The Mayer Papyri A and B: Nos. M. 11162 and M. 11186 of the Free Public Museums, Liverpool: Published by Authority of the Librarians, Museums and Arts Committe of the Corporati

The tomb robberies perpetrated during the later years of the 20th Egyptian dynasty have long been notorious. But not all of the ancient documents dealing with them were available before 1920. The Papyri Mayer A and B in Liverpool, as published in 1920 by T. Eric Peet with the collaboration of Alan H. Gardiner, represent the first fruits of an effort to understand the tomb robberies of this period. The Mayer Papyri [1] are Ancient Egyptian documents that contain records of court proceedings held in the first year of the reign of Ramesses X. A panel consisting of the vizier of the South and three high officials cross-examined suspects charged with tomb robbery at Deir el-Bahri, cf. also the Abbott Papyrus and the Amherst Papyrus. The interrogation of bothsuspects and witnesses was preceded by a bastinado and an oath in the name of the king was administered. The confessions of the six suspects were corroborated by the testimony of the chief of police of the Theban Necropolis and other witnesses, among them the son of one of the thieves who had died in the meanwhile. This witness had been a child at the time of the crime; still, he was beaten when he was being examined, as was a woman witness. While the ancient Egyptian judicial system was quite brutal, a verdict of guilty was not a foregone conclusion: The Mayer Papyri record the discharge of five men who had been found to be innocent.