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Historical SummaryAt an early date, certainly before 1500 B.C., the negative confession was developed in Egypt. The records of this are inscriptions relating to kings and officials and reflect the repudiation of sin they were prepared to make after death, when the heart was weighed and the behavior reviewed by the forty-two judges of the spirit world. The following inscription on the tomb of Ameni, monarch of the Oryx-nome, is typical; and certainly the necessity of making claims of this kind would tend to influence the patterning of behavior in the direction claimed:
There was no citizen’s daughter whom I misused, there was no widow whom I oppressed, there was no peasant whom I repulsed, there was no herdsman whom I repelled. There was no overseer of serf laborers, whose people I took for (unpaid) imposts, there was none wretched in my community, there was none hungry in my time. When years of famine came I plowed all the fields of the Oryx-nome, as far as its southern and northern boundary, preserving its people alive, and furnishing its food, so that there was none hungry therein. I gave to the widow as to her who had a husband; I did not exalt the great above the small in all I gave. Then came great Niles, rich in grain and all things, but I did not collect the arrears of the field.1
1Breasted, J.H.n/an/an/an/a, , 160 (Charles Scribner’s Sons. By permission).
Chicago: History of Egypt in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Thomas, William I. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937), Original Sources, accessed April 19, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QWEWF2Z6AYSDF4T.
MLA: . History of Egypt, in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, edited by Thomas, William I., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937, Original Sources. 19 Apr. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QWEWF2Z6AYSDF4T.
Harvard: , History of Egypt. cited in 1937, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. , McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 19 April 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QWEWF2Z6AYSDF4T.
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