Greek sources, for instance, record that the Pharaoh Bakenranef (reigned 720–715 BC) issued a decree abolishing debt bondage and annulling all outstanding liabilities, since “he felt it would be absurd for a soldier, perhaps at the moment when he was setting forth to fight for his fatherland, to be hauled off to prison by his creditor for an unpaid loan”—which, if true, is also one of the earliest mentions of a debt prison.
