Curious Wills & Gifts - The Oldest Written Will

William Matthew Flinders Petrie, the famous English Egyptologist, unearthed around the turn of the century at Kahun a will which was forty-five hundred years old; there seems no reason to question either the authenticity or antiquity of the document. The will therefore antedates all other known written wills by nearly two thousand years.

The 1911 Irish Law Times, speaks of the will so entertainingly that its comments are here reproduced:

"The document is so curiously modern in form that it might almost be granted probate to-day. But, in any case, it may be assumed that it marks one of the earliest epochs of legal history, and curiously illustrates the continuity of legal methods. The value, socially, legally and historically, of a will that dates back to patriarchal times is evident.

" It consists of a settlement made by one Sekhenren in the year 44, second month of Pert, day 19, —that is, it is estimated, the 44th of Amenemhat III., or 2550 B.C., in favor of his brother, a priest of Osiris, of all his property and goods; and of another document, which bears date from the time of Amenemhat rV., or 2548 B.C. This latter instrument is, in form, nothing more nor less than a will, by which, in phraseology that might well be used to-day, the testator settles upon his wife, Teta, all the property given him by his brother, for life, but forbids in categorical terms to pull down the houses 'which my brother built for me,' although it empowers her to give them to any of her children that she pleases. A "lieutenant Siou" is to act as guardian of the infant children.

"This remarkable instrument is witnessed by two scribes, with an attestation clause that might almost have been drafted yesterday. The papyrus is a valuable contribution to the study of ancient law, and shows, with a graphic realism, what a pitch of civilization the ancient Egyptians had reached, — at least from a lawyer's point of view. It has hitherto been believed that, in the infancy of the human race, wills were practically unknown.

There probably never was a time when testaments, in some form or other, did not exist; but, in the earliest ages, it has so far been assumed that they were never written, but were nuncupatory, or delivered orally, probably at the deathbed of the testator.

Among the Hindus the law of succession hinged upon the due solemnization of fixed ceremonies at the dead man's funeral, not upon any written will. And it is because early wills were verbal only that their history is so obscure.

Indeed, until the ecclesiastical power assumed the prerogative of intervening at every break in the succession of the family, wills did not come into vogue in the West. But Mr. Petrie's papyrus seems to show that the system of settlement or disposition by deed or will was long antecedently practised in the East."

So it is written, so it shall be~~