Ancient Egyptian Military

A trumpet blares and two masses of armed men rush toward

each other. It’s a battle between the ancient Egyptian Military and the
Nubian Military. Egypt began forming an army in the Middle
Kingdom. When Egypt was without a pharaoh, they fought each
other with weapons such as bows, clubs, and spears. They wore linen
kilts and leather straps around their chest. Without their army,
ancient Egypt wouldn’t have become one of the greatest civilizations
in the world.

The army was very important to the ancient Egyptians. It was

considered to have formed when Nebhepethre Mentuhotep I united
Egypt in the Middle Kingdom. Men who wanted to join the military
gathered by the mayor of the village. The governor of the territory
chose the best men for recruitment. Men of the upper class became
charioteers. Scribes started as pay clerks but later advanced to Scribe
of Recruits. Soldiers first trained in barracks. They went home when
they weren’t needed. Even if they were at home, they shared the
booty and plunder that was taken by the army.
Before fighting, the Egyptians and their opponents agreed on
the place and time of battle. There were no ambushes and they
fought in broad daylight on open ground. There was a trumpet signal
to begin when both sides were ready. They usually fought on land
but the occasional warship was used.
Soldiers used medicine to heal battle wounds. They used
bandages for broken bones, needles for surgery, and moldy bread to
stop cuts from getting infected. Soldiers often received cures in
prescription bottles. They carried amulets to ward off evil spirits.

There were many wars in ancient Egypt. Egyptians conquered

and lost control of many smaller civilizations over the years. The
most famous war was when the Hyksos of East Asia conquered
Egypt in the 2nd Intermediate Period. The Hyksos were the first
people to conquer Egypt. They tried to adopt Egyptian titles and
customs. The one thing that made the Hyksos so powerful against the
ancient Egyptians was that they had weapons that Egypt had never
seen. The Hyksos brought curved scimitars, double curved bows,
horse-drawn chariots, skull caps and metal helmets, leather body
armor, and bronze. After one hundred fifty years, the pharaoh
Ahmose I used the weapons brought by the Hyksos to kick them out
of Egypt. Princes of Thebes drove them out all the way to Sinai while
conquering small cities formerly ruled by the Hyksos. After that,
Egypt had new weapons and armor.

The New Kingdom began when Ahmose I defeated the Hyksos.

This period brought many battles with the Hittites, the Mitanni, and
the Assyrians. In the New Kingdom, there were many great and
powerful pharaohs such as Thutmose III and Ramses II. They were
both great generals in the Egyptian military.
Thutmose III was the greatest warrior king of ancient Egypt. He
was bold and reckless in battle. In his years as pharaoh, he led armies
northward into Syria and expanded Egypt all the way to the
Euphrates River. During his reign, Thutmose III made Egypt the
richest nation.
Another great pharaoh general was Ramses II. He controlled a
large army of twenty thousand soldiers. It was split into four
divisions, each named after a major god. They were Amun, Lord of
all Gods; Ra, the Sun God; Set, the God of War and Love; and Ptah,
the God of Craftsmen. Each division had five thousand men. The
divisions were made up of twenty companies, each with two
hundred fifty men. Each company was divided into five platoons
with fifty men in each. In his army were bowmen, spearmen,
swordsmen, clubmen, and slingers. Ramses II fought land and sea
battles. He saved Egypt from the Mediterranean island people called
Sea People. His most famous battle was against the Hittites at Kadesh
in the New Kingdom. It was said that during that battle, Ramses II
was given strength by Amun. Ramses II and his army fell into a trap.
The Hittites surrounded them from all sides, isolating them. The
Hittites rode two thousand five hundred chariots with three men per
chariot. Fortunately, the rest of Ramses’ army soon came to his
rescue. Later, Ramses II ordered his workers to write on the walls of
great monuments that he had defeated the Hittites single-handedly.
 The ancient Egyptian Empire ended with the onslaught of the
Greek Empire in the Late Period. Egypt was under Greek leadership
until the Battle of Actium over three hundred years later when Rome
took over Egypt. There was confusion and starvation. Egyptians
became Christians until the seventh century when Arab armies
invaded and it officially became a Muslim country.

Over the years, ancient Egyptian soldiers wore many different

kinds of clothing for battle. In the Old Kingdom, soldiers wore
triangular flaps hanging in front of their waists and connected to
belts. They wore a ribbon-like sash around their necks. Officers wore
diagonally cut strips across their chests.
In the Middle Kingdom, soldiers wore simple, shaggy-edged
kilts or triangular flaps in the front. They had long black aprons with
straps across their chests and around their backs. They wore tied
headbands with feathers as badges or signs of victory. They also had
leather wrist guards.
When the New Kingdom came, soldiers wore shirts as well as
short kilts. Sometimes they wore sleeved baggy tunics. They had
leather collars and padded helmets of leather with tassels and fringed
edges. Soldiers didn’t use metal armor because they couldn’t move
around in it easily.

The ancient Egyptians used many different kinds of weapons.

In the beginning of the Egyptian empire in the archaic times, soldiers
used spears, daggers, clubs, cudgels, and throwing sticks. Between
the archaic times and the Old Kingdom, Egyptians started to use
maces, shields, bows and arrows, and axes. In the Middle Kingdom,
soldiers started to use scalloped-headed battle axes. Then, in the 2 nd
Intermediate Period when the Hyksos invaded Egypt, the army
received new weapons brought by the invaders. When the New
Kingdom came, soldiers started using scimitars and body armor.
Although the Egyptian army usually fought on land, warships
were sometimes used. The first warship in the world was on the Nile
River. Early ships were bundles of reeds lashed together. To make
them watertight, the Egyptians covered them with pitch, a dark and
sticky substance made from distilling tar. Later ships were made of
wood. They were propelled by giant sails and oars. The large ships
had twenty oars on each side. Planks protected rowers from arrows.
A long pole called a ram was fitted to ships to ram into other ships to
split and capsize them.
The ancient Egyptian army had military standards. They were
fan-shaped and made from wood and ostrich feathers. Men carried
them around before and after battles to show that their army was
powerful. They had a naval standard which was a square atop a pole
with feathers. Sometimes standards were used for ceremonial
purposes.

The Egyptian military changed throughout the years. It started

as an army with few men and not many weapons and ended up
being one of the greatest, most powerful armies in the ancient world.

When I began my research, I asked the question, “What was the

role of the military in the ancient Egyptian civilization?” I learned
that the role of the military in ancient Egypt was that it helped Egypt
to expand and become a richer empire. The most surprising thing I
learned about ancient Egypt was that a pharaoh’s son could become
an army commander when he was only an infant. The most
interesting thing I learned was that Ramses II had a very complicated
system for organizing his army. Without its amazing military, ancient
Egypt wouldn’t have become one of the greatest civilizations in the
world.