Of armor and weapons published in VO, I discovered that among them there is not a single one on the history of the weapons of Ancient Egypt. But this is the cradle of European culture, which has given humanity a lot. As for the periodization of its history, it is traditionally divided into the Old Kingdom (XXXII century - XXIV century BC), the Middle Kingdom (XXI century - XVIII century BC) and the New Kingdom (XVII century . - XI century BC) Before Ancient kingdom Egypt had the Predynastic Period and then the Early Kingdom. After the New Kingdom there was also the Late Period, and then the Hellenistic Period, and between the Ancient, Middle and New Kingdoms, as a rule, there were also transitional periods filled with turmoil and rebellion. Often at this time, Egypt was subjected to attacks from nomadic tribes and warlike neighbors, so its history was by no means peaceful and military affairs in Egypt, which means that offensive and defensive weapons were always held in high esteem!
Already in the era of the Old Kingdom - the era of the kings who built the pyramids in Egypt there was an army recruited from free peasants, individual units of which were armed with uniform weapons. That is, the army consisted of warriors with spears and shields, warriors with maces, small hatchets and daggers made of copper and bronze, and squads of archers with large bows, whose arrows were tipped with flint. The task of the army was to protect the borders and trade routes from attacks by the Libyans - the most significant among the tribes of the "Nine Bows" - the traditional enemies of Ancient Egypt, the Nubians in the south and the nomadic Bedouins in the East. During the reign of Pharaoh Snefru, the king's army captured 70,000 prisoners, which indirectly speaks of the number of Egyptian troops, the perfection of their tactics, and - their superiority in weapons!
Since it is very hot in Egypt, the ancient warriors did not have any special “military uniform” or protective clothing. All their clothing consisted of a traditional skirt, a wig made of sheep's wool, which played the role of a helmet, protecting the head from the stunning blow of a mace and a shield. The latter was made from bull skin with the hair facing out, which was apparently joined in several layers and stretched over a wooden frame. The shields were large, covering a person right up to the neck and pointed at the top, as well as slightly smaller ones, rounded at the top, which the warriors held by straps attached to the back.
The warriors lined up in a phalanx and moved towards the enemy, covering themselves with shields and putting out spears, and the archers were behind the infantrymen and shot over their heads. Similar tactics and approximately the same weapons among the peoples with whom the Egyptians fought at that time did not require any greater perfection of weapons - more disciplined and trained warriors won, and it is clear that these were, of course, the Egyptians.
At the end of the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptian infantry, as before, was traditionally divided into archers, warriors with short-range striking weapons (clubs, clubs, axes, axes, darts, spears) who did not have shields, warriors with axes and shields, and spearmen. This “branch of troops” had shields 60-80 cm long and about 40-50 cm wide, like, for example, the figurines of warriors discovered in the tomb of the nomarch Mesehti. That is, in the era of the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians knew a deep formation of spearmen, covered with shields and built in several rows!
It is interesting that the Egyptian troops at this time consisted exclusively of infantry. The first case of the use of horses in Egypt was attested during excavations of the city of Buhen, a fortress on the border with Nubia. The find dates back to the era of the Middle Kingdom, but although horses were already known at that time, they were not widespread in Egypt. It can be assumed that a certain wealthy Egyptian purchased it somewhere in the East and brought it to Nubia, but it is unlikely that he used it as a means of draft.
As for the infantry archers, they were armed with the simplest bows, that is, made from one piece of wood. A compound bow (that is, assembled from different types of wood and covered with leather) would be too difficult for them to manufacture, and also expensive, to supply ordinary infantrymen with such a weapon. But one should not think that these bows were weak, because they had a length of 1.5 m or more, and in skillful hands they were very powerful and long-range weapons. English bows of the Middle Ages made of yew or maple, and 1.5 to 2 m long, were also simple, but they pierced steel armor at a distance of 100 m, and the English archer despised anyone who could not fire 10 - 12 arrows in a minute. True, there is one subtlety here. They did not shoot directly at the men-at-arms, or only shot at a very close range: almost point-blank! At a long distance they fired upward in volleys on command, so that the arrow fell on the knight from above and hit not so much himself as his horse. Hence the armor on top of the necks of knightly horses! So there is no doubt about the capabilities of Egyptian archers armed with bows of this size, and they could easily hit opponents not protected by metal armor at a distance of 75 - 100 m and up to 150 m under favorable conditions.
Ancient Egypt: weapons and armor of chariot warriors
Over its thousand-year history, Egypt has experienced not only ups, but also downs. So the era of the Middle Kingdom ended with the invasion of the Hyksos nomads, its defeat and a period of decline. What helped them cope with the Egyptians was that they fought on two-wheeled high-speed chariots drawn by a pair of horses, which gave their troops unprecedented maneuverability and mobility. But soon the Egyptians themselves learned to breed and train horses, make chariots and fight with them. The Hyksos were expelled, Egypt experienced a new rise, and its pharaohs, no longer content with protecting their borders and expeditions for gold in Nubia, began wars with their neighbors in Asia, and also tried to penetrate the territory of modern Syria and Lebanon.
Particularly warlike pharaohs of the era of the advent of the New Kingdom were representatives of the Ramesses dynasty. The armament of warriors at this time became even more deadly, as metal processing technology was improved, and in addition to chariots, the Egyptians also learned a reinforced bow, which increased the range of the arrow and its accuracy. The power of such bows was truly great: it is known that pharaohs such as Thutmose III and Amenhotep II pierced copper targets with arrows fired from them.
Already at a distance of 50 - 100 m, it was apparently possible to pierce the armor of a warrior on an enemy chariot with an arrow with a metal leaf-shaped tip. Bows were stored in special cases on the sides of the chariots - one on each (one spare) or one at the side closest to which the shooter stood. However, it has now become much more difficult to use them, especially while standing on a chariot and, moreover, in motion.
This is why the military organization of the Egyptian army also underwent major changes at this time. In addition to the traditional infantry - "mesha", charioteers - "netheter" appeared. They now represented the elite of the army; all their lives they studied military craft, which became hereditary for them and was passed on from father to son.
The first wars in Asia brought the Egyptians rich booty. So, after taking the city of Megiddo, they got: “340 prisoners, 2041 horses, 191 foals, 6 breeding horses, 2 war chariots decorated with gold, 922 ordinary war chariots, 1 bronze armor, 200 leather armor, 502 war bows, 7 tent pillars decorated with silver and belonging to the king of Kadesh, 1929 head of cattle, 2000 goats, 20,500 sheep and 207,300 bags of flour.” The vanquished recognized the authority of the ruler of Egypt over themselves, took an oath of allegiance and pledged to pay tribute.
It is interesting that in the list of captured armor there is only one bronze and 200 leather ones, which suggests that the presence of chariots also required increased protection for those who fought on them, since these were very valuable professional warriors whom it was a pity to lose. But the fact that there is only one metal shell speaks of the extremely high cost of the protective weapons of that time, which only the princes and pharaohs of Egypt possessed.
The many chariots taken as trophies clearly indicate their wide distribution, not only among Asians, but also among the Egyptians themselves. Egyptian chariots, judging by the images and artifacts that have come down to us, are light carts for two people, one of whom drove the horses, and the other fired at the enemy with a bow. The wheels had wooden rims and six spokes, the bottom was wicker, with a very minimum of wooden guards. This allowed them to develop higher speed, and the supply of arrows in two quivers allowed for a long battle.
In the Battle of Kadesh - the largest battle between the troops of Egypt and the Hittite kingdom in 1274 BC. - thousands of chariots took part on both sides, and although it actually ended in a draw, there is no doubt that it was the chariots that played a very important role in it. But in addition to new bows, the Egyptians also had two new types of long daggers - with a massive leaf-shaped blade with an edge in the middle, and a blade rounded at the end, and piercing-cutting ones - with elegant, long blades with parallel blades that smoothly turned into an edge, and also with a convex rib. The handle of both was very comfortable, with two cone-shaped bells - up - the pommel and down - the crosshair.
Crescent (occasionally double-edged) bladed weapon, borrowed by the Egyptians from their enemies in Palestine and which underwent a number of modifications in Egypt - “khopesh” (“khepesh”), was also widely used, like maces, axes with narrow blade and moon-shaped axes.
This is what the infantry of Ancient Egypt, including the Ancient and Middle Kingdoms, might have looked like. In the foreground are two warrior-spearmen in headscarves, with printed protective aprons in the shape of a heart on top of a regular apron, possibly in quilted jackets, with sickle-shaped short swords made of bronze, and then warriors with a war club combined with an ax and an ax with a moon-shaped blade. The dart thrower has no defensive weapons at all. Two black warriors with bows in their hands are mercenaries from Nubia. Only one pharaoh has armor on his body, next to whom stands a signalman with a drum. Box of a set of soldiers from the Zvezda company. Oh, what we don’t have for boys now! And what kind of soldiers I had in childhood - heaven and earth!
Narmer palette. Depicts Pharaoh Narmer with a mace in his hands. (Cairo Museum)
Reconstruction of a New Kingdom chariot. (Römer-Pelitzeus Museum. Lower Saxony, Hildesheim, Germany)
Surprisingly, the ancient Egyptians knew and used boomerangs very similar to those used and used by the indigenous people of Australia. These two boomerangs from the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun are very similar to the Australian ones and differ from them only in their decoration! (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Pharaoh Tutankhamun on a chariot. Painting on wood, length 43 cm. (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Golden dagger of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Pharaoh on a chariot. Wall painting at the Abu Simbel Temple.
Relief from the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut depicting Egyptian soldiers XVIII dynasty, 1475 BC e. Limestone, painting. (Egyptian Museum Berlin)
We often judge historical events by the unique archaeological finds found. Thanks to ancient artifacts, we have an idea of how ancient states developed, how developed their culture, economy was, and what the political structure looked like. Not least on the list of artifacts are military items and weapons. Today, archaeologists and historians, based on the finds they have found, can judge what kind of weapons people possessed in ancient times, and what successes this or that civilization was able to achieve in the military field.
The richest collection of artifacts, which today is presented in many museums around the world, belongs to the era of Ancient Egypt. It was this state that was the most powerful and largest in ancient times. Thanks to its economic and socio-political structure, the Egyptian Kingdom dominated for two millennia. The Egyptians were not only skilled farmers and builders. Egypt owes much of its rise to military success.
The Egyptians managed to create one of strongest armies antiquity, in which elite units occupied a special place. The Pharaoh's army was equipped with various weapons, but the most famous was the khopesh, the sword of the Egyptian special forces. This edged weapon is considered the most famous that has survived to this day. In museums, this is the most common exhibit in the exposition of ancient Egypt. Dozens of films have been created about the legendary land of the pharaohs, where warriors fight with curved, sickle-shaped swords.
The history of the appearance of khopesh weapons
The Egyptian soldier, skillfully wielding a spear and sword, represented a formidable enemy on the battlefield in ancient times. Infantrymen, armed with sharp curved swords, inflicted a stunning blow on the enemy in close combat, which is why the khopesh is considered to be the main infantry weapon in Ancient Egypt.
The legendary weapon came to Egypt somewhere in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, during the era of the Middle Kingdom. The Egyptians faced formidable swords during the battle with the Hyksos, who invaded the land of the pharaohs from what is now Palestine. These nomadic tribes, unlike the Egyptians, were armed with curved and sharp swords. While the Egyptian infantry fought with maces and bronze axes, the nomads in close combat delivered devastating blows with their curved knives. After the defeat, the Egyptians adopted the battle tactics of their victors. The main weapons on the battlefield were chariots and warriors armed with sickle-shaped swords. After the curved and sharp sword became the main weapon of the Egyptian army, the pharaohs not only reconquered their territories, but also managed to conquer neighboring countries.
Curved, sickle-shaped swords in the old days were perhaps the main weapon of ancient armies. This is largely explained by the social composition of the combat units, where the majority of the army were peasants. However, according to historians and Egyptologists, metal weapons were a luxury item. Not every ordinary warrior could have a bronze sword. Most likely, such swords belonged to elite military units, the palace guard or the pharaoh's bodyguard. The origin of the blade's shape has other versions. A more plausible version is considered to be the transformation of a battle ax into a type of weapon capable of delivering secant blows, and not just chopping and punctuated blows. One cannot discount the theory in which the ancestor of the khopesh is considered to be the sappara, the weapon of the ancient Assyrians. Unlike the Egyptian sword, the Assyrian sappara has a sharp edge on the inside of the curve, which speaks in favor of an agricultural function.
According to latest version, the khopesh had a sickle shape, taken from a peasant's sickle. Such swords are quite often found during excavations of ancient settlements of other civilizations. Probably, not only does this weapon belong to the civilization of agricultural states, but also the high fighting qualities that swords of this shape possessed. Swords of this shape are equally convenient for chopping and cutting. Compared to a battle ax and ordinary swords Straight-shaped, sickle-shaped blade causes deeper wounds and cuts.
The name of the sword, which became a symbol of Ancient Egypt, translated from Egyptian literally means “animal’s leg.” Later, in other armies of ancient states, similar weapons can be found in the arsenal of warriors. The swords and daggers in the army of Alexander the Great had a curved shape and were called kopis. Curved and curved swords were also the favorite weapons in the Persian army of King Xerxes.
Description of khopesh
For military weapons In ancient times bronze was used. It was the only available metal that could be mined practically open method and for the remelting of which no special technological effort was required. Despite this, metal weapons were considered the prerogative of rich people. Only high military ranks could afford to have bronze knives and swords. Bronze is a fairly heavy metal, so a bronze khopesh is a heavy and at the same time durable weapon.
During excavations in the middle reaches of the Nile, ancient burials belonging to members of the Egyptian military nobility were found. Sickle-shaped swords in well-preserved condition were found in the tombs. A more detailed hydrocarbon analysis revealed impurities in the bronze composition. Elements such as ferroscilium and ferrosilicomanganese are commonly used in metallurgy to give the metal special strength and stability. Such research results indicate that in Ancient Egypt, weaponry was at a high technological level.
The sickle-shaped sword was sharpened only from the outside. Less commonly found were double-edged swords, sharpened not only on the outside, but also with a cutting edge on the inside. Obviously, the method of using such weapons in battle involved not only cutting blows, but also cutting off the head and limbs of a defeated enemy. The length of the blade's handle suggests that the khopesh was a two-handed sword. The length of the sword was on average 50-70 cm. Among the finds there are artifacts that have a long handle, and the blade itself reaches a length of about a meter.
The shape of the sword also suggests the way the weapon is carried. On many ancient frescoes you can find images of ancient Egyptian warriors carrying a curved sword on their shoulder. In some cases, when the blade was small, it was worn at the hip, on the belt. The weapon was kept without a scabbard. The weight of the sword was approximately 2 kg. There are artifacts with a large weight, reaching 3-4 kg. However, it is most likely a ritual weapon that was used in various ceremonies.
For reference: as a result of research conducted by employees of the London historical museum, it was possible to find out the effectiveness of the combat use of khopesh. The sword was used to strike the pork carcass from different positions. During the inspection and study of the damage, it was found that the competent use of a sickle-shaped sword in battle did not leave the enemy any chance. The wounds were deep and long. The edges of the wound had an almost perfectly straight line, which made subsequent tissue healing difficult.
Combat use of khopesh
Khopesh has not received widespread use. The main reason is the lack of expensive metal in such quantities to arm thousands of warriors. The main fighting force of ancient armies was infantry, recruited from the poorest segments of the population. Infantrymen were typically armed with bows, slings, spears and battle axes. Only on equipment elite units and the cavalry had bronze swords, axes and daggers.
Wielding a sword required special skills and abilities, so sickle-shaped swords were used only by trained troops. The shape of the sword and its size made it possible to use it both on foot and on war chariots and in cavalry units. A massive and heavy khopesh, as a rule, was used to deliver a sliding-slashing blow to the head and neck. With sufficient force, a curved blade could pierce a helmet and cut a wooden sword. The palace guards and chariot leaders had large weapons capable of delivering crushing blows to the enemy.
In addition to combat use, the khopesh was one of the most common execution weapons in Ancient Egypt. On the frescoes and reliefs in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses III there are scenes depicting execution. Captives or criminals were cut off with a sickle-shaped sword. It should be said that in ancient times, many peoples’ favorite method of collecting evidence in the final victory over the enemy was to cut off the heads of defeated opponents and captives. The Khopesh, with its curved sickle shape, can be considered an ideal weapon for these purposes.
The weapon, which became a symbol of Ancient Egypt, was held in high esteem by the nobility. The images often depict royal processions in which the pharaoh, priestesses and personal guards took part. They are all armed with curved swords that rest on their shoulders. Judging by the number of tools found in ancient burials, curved swords were used in funeral ceremonies. In ancient times, there was often a tradition of placing weapons in the grave along with household items.
Khopesh was used in military service and for ritual purposes until the 4th century BC. At a later time, similar weapons can be seen in the arsenal of other armies. Despite their effectiveness in battle, Egyptian swords are fashionably considered regional ethnic weapons. Mass distribution of curved swords in ancient world have not received. The inconvenience of the shape of the blade and the special specificity of using such weapons in battle had an impact.
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SWORD IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND MODERN AFRICA
At the moment, history knows civilizations - with their own language, literature, science, arts and weapons - older than the ancient Egyptian. It is necessary to change and modernize the outdated proverb “Ex Oriente lux” - “light comes from the East” - which imagines that this illumination comes from India; the truth is just the opposite. The dawn of knowledge arose and rose not in the east, but in the south, on the Black Continent, which is also the High Continent. We can no longer agree that
The path of the empire lies to the west.
As Professor Lepsius teaches us, “in the earliest times within human memory we knew only one advanced culture, only one way of writing and only one literary art - the Egyptian.” Karl Vogt, a man who has the courage to speak his mind, cuts straight to the point: “Our civilization did not come from Asia, but from Africa.” In search of our origin we must return to
The great mistress of the world in the Egyptian valley.
Modern Egyptologists are reexamining false and one-sided theories based on scant research in anthropological literature in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. In the Nile Valley we are still on the cusp of exploration - topographical, linguistic and scientific. We still know very little about the proto-Egyptians and their original craft; but it would be absurd to assume that man began his path to civilization by building pyramids, carving obelisks and carving hieroglyphs. The "Cushitic" school, based on the Asiatic Ethiopians or Bishop Eusebius and unsuccessfully represented by Bahnsen, Maspero, Wilkinson, Mariette, Brugsch and many lesser names, determined that the ancient inhabitants of the vicinity of the Nile "undoubtedly came from Asia." This theory is severely lacking in evidence; and the same can be said about popular ideas based on biblical stories, - “the first colonists of Egypt came from Mesopotamia.” We seem to be reading a fairy tale when we see (in William Osburn) that “the art of these primitive Egyptian artists was part of that civilization which the first settlers brought with them to the valley of the Nile.”
I am convinced that the ancient Egyptians were Africans, and pure Africans; that the inhabitants of the Nile Valley are still Negroids, “whitened” by a large infusion of Syrian, Arab and other Asian blood, and that the cradle of this people is Ethiopia. Aeschylus had already covered their black bodies with white clothes when Herodotus made them black compared to the Arabs and North Africans. Every traveler thinks his description is good for his days. Blumenbuch declared that the ancient Egyptians were of Berber origin (the people of Psametic, or the son of the Sun). Hartmann expressed the opinion that they were not Asians, but Africans; Dr. Morton changed his original opinion when he discovered that they had Negroid skulls. I hope to prove them right by creating a large collection of mummy skulls. It is absolutely certain that the hair - this great characteristic of any people - among modern Egyptians is not soft, like
says Professor Huxley, but like a wire, like their ancestors. Moreover, their type, as the example of the Sphinx clearly shows, is melanochroitic negroid. After all, there are other features, which need not be noted here, that separate both people and horses of African origin from Arabian origin.
There is a history of Ancient Egypt that we have not delved into yet. Herodotus illuminates it when he considers that the priest of Ptah at Memphis claims an antiquity of 11,340 years, during which period 341 generations of kings and priests reigned. Plato does the same thing when he talks about hymns that are 10 thousand years old, and Mela when he counts 330 kings before Amasis who reigned for more than 30 thousand years.
Literature would be incomplete without the arts and science, and therefore we also find their home and center in Egypt. These studies humanized this people; their code offers the same leniency in punishments as modern legislation; and the Egyptians' reverence for letters, for old age and for human dignity makes them an eternal role model for the whole world. The monuments show their passion for music and painting. Their knowledge of sculpture is demonstrated by a number of works, especially the wooden "sheikh el-balad" (village chief) in the Bulak Museum - a marvel of art dating perhaps to the Fourth Dynasty, 3700 BC. e. Among their architectural achievements are the arch, rounded and pointed, eight different types of columns, including the Proto-Dorian; Atlanteans, caryatids in the form of people. The temple at Giza near the Sphinx is clearly older than the surrounding pyramids; This is the strongest work, in the creation of which the hardest stone was processed like wood.
Of the sciences, the Egyptians especially cultivated geometry, astronomy, astrology and alchemy, by the name of which one can recognize its origin. Their arithmetic dealt with both decimal and duodecimal numbers, mathematics growing out of field measurement and temple-building calculations. The Egyptians knew the precession of the equinoxes: Rodier believes that they calculated it by observing the equinox and the rising of Sothis, the star Tut, the “axis of the heavens,” and that research at Siene begins in 17,932 BC. e. They knew the movement of the apses, the periods of revolution of the Sun and stars; they invented the concepts of latitude and longitude, marked the intersections of solstices and equinoxes with a cross, and published calendars for the year. In the field of optics, the Egyptians invented lenses; they did not remain ignorant about driving force couple and may even have gained the rudiments of knowledge about electricity from observations of electric fish.
In area mechanical technologies they were simply great. In the field of medicine, the Egyptians were engaged in dissections and vivisection, in the field of agriculture they invented the plow, harrow, sickle with a serrated blade and flail, in the field of weaving - the dovetail, in the field of ceramics - the potter's wheel, in the field of hydraulics - the water wheel. As for gardening, they knew how to replant mature trees, in addition, they made glass and porcelain, fake pearls and precious stones, and used emery powder and a grinding wheel. The Egyptians spun silk and knew how to etch materials with acid and dye their hair, made dolls and children's toys from clay, and cast papier-mâché masks. In some ways they were strangely modern: they dressed in khakis for hunting, rather than pink or green hunting suits: we are now only beginning to understand our mistakes. The Egyptians had falconry and played checkers, from which chess later grew, sitting in chairs shaped like ours rather than on sofas or tricliniums. Their home furniture studiously avoided overly regular forms; and now Japan is teaching England and Germany not to tire their eyes with homogeneity.
As advanced as they were in literature and politics, this earthly religion, they also cultivated religion - heavenly politics. A Bible student discovered among the tombs of the Nile countries confirmation of the absolute correctness of Celsus's words - namely, that the Jews borrowed their doctrines and practices from the Egyptians. Their creation date ex nihilo (4004–4620 BC) is apparently the date of the beginning of the Mena dynasty according to Manetho; it is still in use today. Their cosmogony of the creation of the world, as the Kabbalah shows and Origen expressively declares, was an adaptation of the allegories and mysteries of the Nile, which are usually understood literally and factually. Their "Adam" is "Atum", from which comes "Adima", the First Man of the Hindus. Their Ann, or Apap (Apophis), whose definition is a serpent pierced with four knives, is the great old serpent, Sin, Satan. The “Flood” is the annual flood of the Nile in the perception distorted by the Izdubar legends of the Mesopotamian plain. The name Noah is suspiciously similar to Nu or Nuhu, Floating-on-the-River, Lord of the Flooded Nile. "Ham" is presumably "Kam", the black race. The Ark is the Bar or Ua (Baris, the ship of the Argo) Well, the sacred ship depicted on the ruins of the Egyptian Elephanta, the ship of Osiris, or Wasur, the Sun-god, having the appearance of a man; and the floating basket with Moses is simply a repetition of the Ark of Osiris. In this complex polytheistic system of deceased ancestors, originally based on monotheism, the Sun signified human life. It rose as a child, Horus; it was Lord Ka at noon; it grew old and sank, being Tum; and Gormakh (Harmakhis) it shone underground world, going beyond the horizon, making Night and Death the harbingers of Light and Life.
The supernatural apparatus of both faiths (both the original and the borrowed) is the same. The four spirits of Death - Amset (under Isis), Hapi (Nephthys), Tuamutef (Neith) and Hebsenauf (Sebk) - became the four archangels. From Urim and Thummim (the latter - plural from Tme or Themis) comes the blind or headless goddess of Justice and Justice. Even phrases such as “I am that I am” are borrowed from Egyptian sacred writings: Ankh (“I am Life”) became Yahweh (Jehovah). This "ineffable name" was borrowed by some, including Colenso, from Semitic paganism; but Brugsch showed that Egypt provided the Old Testament concept of the Creator. Here a truly direct borrowing appears in the unity of God and the duality of Typhon, Set, Satan, and the Evil Spirit. Later, the local Kemi triads were copied, in which the third descended from the first two. Both church rules contained Prophets ("Sem"), High Priests, Priests, "Holy Fathers", and Scribes. The Ten Commandments are a summary of the forty-two precepts of the Book of the Dead (ch. 125). The portable shrines of the great Egyptian gods gave rise to the idea of a house of worship, which grew into the idea of the Temple; it corresponds to the mobile tent of the Carthaginians. The African custom of circumcision was originally introduced supposedly as a measure to prevent syphilis, traces of which are found in prehistoric bones. The strange hostility of the Jews to pork seems meaningless unless it is explained by a supernatural fear of the beast Typhon. Rationalists claim that religion forbade the meat of pigs because in tropical conditions it is dangerous to health, but this is causa non causa - pork is a favorite food in Brazil, in China and among the Christians of India; even the Marathas eat the meat of wild pigs; and the habits of this animal are no more disgusting than, say, ducks. The truth is that these gastronomic prohibitions served the purpose of disunity - they helped to create hatred between peoples and keep people in obedience to the priests.
But, having adopted much of the wisdom (and stupidity) of Egypt, the Jews cruelly erased highest degree Egyptian ideas about the Soul, about the Judgment of the dead and about the future state of punishment or reward - three dogmas that in the modern world underlie any faith. “When a man dies, will he live again?” - asks Job (14, 14) in the chapter showing that one day lost life- lost forever. And clearly since the time of Moses this has been a feature of “Semitic” thinking; they lived in the Present and had no Future, or rather, they pushed it away with contempt. “Moses,” writes Professor Owen, “could not accept the existence of an afterlife or preach reward and retribution in the future without the risk of mixing into his monotheism a shade of the manifold symbolism surrounding the “Divine Son of Amen” (Osiris), who, having lost earthly life for the good of people , having received divine existence, became their judge.” The Jews accepted the ideas of the Soul, and the Judgment, and Heaven, and Hell from their Assyrian relatives, who also passed on to them the names they have today for the twelve months, and astronomical knowledge. And their modern followers, having universally accepted the concept of the Resurrection, took the step from which Moses tried so hard to protect them.
It is hardly necessary to explain that the mythology of Greece, Etruria and Rome is only the distorted mysteries and metaphysics of Egypt. Three examples will suffice: Charon is a degraded Horus; Minos is Mena, and the name Rhadamanth contains the word "Amenti", the right side (of Osiris), the west. It should not be surprising that Egypt now gives rise to scientific prejudices. Every reader of the “literature of the pyramids” will note the mysterious influence that Kemi has on modern minds.
In previous chapters I noted the development of metallurgy in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians may have started by processing gold - its ore is the easiest to find and process; it was found in abundance in Upper Egypt, and around 1600 BC. e. they found their California in the country of Kush (Ethiopia). They called it “Tum”, “Hetem” and “Nb”, which is variously pronounced “Nebu”, “Neb” and finally “Nub”, from which the word “Nubia” is derived. It had two hieroglyphs for a necklace and a washing bowl covered with a filter cloth. The inhabitants of Kemi called silver "white gold", which allows us to draw conclusions about which of the two metals was discovered first; and three thousand years ago they could make silver wire. Wilkinson notes: "The position of the silver mines is unknown"; but he wrote before the discovery of Midian, where stones were raised from the surface of the earth, which contained three ounces of silver per ton. As the images show, they mined iron, although little of it survived the corrosion of time. The Egyptians used the blower in the tinker's work, and were well acquainted with the process of soldering with lead or alloys, as Mr. Barton's shesh, or sistrum, shows. I may here note that from this crepitaculum, used in temple services, came the maraca, or tammaraca, the sacred rattle, a gourd in which gravel was poured and which is worshiped by the Brazilian Tupi, who with its help learned the mysterious influence of rhythmic sounds. They were skilled in making inlaid weapons, the invention of which was believed to belong to the Greeks. Their simple technique was to cut out the design, hammer gold and silver into it, and finally polish the surface.
High level metallurgy in Egypt could not but lead to the development of weapons and armor, it simply had to provide soldiers with the opportunity to defeat “vile, unclean and insignificant infidels” - that is, all peoples except themselves. God Anhar, also known as Shu, is the “lord of the scimitar.” Horus, like a mummified hawk-headed deity, sits holding two swords. Amon-Ra, lord of the Hab, is the "great god of Ramenma", the "lord of the sword". "The bearer of Pschent - the double crown" (pharaoh), the image of Montu, the god of war, was "His Holiness" (high priest) and supreme commander, who personally led his warriors to “wash their hearts” (to cool their valor), as the Zulus wash their spears. Like Horus, he is "Valor with the Sword." When he was going to war, he was presented with a “falchion of victory”, with the following words: “Take this weapon and smash the heads of the unclean with it.” In drawings and sculptures he is a large and heroic figure: he holds a bow, slays the enemy with a spear or sword, and drives his war chariot over the bodies of the slain. His soldiers were divided into kalasiri (krashr - archers) and "hermotibians". These two divisions represent the second of the five castes, considered lower than the priestly and higher than the peasant: they owned one of the three parts into which the land was divided. Recruits were trained in military schools, which later gave rise to pankratiums, palaestras and gymnasiums; they were carefully trained in gymnastics, as shown on the monuments of Beni Hasan, using modgars, or Indian clubs, and were excellent wrestlers, although this cannot be said of them as fist fighters. The royal statues are statues of athletes: they have broad shoulders, narrow sides and well-developed muscles. The soldiers practiced the one-strike technique; obviously, their right hand was covered with a protective basket, and their left with a splint or splints made of wood, tied together and serving as a shield (Fig. 152).
The active army consisted of foot and horse (the latter for the most part were in chariots), they were divided into corps, regiments, battalions and squads. The warriors were commanded by chiliarchs (colonels), hecatonarchs (captains) and decarchis (sergeants) - as the Greeks called them. The heavily armed warriors were equipped with long, powerful spears and huge shields with viewing holes made in them. Some had "lisan" batons, battle axes or maces; Almost everyone had, in addition to this, long-handled axes, swords, falchions and daggers. The light infantry consisted mainly of archers and slingers, also armed with foxes, axes, battle flails and swords. The corps of charioteers, or cavalrymen, in addition to bows and arrows, were also armed with clubs and short swords for close combat. The battle axes clearly trace their origins to the stone Celts, who led to the appearance in hieroglyphs of the word "natr" or "netr" ("neter", etc.), which means god, gods or goddess. In the Demotic alphabet, the ax represented the letter K (“Kelebia”).
The battle began at the sound of a trumpet with the advance of light infantry, archers and slingers. Then a heavy phalanx of ten thousand people rose to attack, marching in battle formation - one hundred rows of one hundred people each, guarded on the flanks by chariots and cavalry. So the battle was not a chaotic jumble of duels, as in Europe in the Middle Ages. When storming fortified places, the Egyptians used "turtles", battering rams, folding ladders, siege towers and portable bridges. They were also skilled in carrying out military demolition work.
The Egyptian phalangites were armed with large shields, spears and swords; the latter was called in most cases “seft”; one could also find the spelling form “setf”; it gave rise to such names as the Ethiopian "sifet" and the Berber "sivuit". In hieroglyphics, this weapon had four different designations. The first - “boomerang sword” - sounds like “m” or “ma”, which translates as “destroy”; "m" is the root of Hebrew kogo and Arabic "maut" and Prakrito-Sanskrit "mar". The second is the “sword-knife”: “at” or “kat”, which determines the essence of cutting. The root “ma” (“cut, mow”) combines two hieroglyphs. The third is the "khopsh", "khepsh", or "khepshi", that is, the "sickle sword", still used in Abyssinia and throughout Africa: it later became the Indian "kubia", the Greek "kopis" and the Gurkha "kukkri" ", while losing its bend.
The next two were united by the root “smam” (“to fight”). The sword also had names such as “ta” or “na” (also known as “nai”, “na-ui” and “nakhtui”).
The falchion ("ensis falcatus"), called "shopsh", "khepsh" or "khopsh", is represented by the Sixth Dynasty (after 3000 BC). According to Meyrick, Argos-Argolis was a province with a very mixed population, the basis of which were Pelasgians, and the upper strata were Egyptians; The Phoenicians came after them and founded the city of Phenicia. Quintus Curtius states the following: “Copides vocant gladios leviter curvatos, falcibus similes, quibus appetebant belluarum manus.”
Apparently the Egyptian "sf", "sefi", or "seft", which meant "sword" in general, is the source of the Mesopotamian words "sibir", "sibirru" or "sapara"; Aramaic "sef", "sipho" and Arabic "sef-un"; the second syllable here is simply an ending; Latin "spatha", German "Schwerte" and English "swerde" and "sword" are later echoes of the same words "sef" and "seft". The Germans correctly say: “Nichts wandert so leicht, als Waffen and Waffennamen.”
The Egyptians also called the sickle-shaped blade “khrobi”, from which comes the Hebrew word “herev” (“weapon”, “sword”). We are sure that these words are originally Egyptian: the proof of this is the fact that the symbol "ma" ("destroy", etc.), signifying "khopsh" or ensis falcatus, is the numeral "nine"; and a straight cleaver (“kt”) - the pronoun “you”, “your”. These two words together refer to the oldest religious practice.
The falchion, shaped like Ursae major (literally meaning "Ursa constellation"), had a thick trailing edge and was weighted with bronze; the blade, at least in later times, was made of iron or steel, as its blue color shows. Champollion noted blue swords with gilded hilts in the tomb of Ramesses III and “kopis weapons” in which the gold of the handle was passed through a groove in the back edge of the blade. The gold was either fused into the iron or the back edge was simply gilded. It also happened that the royal kopis consisted entirely of gold, or, like ordinary kopis, entirely of brass (copper?). In another similar weapon, brass (copper?) and iron were fused into the blade. An iron kopis was discovered in one tomb at Gurnach.
Khopsh, which was originally sickle-shaped and was both a chopping and throwing weapon, was always carried by the pharaoh, who used it in the same way as a pike (“taru”), a mace, an ax (“aka”, “akhu”) and an ax ( "heten") Thus, in the images they are wielded by both officers and privates, both lightly armed and heavily armed. The commanders of the infantry corps are armed with simple sticks, like Roman centurions or our army sergeants of yesteryear.
The fourth - a long straight sword, which is not found in hieroglyphs - had a double-edged piercing-cutting leaf-shaped blade two and a half to three feet long, with a piercing edge, like the swords of the Somalis. This large weapon appears to have been used by foreign mercenaries. The leaf-shaped form also migrates to the “scoop-shaped” form of spear tips. The handle was narrow in the middle, gradually widening on both sides, and was sometimes inlaid with metals, precious stones and valuable species tree. The head of the sword worn by the pharaoh is crowned with the head of a hawk (or several): this bird served as a symbol of Ra (the Sun). The handle was also equipped with needles and pins made of gold, which were visible through special holes in the front of the sheath. The warriors plunged this weapon into the throat of the enemy, just as Mithra plunged a sword under the shoulder blade of a bull. Its modified form was the sword-dagger; sometimes the pharaoh is depicted with two such daggers. It was usually worn in a belt. Weapons of this form have spread to the Caucasus: its form is the Georgian khanjar, which is hung on the belt instead of a sword.
The length of Egyptian weapons varied. The bronze blade of Amenophis II, discovered by Wilkinson at Thebes, was only five and a half inches long; others reached seven and even ten inches in length. Mr. Salt's specimen, in the British Museum, is eleven and a half inches long, including the handle; others reach a foot and even sixteen inches in length. Many of these blades taper from one and a half to ⅔ inches towards the tip. Dr. John Evans has a sword found in the "Great Kantara" during the construction of the Suez Canal; its blade, seventeen inches in length, is leaf-shaped, and the total length of the sword is twenty-two and three-eighths inches (Fig. 165). “Instead of a guard, it goes into a little shank. There again it expands to an octagonal pin, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, which is reduced to a point and then bent to form a hook - perhaps the oldest method of hanging a weapon from the belt." At the base of the blade there are two holes for rivets; Apparently, the handle consisted of two parts that covered the shank. Dr. Evans also mentions a bronze sword blade, supposedly from Lower Egypt, located in the Berlin Museum: it has an engraved stripe on both sides of the blade; it is flatter in width than the specimen from Kantara; its handle has been broken off.
Quite a lot of Egyptian swords are thicker in the middle than at the edges, and even more have small grooves. Their bronze is so well hardened - either by forging, or by a hydraulic press, or by phosphorization (?) - that many thousands of years later they retain their elasticity and ductility - and now they are no less elastic than modern steel. I have already noted the Theban daggers of Pasalaqua and Harris. The dagger hilt was typically partially covered with metal, as was the sword hilt, and the stitching of the leather scabbard is again reminiscent of the Somali hidden scabbard. The Egyptians, as confirmed by hieroglyphs, also had one-sided chopping knives, which were shorter than swords and were obviously made of steel; they are similar to our meat chopping knives.
The long sword was rare and was more likely a barbarian weapon, since it is rarely present in paintings and bas-reliefs. However, Rosalini sketched one such sword, similar to a slasher or a European heavy two-handed sword. One record from the time of Ramesses lists the trophies taken from the Libyan Maxians (Cyrenians) as one hundred and fifteen swords five cubits (seven and a half feet) long and one hundred and twenty-four swords three cubits long.
Meyrick, in his general introduction concerning the weapons of all nations, gives two types of Egyptian blades - rather cutlasses. One (b, Fig. 174) is straight with a curved beak, on the handle of which there is a tassel. In reality it is the ancient Turkish scimitar and its derivatives, which I have already spoken of; thus Egypt switched to cutting weapons. The other(s) is a curved scimitar with a beveled end and a double cord at the handle. The first appears to be an imitation fragment of obsidian; the second is a variant of the khopsh or sickle-shaped sword.
Now I will have to temporarily abandon chronological order for geographical order in order to briefly describe the swords of modern Africa.
On the Dark Continent, as in the New World, these weapons were not of great importance. It should be concluded that the main weapon here is the battle ax, used for rough work, and the spear for fine work. The sword, as such, occurs only in the Muslim part of Africa.
Denham and Clapperton report that the Knights of Malta took many of their straight double-edged swords to Benghazi ( North Africa), where they exchanged them for bulls. From Tripoli they were delivered across the Sahara to Borna, the country of the Hausi, and to Kano, where they were used by the Negroid Muslim population. Modern travelers note that this barter trade still goes on to Kano, where about fifty thousand blades are imported annually through the Mediterranean Sea - the reason for this is the inability of the local blacks to make their own. So they end up with the Pule (Fula) and Fulbe tribes, the Hausi, the Bornean tribes and all the other inhabitants of the north-west. A large group of Mandenka peoples, also incorrectly called Mandingo, also buys European blades, for which they make hilts and sheaths themselves. Further to the southeast, Mr. Henry M. Stanley notes that "King Kishakk has an Arabian scimitar, a revered heirloom of the royal family, and the sword of the founder of this kingdom (?)."
Barth (Travels) has left us precise, if meager, details of the weapons of North-West and Central-West Africa. “The locals claim that the only human weapons are spears and swords.” The blades, mostly made in Solingen, are the property of the noble and freedom-loving Amoshags, or Imoshags; all travelers note that these swords have retained the old knightly look era of the Crusades. Tawariki - people of the lower caste - use only a spear and the all-African combat knife "telak". The Foravi rely entirely on their swords; the kel-oui (hail, meaning "inhabitants of the valley of Oui") and the kel-geres use spears, swords and daggers. The Imgad, a tribe of degenerate Negroid Berbers, have no right to use either swords or spears; Likewise, in Somalia, the onion is part of the servant caste. The son of Kazi near Agad was armed with an iron spear, sword and dagger: the leader of Musgu was armed with a boomerang sword. Among the Bagirmi, few can afford to have a cascara (sword), and even a Kinya fighting knife, which is the most popular weapon among these peoples, as well as among the Kamuri, Bornavis, Njiga and Gollio - I mentioned them under the name "Danisko". This is a short double-edged Egyptian knife that is used for both throwing and close combat. In Sokoto the traveler encountered good iron; in Kano, in the Hausa country, he observed how a blacksmith, with the help of the crudest tools, created a dagger of leaf shape, with a long edge, beautifully decorated and with a very sharp blade. Among the Tawarik tribe, a blacksmith is called "enkhad"; in Timbuktu its name is “mu-allim”, which means “artist”.
North African "sword games" are the same as similar rituals in Arabia and India, they are clearly borrowed from the original sword dance. The Italian author Edmondo de Amicis very vividly and colorfully described similar dances in Tangier. “Three men with swords each held a stick in their other hand. It is impossible to describe in words the extravagant buffoonery (gofifagini) of this school (I am talking specifically about the local school, because we saw a similar performance in other cities of Morocco). All the movements of the Ghanaian with ropes, stupid high jumps, injuries and blows that could be seen even a minute before the wide swing of his arm were evident. Everything was done in a stately and lazy manner; any of our specialists could shower all four with a hail of blows without receiving a single one.”
Swords of the ancient Egyptian type spread across the Dark Continent in breadth and depth, and they retain their shape to this day. Somali weapons have a straight, spear-shaped blade. Shotel - Abyssinian sword (Fig. 176) - the direct heir of the falchion-khopsh. There is hardly anything more inconvenient than this huge sickle; its cutting edge is internal, the handle is too small, and it is difficult to pull it out of the sheath. The handle, which is four inches long, is a rough ebony knob, and the tang extends into the head and is there riveted. The rough and ugly blade has a stiffening rib along its entire length, from which there is a slope to both edges. At the base it is one inch long, and it gradually tapers to a point, which is hardly possible to use. The length of the blade along the entire curve is three feet thirty-seven inches; the bend length (distance from arc to chord) is two inches; the projection behind the guide is four inches. The rough sheath is made of untanned leather and is bound with a hollow brass kang; made even rougher than the blade; attached to the top of the scabbard under the mouth, a large iron buckle connects it to a belt or wristband. The people who have such weapons are clearly not used to swords.
Afro-Arab tribes from the upper Nile (such as the Bisharin) also retained the Egyptian form, inherited from the Lisan club. The Gaul sword is shorter and simpler than the Egyptian one. But the North African fleece, the scimitar, the type of which, with the light hand of the Duke d'Aumale, France had a nightmare bayonet for many years, if it was inherited from the lisan, it acquired a bizarre bend. Colonel Lane Fox believes that the fleece of the Kabyles (from the word “kabail” - "tribes") resembles "a straightened copis, such as is represented in the hands of a Greek warrior on a vase in the Naples Museum." There is hardly anything better suited for close combat than this convenient cutting weapon; if you attach it to the end musket (and the barrel hangs forward), then the result is worse than ever. But as the military “fashion designers” of the British Army are looking for the philosopher’s stone in creating a military uniform that would be at the same time warm, and cool, and heavy, and light, and breathable, and waterproof, and beautiful, and durable, and cheap, and good - so the French strive to make a “multum in parvo” out of a bayonet - a sword, a saw, in general - everything that a bayonet should and should not be. It was only recently withdrawn from service by the French army, and in many countries of the continent it is still preserved.
The sword, common among the Dankali tribes who inhabit the southwestern coast of the Red Sea north of Somalia, is clearly of European origin. A straight, thin blade, with at least two longitudinal grooves, nearly four feet long and flaring towards the tip; its handle consists of a head, a handle wrapped in cord, and straight crossbars forming a cross-shaped guard. Now these weapons are manufactured in Germany - I think in Solingen, which supplies weapons, it seems, to all of Africa north of the equator.
In our century, they finally realized that the heart of Africa is inhabited by a single family of peoples speaking related languages. These are large, powerfully built people, often cannibals, completely different from the blacks from the tobacco shops. Lost among these cannibals were tribes of dwarfs who may have been native to these lands - obviously these are the pygmies of Homer and Herodotus; the names of their numerous clans are now known - aka, tikitiki, doko, wambilikimo (“two-elbowed”), etc. Both dwarfs and giants - of which the Mpangwe, aka fans, were the first to become famous in Europe - know how to work with metal, and work both of them are fine with him. They despise weapons that crack and break, and, for good reason, prefer their homemade products, which are hardened by repeated heating without cooling in water, to our weapons. According to Major Serpa Pinto, members of the Barotse tribe temper their weapons with ox fat and salt. However, he notes that the gangella "make steel from wrought iron by tempering it in water into which the hot metal is thrown."
In the vicinity of the Gabon River they also produce a babanga (?), a sword with a leaf-shaped blade with a square end (it is made in Batta and used by mpangwe), the glaive is also leaf-shaped, having long handle and a point at a thickened end, and swords with triangular blades, more or less expanding upward.
On the glorious Congo River I was shown a sword that belonged to the Mijolo, or Mijere, tribe living in the very upper reaches of the river valley. Everyone claimed that it was made locally and was used for the sword dance performed before the prince. But it is clearly a copy of a similar weapon from the 15th century; The knightly crosspiece, like that of the Mpangwe, migrated to the African environment. The handle and head were made of bone (in poorer versions, of wood); the guard was a thin iron strip emanating from the junction of the blade and the handle - under it an open "pas d'ane" of an oval shape was created - and two crossbars protruded up and down, parallel to the handle and designed to protect the hand. The blade, balanced by the tang, was straight, flexible and double-edged.
In the despotism of Unioro, on the northern coast of Lake Nyanza (Victoria), Sir Samuel Baker found a knife of the Egyptian leaf-shaped form, which the Italians call "Lingua di Bove" (ox tongue). This blade had a prominent stiffening rib, its handle was wrapped in copper wire. It is obvious that it was used both as a cutting and piercing weapon (like the Somali sword).
The Zanzibar Arabs retained an old European two-handed sword with a thin, flat, double-edged blade and a projecting tip, very reminiscent of an elongated executioner's sword. Their swords bear the marks of Solingen, but two types of swords are common in Zanzibar. The short sword (a, Fig. 183) has three mouths and only one cutting edge, its blade being one foot ten inches long; its hilt and scabbard are made of copper, they have relief and carved decorations, and they are trimmed with precious stones. The second (b, Fig. 183) is the most common; it is usually worn by Arab men. The sword is three and a half feet long; its long shank tapers as it approaches the hilt; it is encased in a shell of wood and leather. The head has a cylindrical shape, and the hilt has neither a guard nor a cross. Demmin "has a hard time understanding how you can fight with this weapon with one hand." For the most part, this weapon is decorative, and if necessary, it can be used with both hands, like a club. But Zanzibar swords are always clumsy and just as dangerous to their own owner as the ancient blades of the Gauls and Britons. Relatives of the Zanzibaris, the Bedouins living in the vicinity of Muscat, keep many objects with religious reverence ancient weapons, mined or purchased in earlier times, and possibly dating back to the times of the Crusades. These valuable items were dispersed very far: the Portuguese found swords with the inscription “God help me” in Latin among the Moors of Malacca.
The sword was also known in the bloody despotisms stretching along the western coast of Africa - Ashanti, Dahome and Benin. Many of their forms are borrowed from the Moroccan scimitar, the Turkish (or rather Persian) scimitar and the Malayan kris. They are equipped with silver hilts and sheaths and are usually wrapped in cloth so that only the hilt and part of the sheath are visible. Some of the forms have been so modified that they look almost original; This is especially true for short, straight blades in which holes are drilled, like in fish knives, and which end in a rounded bend. They are similar to the well known Indian cleavers; probably both are of Egyptian origin. Among the Ashanti and Dakhome these swords were made mostly of iron, sometimes of brass, sometimes of gold; they bear fantastic decorations in the form of ornaments and cutouts. These “fish knives” are used for sacrifices and beheadings (and the latter is performed very poorly with their help). Mr. Henry M. Stanley mentions the presence of "long cutlasses" common among the savages of Makongo, and of iron peckers and "massive cutlasses with polished blades" at Karagwa.
Gezo, the warlike king of the Dahome people of the Ffon country, who loved both abundance and variety in weapons, had scissor-like swords with two blades. He also maintained a terrifying brigade of “Amazons”, who were called “razor women”, named after the blade “nyek-plen-nen-toh”. It was an enlarged European razor, with a thirty-inch steel blade thrown by a spring from a simple ebony handle. This razor was used to cut off the heads of captive kings; the mere sight of her made the vassals tremble.
My friend Captain Cameron gives interesting details about the sword of those parts of Africa which he first visited, and he kindly sent me a drawing of a small sword, the Manyuema, marked to scale. He writes that representatives of the Wahumba tribe use double-edged iron swords, shaped like the swords of Roman legionnaires. The leaders worship their steel blades, which bear various openwork decorations; in some, the lower part of the scabbard is also decorated with a row of bells. The leather belt is closed in a loop of fur (otter fur is often used); it is thrown over the left shoulder. Rekhombo chiefs use similar blades with wide crescent-shaped edges; Their ordinary warriors are armed with heavy spears and short knives, which they also use for food.
The population of the central Copperlands only has long knives in the form of spearheads. Stanley describes them as "short swords with scabbards of wood, to which are attached small bells of brass and iron." The leaders who were vassals of the “King Kasongo” also owned swords, but these swords remained undescribed. I think they were similar to the ones I saw in the Congo. These blacks have a custom of false attack as a sign of respect - such a custom is well known to the Bedouins. “Having smeared himself well (with clay or cinnabar), the chief gave the bag to the boy and, drawing his sword, rushed at Kasongo with the obvious desire to cut off his head; however, having reached him, the leader suddenly fell to his knees, stuck his sword into the ground and bowed his head in the dust.”
The Pokwe sword, which was owned by the leaders of the Lunda people, is not allowed to ordinary people. This weapon (Fig. 191) also came to the areas south of the equator from Egypt; his path can be traced through the dagger knives of Ovampos. It is a large double-edged knife, three spans long and four inches wide; its scabbard is made of leather, and it is hung under the left arm. The pokwe strongly resembles the short leaf-shaped blades from the Gabon River in West Africa; this again brings to mind the swords and spearheads of the Bronze Age. Stanley shows the "baswa knife" of the Upper Congo, which exactly resembles the pokwe; this weapon “can have different sizes - from a butcher’s cleaver to a lady’s dagger” (?). He also found “magnificent long knives like the Persian kummars (khanjar?) and “pecker swords.”
The Habshi people of Janjira ("el-jezira" - "island") off the west coast of India, south of Bombay, have preserved a curious reminder of their African origins. These Negroids, who call themselves Abyssinians, are actually Waswahili from Zanzibar. Their cleaver is a straightened khopsh, made entirely of iron, having a flat cross and a head (Fig. 193). The blade is fifteen inches wide, the back is an inch and a half thick, and just heavy enough to handle. These former pirates are still feared, because of their great physical strength and ferocious disposition, by their pampered Indian neighbors. It is worth noting that in the event of another “Indian rebellion”, we can easily suppress it with the help of an army of blacks from the east coast of Africa.
Colonel A. Lane Fox notes that one of the more bizarre sword shapes used in Africa is the corrugated sword with an S-shaped section. On each side, one section of the blade is recessed on only one side. Thus, when cut crosswise, we would see something like the letter Z. The purpose of such a trick can be understood if you think about it in relation to the arrow of a bow or crossbow. Such a tip will give the arrow a rotational movement, which will lead to increased accuracy when hitting the target. But this feature was preserved where its meaning was lost; and, curiously, this S-shape is represented on all swords brought from the Caucasus; Saxon and Frankish iron blades discovered in the burial grounds of England and France have the same distinctive feature. All of them may be of Egyptian origin: they could have entered the Caucasus through Colchis, and into Western Europe through the Phoenicians. The illustrations are taken from "Pagan Saxony" by Mr. J. I. Ackerman, who was the first to notice the strange similarity between the Saxon and Hottentot copies.
Thus, we see that since three types of blades were invented in Egypt - straight, curved and semi-curved - nothing new has been introduced into hoplology in Africa. Negroes and Negroids either borrowed their weapons from Egypt or imported them from overseas. In intertropical Africa, no alphabet, no plow, no sword was ever invented.
Notes:
I refer to the lively but one-sided article "On the Sword" in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for May 1881.
Anthropological collection. P. 180. Demmin, however, is also wrong in describing this weapon as having “two and a half feet in length” (Arms and Armament. P. 413. Bell, London, 1877). In the "Catalogue of Indian Art of the South Kensington Museum" by Lieutenant H.H. Cole, R.E. (p. 313). According to him, Sivaji killed the Muslim with the help of a "bichwa", or "scorpion", - "a curved double-edged blade." Perhaps this refers to some kind of reduced dagger.
It is said that he is worshiped in the old fortress, the capital of Maratha, Sattara (from the words "sat-istara", "seven stars", - the constellation of the Pleiades). Sivaji's sword, "Bhavani", a long Genoese blade of good quality, is also found here. Mrs. Guthrie, who saw the latter, describes it as " good sword from Ferrara (?), four feet long, with a spike on the hilt for striking." She also notes the small size of the hilt. In the Indian Museum in South Kensington there is a bracelet of seven "tiger claws", trimmed in gold, with a clasp on the arm. Mr. Rooselet, who came to Baroda in 1864, describes in his wonderful book one of the favorite spectacles of the Raja of Gekwar or Baroda - "naki-ka-kausti" ("naki-ka-kushti"). Naked fighters were armed with “tiger paws” made of horn, later replaced with steel ones; the death of one of the athletes was inevitable. The weapon, equipped with some sort of handle, was strapped to his clenched right fist. The fighters, intoxicated by bhang (Indian hemp), attacked each other and tore apart the opponent’s face and body like two tigers; Often one of them or even both died from loss of blood. The ruler's excitement in these cases was so high that he could hardly resist repeating the movements of the duelists.
Bowtell, in Arms and Armament, gives an engraving of a defensive weapon with the blade at right angles to the hilt. He called it the “Moorish adarga” (XV century). Adarga is simply the Arabic "el-dakara", which means "shield"; From this word comes the English “targe” (“round shield”) and “target” (“target”). The adaga (not adarga), which Camões described in the Lusiads as being used by East Africans, is a madou type weapon. I translated it as "battle shield" because in this part of the world it combines both a shield and a dagger. The savages and treacherous natives of the Solomon Islands still use indescribable weapons, half sword and half shield, about six feet in length.
I'm referring to an attack called "cuffing", in which the hand, wrist and forearm are cut by the inner blade of the weapon.
Austrian geographer Dr. Joseph Chavannes estimates the average altitude of Africa to be 2,170 feet (rounded), twice as high as Europe (971 feet, M. G. Leipoldt).
Mr. Lane, who was strongly attached to Cairo and its people, has lately insisted on the Arab origin and kinship of the Egyptians. From the point of view of those who know both peoples, they are no less different than the English and the Greeks. Place an Arab, especially a Bedouin, next to a fellah, and the contrast between them will strike even the least experienced eye.
"Kemi" - "Black Land", as opposed to the "Red Land", the wild lands of Northwestern Arabia.
Hecataeus and Anaximander divided the world into Europe (Erebus, Garb, West) and Asia (Asiakh, East). Their successors added Libya (Africa) to these parts of the world; this word was derived from the name of the Libu or Ribu tribes; and the Father of History added to them, completely unreasonably, a fourth - the Nile Delta. Although ethnologically this is absolutely true: Egypt is neither Africa nor Asia, it is a country in itself.
As an example of roots - which are most remarkable when they consist of a single consonant sound, the doubling of which created the very first words - take "dad" and "mama". The first is from the Egyptian pa-pa (root P): to produce, the original idea of the father, and the second is ma-ma (root M): to wear, bear, be pregnant. "Mut" becomes "mata", "mother", mother. Mer (“a-mor”) - love; “meran” (“morior”) - “to die” and “sea” (“mare”) - sea. In Semitic languages we have "ma", Hebrew and Arabic ta - water, and a long list of other words (like "ya" - yes, "na" - no, and others too long to list).
Characterized for the most part by postpositions, as opposed to prepositions, which, when added to a verb, make it causal, reflective, etc., and a fancy form of sentences. Examples are the Finno-Ugric group and the Turko-Mongol-Tatar group, both of which possibly derive from the Old Scythian language.
I prefer the old term "Iranian" to the term "Aryan". Iran (Persia), which was once expanded from India into the Mediterranean region, became one of the great centers where the "Ario"-Egyptian element of the language developed and where the typical people can still be found. There are no particular objections to the term “Turanian”, where Turan is the non-Iranian regions in the east - the lands of the Tatars and China. But the term "Semitic" is based on myths and theories and should be changed to "Arabic". Egyptian-Arabic reached its highest development on the Iberian Peninsula. Hebrew is a northern and to some extent barbaric dialect; Syriac is its northeastern branch, Galla is its western branch, etc.
“An old man is twice a child” (lat.).
The emblem of one district (Tanis) was a crescent and a star; other districts had the same emblems with two or three stars. Later, this emblem passed to the Byzantine Empire, and on the Egyptian flag today we see a crescent and Seb - a five-pointed star. It differs from Turkish mainly in that the latter has a star with seven rays.
From nothing (lat.).
Blind because she sees not with her eyes, but with her inner gaze. Her eyes are hidden by a blindfold. Usually she was called Ma, and her ideograph was a one-cubit ruler.
This is an aorist form from “Hava”, and “natura” (“nature” (Latin) - from “nascor” (“to be born”). If we think mystically, then “Ia” is the past tense, “Ha” is the present, and "Va" is the future.
My travel companion, the Rev. W. Robertson Smith, denied the origin of the Hebrew institution of prophets in Egypt. His interesting book " Old Testament etc." needs more Egyptism. The prophets of the Nile country had their merits; they predicted that Pharaoh Necho's Suez Canal would benefit strangers more than locals.
The robe of the High Priest in Judaism had 366 bells, symbolizing the days of the sidereal year of Sirius. During the time of the first pharaohs, the “Queen of the New Year” appeared coinciding with the beginning of the solar year. The Sirian era has been established from observations prior to Thutmose III (Eighteenth Dynasty, ca. 1580 BC).
Abraham, the legendary ancestor of the Jews, was a Chaldean from Ur in Chaldea. On the eastern bank of the Euphrates is located Uru-ki, Erech, also known as Varka, and opposite it is Ur, Uru, or Mufer. The Bedouins still call it "Urha" in memory of Ur. Thus, Abraham was a mountaineer from a harsh place on the border with Southern Armenia. Hence the "Hebrew face", with its sharply defined features and thick hair and beard, which appears on many sculptures of Babylonia and Persia. Hence also the superficial observation that the Afghans and the hill tribes of western India are Jews because they look like Jews. The reason for this is that they all come from a single ethnic center, a great watershed of races.
In our half of the 19th century, three popular crazes produce a rapid growth of literature. Firstly, this is literature on Shakespeare - that Shakespeare’s works were written not by Shakespeare, but by Bacon or some other poet from Palmerston. Secondly, as side effect the "books of Mormon", the legacy of John Bull's "lost tribes" that were never lost. Third, there is the pyramid craze; the idea that the pyramid caused the appearance of the British inch had already become firmly established in the popular consciousness: these “pyramidists” for the most part forgot that their “pyramid” was only one of many and that in addition to it there were three more that exceeded it in size, and about seventy inferior to her, with whom together she forms the cemetery of Memphis.
It is noteworthy, however, as Brugsch noted, that from ancient times the curses of the Typhonic gods were related to gold. Thus, Plutarch (“Isis and Osiris”) tells us that believers were instructed not to wear this noble metal.
“Lead is also combined with white lead (tin); white lead - with oil" (Pliny. XXXIII, 30).
This process is reminiscent of our blackening. The oldest work of this kind contained mostly silver and no lead.
The horse, apparently unknown during the First Dynasty of Memphis, was well known during the Second. There is an assumption that this animal came there from Libya or from Upper Egypt; but the African horse may have Asian origin. We find the first drawings of horses and chariots in Eileithias, in the temple of Aah-mesa, Amos, Amosis, dating back to 1500 BC. e.
These axes were three feet in length, two of which were the handle; the length of the blade varied from ten to fourteen inches, and underneath was a heavy metal ball, about four inches in diameter; To wield such an ax required strong hands! The club in the British Museum, equipped with wooden spikes, is not represented on the monuments and may have belonged to some barbarian tribe.
I can't help but consider this word akin to the English "chop".
“Kopis refers to slightly curved swords used in war” (lat.). For more information about references to kopis, see chap. eleven.
“Nothing spreads more easily than weapons and their names” (German).
According to Castor, two swords pointed at the throat of a kneeling man were common sign, with which the priests marked clean animals chosen for sacrifice. According to him, this clearly indicates that in the past the sacrifices were human.
Roselini gives an example of a long cone-shaped blade with a clearly recessed stiffener and a rising surface on each side. Along its entire length, the blade is divided into five alternating sections - smooth and shaded.
In Somalia, three more notable features from the life of Ancient Egypt have been preserved: wigs (as worn by the Egyptians), a wooden headstand “ute”, which serves instead of a pillow - further to the north, a half-cylinder made of alabaster with an even cut is used as it - and a headdress made of ostrich feathers The latter was a symbol of truth among the ancient Egyptians, since, according to Horus - Apollo, all feathers are the same length. The Romans adopted this fashion as military decoration. “Has your courage not yet equipped your helmet with everything necessary to protect your face from the scorching sun?” - say the Kurds, who attach one feather to their helmet for each enemy they defeat. Somalis also add one white feather to their hair after each victory or kill. We also sometimes say “a feather in his cap.” The Prince of Wales's feather is the Egyptian symbol for truth. Mr. Gerald Mossey seems to think that tmei is “merely a reverse translation of the Greek themis;” that feathers are "shu" and that the goddess is "ma" or "mati". But the root of "themis" is "ta-ma", "goddess" (really?).
Colonel A. Lane Fox notes that the stock, which is constantly found in these Caucasian daggers, is slightly deviated from the middle of the blade and is in slightly different places on both sides, which shows its origin in the wavy form. I assume that it originally came from an arrowhead, “widened at the bend,” and I give a drawing of this weapon (Fig. 170).
The shape of which is exactly preserved by the wonderful Afghan “harai” - one-sided knives.
According to Denham, the Bagirmi tribe worship a long spear of a curious design; This deification of the spear is also observed among the Margi and Musgu tribes. It spread from Ancient Rome to some Pacific islands; and the inhabitants of the island of Fiji worship the war club. In Baroda (Gujarat) the highest honors are given to golden cannons with silver wheels.
Blades from England and Syria are also imported in large quantities.
Athenaeus talks about a Thracian weapon dance in which “men jumped high and easily, wielding swords.” In the end, one of them hit the other so that everyone thought he was wounded.
Hence the burning desire of the Abyssinians, when Europeans first visited them, to acquire civilized swords. Father Alvarez, who lived in Abyssinia between 1520 and 1527, tells how the Bar Negus (“Bar Negus”, meaning “lords of the sea”) begged the Portuguese ambassador for his richly decorated sword, “for even the great nobles few swords." Prester John (negus, or emperor) displays "five bundles of short swords with silver hilts" taken from the Muslims. The King of Portugal sent Prester John “first of all a golden sword with a richly decorated hilt” and a good swordsman - Estevam Pollarta.
“A lot in a little” (lat.).
Quenching in oil or fat instead of water is a common practice. To this day, workers add a small piece of fat to the water or pour hot oil into it, through which the steel passes before entering the water, since this prevents the formation of cracks and flaws in it.
I have already mentioned this formal deception, the famous “golden axe”, which in 1880-1881. caused the memorable “Ashanti gold rush” (To the Gold Coast for gold. II). What was sent to England was not the item that is considered the national palladium. Another reminder of the last "Ashanti War", "King Coffee's umbrella, an enormous object of bright material", was merely returned to its homeland. This type of thing can be seen in most Italian markets - they cover fruits and vegetables from the sun, which are sold by old women; and it seems to me that the honor of producing this umbrella belongs to Manchester.
The famous copper mines of the Congo, where the metal mined, according to Barbot, was confused with gold.
Captain Cameron brought samples home.
According to Marco Polo, the people of Zanzibar are “tall and thickly built; but they do not seem tall in their own proportions; those that seem to be are simply giants. They are so strong that they can carry for four and eat for five.”
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute for August 1883 published an excellent article, “On the Mechanical Methods of the Ancient Egyptians.” Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie believes that they processed diorite on lathes and inserted stones into the points of engraving tools (diamonds? or the corundum found in abundance in Midian?) and that it was with diamonds that the ancient Babylonian inscriptions were applied.
THE ARMY was organized in the form of military settlements located in the center of the country and in the most threatened areas; the main forces were in Lower Egypt, which was often attacked: there were fewer settlements in Upper Egypt, since the neighboring Nubian tribes could not be a serious opponent of the Egyptians due to their fragmentation. Moreover, the conquered Nubian tribes were obliged to provide Egypt with a certain number of soldiers for internal “police” service. During large campaigns, the pharaohs strengthened their army at the expense of conquered neighboring tribes. These warriors cannot be considered mercenaries, since there is no evidence that they received any payment for their participation in the campaign. One can only assume their right to some share in the spoils of war.
Documents from the times of the Old Kingdom mention a “house of weapons” - a kind of military department, which was in charge of manufacturing weapons, building ships, supplying troops and constructing defensive structures. There is no data on the number of Egyptian troops during the Old Kingdom period. Regarding the fleet, there is only one mention of a detachment of 40 ships sent for the cedars.
The warriors of the Old Kingdom were armed with: a mace with a stone tip, a battle ax made of copper, a spear with a stone tip, and a battle dagger made of stone or copper. In more early period The boomerang was widely used. The main weapons were a bow and a battle ax. As a defensive weapon, the warriors had a wooden shield covered with fur.
The army consisted of detachments. Sources that have reached us say that the soldiers were engaged in combat training, which was in charge of a special head of military training. Already during the period of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians used formation in ranks. All the soldiers in the ranks had the same weapons.
| Egyptian fortress in Semne. Reconstruction |
Fortresses of the Old Kingdom period had various shapes (circle, oval or rectangle). The fortress walls sometimes had round towers in the shape of a truncated cone with a platform at the top and a parapet. Thus, the fortress near Abydos was built in the shape of a rectangle; the length of its sides reached 125 and 68 m, the height of the walls was 7-11 m, the thickness in the upper part was 2 m. The fortress had one main and two additional entrances. The fortresses in Semne and Kumme were already complex defensive structures that had ledges, walls and a tower.
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Image on the walls of the Inti tomb at Deshasha |
When storming fortresses, the Egyptians used assault ladders with wooden disc wheels, which made them easier to install and move along the fortress wall. The breach in the fortress walls was made with large crowbars. This is how technology and methods of storming fortresses were born. The Egyptians were not natural sailors, and for a long time their voyages were limited to the Nile and the adjacent canals, which provided the most convenient means of communication among the mountains and deserts surrounding the country. The absence of forests, with the exception of acacia, a hard tree not very suitable for shipbuilding, forced for a long time to build (or, as they called it, “knit”) ships from long bundles of papyrus, a reed that grows in abundance in the country. Over time, the Egyptians had to use acacia in shipbuilding.
The Egyptians' ships were rowed, but they had sails. Each ship had a permanent crew with a chief at its head. The detachment of ships was headed by the chief of the fleet. The construction of ships was in charge of the so-called ship builder. “Two large fleets” were created: one in Upper, the other in Lower Egypt.
Sea ships carried out raids in the Mediterranean Sea.
Organization of the Egyptian army during the Middle Kingdom
The TERRITORY of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom was approximately 35 thousand square meters. km. Its population, according to ancient authors and modern estimates, was approximately 7 million people. Judging by the available data on recruitment in one of the nomes (one warrior per hundred men), the Egyptian army could consist of several tens of thousands of warriors. Several thousand warriors usually went on a campaign. The pharaoh had with him “retinue people” who made up his personal guard, and “companions of the ruler” - a group of noble warriors loyal to him, from which military leaders were appointed: “chief of the army”, “chief of recruits”, “military commander of Middle Egypt” and others superiors.
The armament of Egyptian warriors during the Middle Kingdom period improved somewhat compared to the previous period, as metal processing became more advanced. Spears and arrows now had bronze tips. Impact weapons remained the same: a battle axe, a spear up to 2 m long, a mace and a dagger.
A spear for throwing, a boomerang, a sling for throwing stones, and a bow were used as throwing weapons. A reinforced bow appeared, which increased the range of the arrow and its accuracy.
The arrows had tips of various shapes and feathers; their length ranged from 55 to 100 cm. Common arrows in the ancient East with a leaf-shaped tip, initially flint, and then copper and bronze, were less effective weapons than the arrows with a faceted tip - bone or bronze, introduced by the Scythians in the second quarter of the 1st millennium. The fur-lined shield, half the height of a man, continued to be the only protective equipment.
During the Middle Kingdom, the organization of the army was improved. The units now had a certain number of 6, 40, 60, 100, 400, 600 soldiers. The detachments numbered 2, 3, 10 thousand soldiers. Units of uniformly armed warriors appeared - spearmen and archers, who had a formation order for movement; They moved in a column of four rows along the front and ten ranks deep.
For their merits, warriors were promoted, received land, livestock, slaves, or were awarded “gold of praise” (like an order) and decorated military weapons.
From the west and east, access to Egypt was reliably protected by the Libyan and Arabian deserts.
To protect the southern border, three lines of fortresses were built in the area of the first and second cataracts of the Nile. The fortresses became more advanced: they now had battlements that covered the defending soldiers; protruding towers for shelling the approaches to the wall; a ditch that made it difficult to approach the wall. The fortress gates were protected by towers. Small exits were arranged for forays. Much attention was paid to supplying the fortress garrison with water; wells or hidden exits to the river were built.
Of the surviving remains of ancient Egyptian fortresses from that period, the most characteristic is the fortress at Mirgissa, built in the shape of a rectangle.
This fortress has an internal wall 10 m high with protruding towers located at a distance of 30 m from one another on the face opposite the river, and a ditch 8 m wide. An external wall was built 25 m from the internal wall, which surrounds the fortress on three sides; on the fourth side the cliff drops steeply towards the river. The outer wall is surrounded by a ditch 36 m wide. In addition, forward walls were built on rocky ledges, adjacent to the corners of the fortress and allowing flanking the approaches from the river. Other walls protected the main entrance to the fortress. The fortress in Mirgissa was already a complex defensive structure, which was based on the requirement of flanking the approaches. This was a step forward in the development of fortification - one of the branches of military art.
The most vulnerable spot The country's defense was in the north - the lower reaches where the Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea were open to conquerors. When the power of the pharaohs in the country was strong, it was here that the Egyptians kept the bulk of their fleet and land army. But during the uprisings against the tsarist government, the defense of the northern borders was sharply weakened, and Asian nomads could freely penetrate into Egypt.
The pharaohs and their commanders tried to fight quickly in order to return their troops home within a few months. Often the Egyptian army returned home after a three- or four-month campaign, having captured only one or two small fortresses. Major battles rarely happened - the commanders took care of the soldiers, whom they called “the flock of God.”
Organization of the Egyptian army during the New Kingdom
THE EGYPTIAN army during the New Kingdom was a military caste, divided by age or length of service into two groups, distinguished by the clothing they wore. The first group, according to Herodotus, numbered up to 160 thousand people, the second - up to 250 thousand. It must be assumed that these figures give the number of the entire military caste, including the elderly and children, and possibly women. So, at best, only tens of thousands of warriors could go on a campaign.
Most of the warriors of the New Kingdom were armed with swords, and the bow played a significant role in battle. Protective weapons were improved: in addition to the shield, the warrior also had a helmet and a leather armor with attached bronze plates. An important part of the army were war chariots. The chariot was a wooden platform (1x0.5 m) on two wheels, to which a drawbar was tightly attached. The front part and sides of the chariot were covered with leather, which protected the legs of the combat crew, which consisted of a driver and one fighter, from arrows. Two horses were harnessed to the chariot.
The main force of the Egyptian army was the infantry, which, after the introduction of uniform weapons, consisted of archers, slingers, spearmen, and warriors with swords. The presence of equally armed infantry raised the question of the order of its formation.
If more early time the Egyptians fought in deep, closed formations in the form of columns, then later, as a result of the improvement of weapons and the acquisition combat experience, the depth of the formation decreases, and the front lengthens - this was caused by the need to use a larger number of soldiers and weapons during simultaneous action. The battle formation of the Egyptian heavy infantry consisted of one closed line 10 or more ranks deep. War chariots were the moving force of the Egyptian battle formation. A closely closed formation of 10 or more ranks in depth (phalanx) was first introduced not in Ancient Greece, but in the countries of the Ancient East.
Egyptian tactics boiled down mainly to a frontal attack.
Before the appearance of war chariots, the battle was started by foot soldiers - archers and dart throwers, then the opponents approached and decided the outcome in hand-to-hand combat. With the advent of chariots, the battle became more complicated - the chariots, for example under Ramses II, were built in one open line and located in front, on the flanks and behind the infantry. The chariot attack was aimed at disrupting the enemy ranks with the first blow. The success of the battle depended on the combination of the actions of war chariots and infantry.
War chariots, in addition, were a powerful means of pursuing the enemy. During the campaign, the Egyptian army was divided into several detachments that moved in columns. Reconnaissance was always sent ahead. When stopping, the Egyptians set up a fortified camp of shields. When storming cities, they used a formation called a “turtle” (a canopy of shields that covered the soldiers from above), a ram, a vine (a low canopy of vines covered with turf - to protect soldiers during siege work) and an assault ladder.
A special body was in charge of supplying the troops. Products were issued from warehouses according to certain standards. There were special workshops for the manufacture and repair of weapons.
During the New Kingdom, the Egyptians had a strong navy. The ships were equipped with sails and a large number of oars.
According to some reports, the bow of the ship was adapted for ramming an enemy ship.
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