Before calenders, how did people decide a prisoners sentence.I doubt they killed all of them...?

Answer 1

They killed many of them--stonings and hanging were popular. They also whipped people and put them in stocks, cut off their hands and there was a lot less crime.

Answer 2

The ancient civil Egyptian calendar, known as the Annus Vagus or "Wandering Year", had a year that was 365 days long, consisting of 12 months of 30 days each, plus 5 extra days at the end of the year. The months were divided into 3 "weeks" of ten days each.

This calendar was in use by at least 2700 BCE, but probably before that. A text from the reign of First Dynasty King Djer indicates that the Egyptians had already established a link between the heliacal rising and the beginning of the year. The Egyptians seem to have used a lunar calendar at an earlier date, but when they discovered the discrepancy between the lunar calendar and the actual passage of time, they switched to a calendar based on the Nile inundation. The first inundation according to the calendar was observed in Egypt's first capital, Memphis, at the same time as the heliacal rising of Sirius (Egyptian Sopdet, Greek Sothis). The Egyptian year was divided into the three seasons of akh.t (Inundation), pr.t (Growth - Winter) and shomu (Harvest - Summer).

So calendars were known about 5000 years ago.

The primary form of state-administered punishment during ancient times and the Middle Ages was banishment or exile. For the most part, crime was viewed as a private matter in Ancient Greece and Rome. Even with offenses as serious as murder, justice was the prerogative of the victim's family. Payment to the victim (or their family) was another common punishment, including for violent crimes. For those who could not afford to buy their way out of punishment, harsh penalties included various forms of corporal punishment or slavery. These included mutilation, whipping, branding, and flogging, as well as execution.

Answer 3

The concept of imprisonment for crime is a fairly recent one. Did you know that under the Roman Republic there was no prison in Rome. Criminals were either put to death. or had some nasty mutilation carried out. Alternatively, there were other 'punishments' which involved making recompense to the injured party. For example, both the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings used a system called 'weregild' maning man price. This laid down a table of payments due to a murdered person's family, the amounts depending on the dead person's status in life.

Answer 4

I think a lot depends on how far back you want to go. 'Way, 'way back, punishments like flogging and branding, or mutilation of some form, were a lot more common than imprisonment. And imprisonment was a lot more punitive than it is now, in the sense that there wasn't a lot of care given to prisoners.

The attitude used to be that punishment was supposed to stop people from committing crimes. You wanted to stop the person who had committed the crime from doing it again, and you wanted to make sure that other people who were thinking about committing the crime were deterred. Body mutiliations and public torture did a fairly effective job of this. (It also helped that most punishments were fitted to the social class a person came from. You can be darn sure that a noble who stole bred from a peasant didn't get much, if any, punishment, while a peasant who stole bread from a noble probably got whatever the maximum punishment was.)

Lots of things that were regarded as crimes had more to do with someone stepping out of their social class than the actual crime committed. Poor people who confined their criminal activities within their own class were probably fairly safe; but stepping outside your class to commit crimes against your betters was subject to harsh punishment because of the threat such things posed to the upper classes.

Answer 5

Oh believe me, we've had calendars for a loooong time. Before that, how were their sentences carried out? I believe "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" would be apt, as your property would be confiscated for theirs, otherwise you would be sold into slavery until the debt could be repaid.

Another possibility is that the ruler had already decided what punishment was equitable for a given crime. Look up the code of Hammurabi, that was set up to dole out punishments and whatnot over thousands of years ago. It wasn't always the case that you were punished by being confined for a period of time. Property seizures and/or corporal punishment have also been used. Think lashings, canings, indentured servitude, etc.


EDIT: Code of Hammurabi link added: 1760 BC? That's a ways back dude.

Answer 6

Before calendars were made, a prisoners sentence was always life. Most prisoners were debters or thieves. Before the Roman Empire rose, there was no true or just trial by jury.

Answer 7

i don't really think there WAS a time before calendars..... everyone kept time in order some way or another. i'm sure they were kept in prison different amount of times depending on the actual crime.

Answer 8

they used the sun, or they killed all of them, calendars were invented a long time ago like before julius ceasar

Answer 9

By the day, moon or season

Answer 10

When you wrote prisoner, had you meant slave?