crime.

This is how ancient societies give an ethical picture in dealing with harassment 3000 years ago.