New Kingdom Army

In the New Kingdom, particularly by the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty (when Egypt had imperialistic concerns), there was the establishment of a large and professional army with an organised hierarchy. This hierarchy seemingly created alternative routes to power which were even open to uneducated men. This meant that the traditional clerical administrators, trained by scribes, had to share military power with a new military class and this new development supposedly played an important role in the rise of the so-called ‘warrior pharaohs’ who emerged during the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties.

According to Redford, the New Kingdom army comprised of a core of fulltime soldiers (who in times of peace would be stationed at the various garrisons throughout Egypt), supplemented during times of war by conscripted men from temple communities. The archery units were apparently the group feared most, mainly due to their use of the composite bow; a weapon that was more powerful by far than its predecessor, the simple bow. These archery units either made up an entire battalion of their own or were attached to various infantry units.

Recruitment into the Egyptian military for the core soldiers, in the New Kingdom at least, began early in a boy’s life and boys coming from military families would generally tend to serve in the same units as their fathers. The techniques that the young recruits would learn were part of a rigorous training course: marching techniques, proficiency with weapons, and military discipline were the order of the day for these young soldiers. Some of the New Kingdom literary texts seemed to be designed to discourage young men from joining the army. Papyrus Anastasi III, for example, suggested that for young recruits the training was brutal, with talk of body blows and heads splitting open from the beatings meted out to new recruits within the infantry.

Yet in contrast to the somewhat cynical view of army life presented by Papyrus Anastasi III, other evidence suggests that military life, at least in the New Kingdom, could be fairly agreeable. For example, Ramesses II’s Battle of Kadesh reliefs at the temples of Luxor and Abu Simbel portray army life, including the setting-up of a temporary camp. The encamped soldiers are surrounded by a barrier comprised of the soldiers’ shields, along with stabling for horses and cattle. The scene is complete with the depiction right in the centre of the encampment of the royal pavilion and the tents of the military hierarchy. Whether or not this is a realistic portrayal, it is certainly a vivid one. It does not, however, illustrate the training of the recruits. Another such example is found in the Memphite tomb of Horemheb and depicts a military camp at rest. Earlier in the Eighteenth Dynasty, Akhenaten’s training of young soldiers is described in one of the hymns in a tomb at Amarna, where Akhenaten is credited with training thousands of troops himself.

Whilst the training during the New Kingdom, and indeed during any period of Dynastic Egypt, could be brutal (resulting in a great deal of physical pain and hardship) there were also great rewards to be had from a life in the military. During service, much like the rewards possible from service in the Roman army, there was the possibility of advancement through the army ranks and the ever-present chance of spoils of war from combat victories. Those soldiers who survived the military and active service through to their retirement were gifted with land and livestock. This can be seen in the Wilbour Papyrus, dated to the reign of Ramesses V, which includes veteran soldiers (including Sherden mercenaries) in the lists the people renting land in Middle Egypt. The New Kingdom army was also supported by a small army in itself of craftsmen (necessary for creating and maintaining the weaponry), porters, drivers, animal handlers, and cooks, to name but a few (much as with any army, ancient or modern).

During the New Kingdom an edict issued by Horemheb states that, within the country of Egypt itself, there were two army corps which corresponded to the north and south of the country (Lower and Upper Egypt respectively). The royal bodyguard positions were served in ten-day cycles, with provincial soldiers serving the shifts. In contrast, during a campaign, there were three or four principal divisions of around 5000 soldiers, made up of a combination of conscripted men and professional full-time soldiers. These divisions took their names from a deity and followed it with a suitable epithet; it is likely that the deity names for the divisions were taken from the local deity of the area from which the soldiers had been recruited.

The ancient Egyptian infantry had a hierarchical structure that resembled the armies of most developing civilisations, including the highest rank in the Middle Kingdom (the ‘great overseer of the army’) which could be said to be the equivalent of the Western rank of general. The title of ‘general’ (not actually an ancient Egyptian term but a modern English translation) itself appears rarely until the reign of Amenhotep III. It is at this point that there was a major reorganisation of the Egyptian military and a more comprehensive division of the infantry and the chariotry. As stated above, there was a core group of full-time soldiers supplemented by conscripted men in times of war, with some later Eighteenth Dynasty soldiers spending their whole working lives in the army. However, it was more common for careers to combine both military administrative service and work in civil administration.

The infantry was generally divided into units known as companies, which comprised several groups of fifty men that were then divided further still into platoons of ten. Companies could comprise different armaments; some were made up only of archers whereas others were infantry armed with weapons such as spears and axes designed primarily for close-combat situations. These companies would take their names from their pharaoh, sometimes referring to the monarch’s battleprowess. This changed during the reign of Akhenaten, with associations with the Aten (as well as their pharaoh) being included.

The extent of the military innovations achieved by the ancient Egyptians is open to debate. Briefly, however, armour development was seemingly restricted to padded caps and rawhide shields, with the chariots apparently designed for speed rather than protection and force. The chariot driver did wear a level of protective clothing, including some body armour and a helmet of either leather or bronze, while the other chariot passenger would be armed with a bow and javelins. This armour and chariot design would suggest that the Egyptian soldiers were perhaps not strong in defence and relied mainly on their weapons and mode of attack. This suggestion is conjecture on the part of Redford based on the lack of armour development in Egypt.

The chariot was used by the maryannu, who were an elite corps within the New Kingdom army, and have been described as young heroes; part of an aristocratic warrior class modelled on an Asiatic military elite also named maryannu. The maryannu are referred to variously as chariot warriors and also as army aristocracy. The general consensus is that the maryannu were elite soldiers and charioteers and, for some, the maryannu were the most ostentatious chariot warriors of the ancient world. The chariotry was organised into groups of fifty and had a very important administrative infrastructure; during, and after, the Eighteenth Dynasty, the administrative titles were not limited to non-combatants alone; chariot warriors could also hold these titles.

By the time of the New Kingdom, warfare between Egypt and enemies from the Near East became a battle between the elite units, with a definite emphasis on the chariotry. Being part of a chariot unit required not only a great deal of wealth but great skill and specialisation; the skills needed to control a chariot moving at speed, as well as firing arrows when travelling at such speeds, requiring considerable practice, enhancing the status of those who were involved in the chariotry. The two soldiers associated with the chariot are generally described as 1) the warrior and 2) the driver and shield-bearer.

The bow and arrow has been described as the weapon of choice for the maryannu; they were apparently devoted to sports such as shooting with the bow and arrow, javelin-throwing, and the art of fighting from chariots. The construction of the chariot itself, and the form its crew took, ensured the creation of an effective fastmoving stage from which weapons such as the bow and arrow and the javelin could be effectively utilised. The power of the composite bow meant that it was used a great deal in chariot-fighting and it was appreciably shorter than a self-bow making Warfare in Ancient Egypt 27 it more manageable in a chariot. With expertise such as this it is not surprising that the maryannu were seen as elite soldiers.

The Egyptian army at times also had troops known as ‘auxiliaries’; foreign troops that would serve in each branch of the ancient Egyptian military, either integrated into existing units or in their own separate units. These foreign troops would use specific weapons that differed from those used by the native Egyptian troops, as well as carrying out tasks that were particular to them and their skills. As with the Roman Army, comprised of soldiers from many different countries and states in the Roman Empire, some auxiliaries seemingly became members of Egyptian society, having served in the Egyptian military for a sufficient length of time. Acculturation, such as instruction in the Egyptian language, and rewards, such as the provision of land upon retirement, would be used at times by the Egyptians to ensure the loyalty of their foreign troops. This could be an effective technique; if a foreign soldier spent enough time away from his home and acclimatised to his new surroundings, then he might well begin to display some loyalty to his new ‘home’. The promise of a worthwhile reward at the end of his service would only increase loyalty to the Egyptian army, since land was a highly valuable commodity. Again, there are obvious parallels here with the design and procedures of the Roman army.

The first recorded auxiliary troops were apparently the Nubians, recruited to fight for the Upper Egyptians during the First Intermediate Period in their campaign against the Heracleopolitans in Lower Egypt. These Nubian recruits, called the Medjoy (or Medjay), were later renowned for their roles in the ancient Egyptian military, as the ancient Egyptian equivalent of policemen, as well as being archers and scouts. The Medjoy continued to be in use in the Middle Kingdom, apparently playing a crucial role in pharaoh Kamose’s re-conquest of Egypt towards the end of the Second Intermediate Period, and during the New Kingdom. Indeed, by the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty the term Medjoy no longer referred to just Nubian soldiers but was used in reference to policemen and patrolmen in general.84 These Nubian troops were very much in demand, with examples of Egyptian vassals in Syria-Palestine requesting the aid of these soldiers in order to successfully defend their cities during the Amarna period.

There were other foreign troops that served in the ancient Egyptian military, with instances of Asiatics serving in the ancient Egyptian army, though (in the Old Kingdom at least) they were rarer than the Nubian auxiliaries. By the Middle Kingdom period, there were times when Asiatic military units were actually settled within Egypt’s borders, which again is a practice that has definite parallels with the structure of the Roman army.