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.
