Ancient Egypt: weapons with the name

Throughout the long history of ancient Egypt, peace and quiet were his rare guests. In addition to the fact that the inhabitants of the banks of the Nile had to repel attacks by warlike neighbors and numerous nomadic tribes, the state periodically shook internal conflicts that resulted in bloody riots and turmoil. Therefore the weapons of Ancient Egypt often became the decisive argument in solving many vital issues.

The main periods of the history of Ancient Egypt

Traditionally, the history of Ancient Egypt is divided into several stages, the main of which are:

1. Ancient kingdom, covering the period from 3.2 thousand to 2.4 thousand years BC. E. He was preceded by the Pre-Dynastic Period and the Early Kingdom.
2. The average kingdom - from 2,1 thousand to 1,8 thousand years BC. E.
3. The new kingdom - between 1,7 thousand years BC. And 1,1 thousand years BC. E. He was followed by the Late and Hellenistic periods.

Such a chronology is rather conditional, because between each of the main historical periods there were quite long transitional stages that became the time of acute political and social struggle experienced by Ancient Egypt. Weapons in these periods were in demand more than ever, which gave an additional impetus to its improvement.

Reasons for the establishment of a regular army

During the period of the Old Kingdom, which left a memory for the construction of the largest and most famous pyramids in our time, the main enemy to the southern borders of Egypt was its traditional enemies, the Nubians, and for the eastern - Bedouin nomads. Since protection from their intrusion and protection of trade routes was a priority, the pharaohs took care of creating a regular army, the units of which had uniform weapons. These included mostly free peasants who received a certain salary for their service.

What did they make weapons in Ancient Egypt?

At all stages of human development, its weapons depended primarily on the level of technological progress. Since in the period under review it was still in its initial stage, the weapons in Ancient Egypt were made from that limited list of materials that the then armourers had at their disposal. Of the metals at their disposal were only copper and bronze, which went for the manufacture of daggers and battle axes. The weapons made from them were unusually expensive at that time and were used mainly by military commanders of various levels and by the pharaohs themselves.

The main striking force of the army consisted of soldiers armed with spears and covered with shields. A separate kind of troops were archers and fighters, hitting the opponent with clubs. The tips for the spears and arrows, as well as the upper thickened parts of the clubs, called pommels, were made of flint.

Shields and wigs of infantrymen

The Egyptian combat shields were basically of two kinds - large, almost reaching the chin of the warrior and pointed at the top, as well as smaller ones that had a rounded shape. Both those and others were equipped on the inside with special belts that allowed them to be held, and it is easy to carry out various combat techniques.

As for the clothes of the ancient warriors, in view of the dry and hot climate, they had no special uniform. Their usual outfit consisted of a short skirt, also common among the civilian population, as well as wigs of sheep's clothing. This, it would seem, decorative attribute, nevertheless had a purely utilitarian purpose. Made from several layers of sheepskin, fur-turned outward, these headdresses played the role of helmets that protected the warrior's head from a club or mace blow.

Egyptian phalanx

The strength and combat capability of the Egyptian army is evidenced by the fact that during the reign of Pharaoh Snofru (2614-2579 BC), as a result of the fighting, the Egyptians managed to capture 700 thousand prisoners besides rich booty. Since it was necessary to fight on an open plain terrain, the main battle tactics of the Egyptians was the construction of a phalanx - a dense line, consisting of lancers, covered with shields.

Behind them moved archers, shooting through their heads and showering the enemy with clouds of arrows. With this tactic, which was also used by other nations, a more disciplined and trained army always won. In this respect, the Egyptians did not know themselves equal.

Features of the Army of the Middle Kingdom

Weapons of Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom have replenished widely used axes. In the previous historical period, they were already known on the banks of the Nile, but they were used extremely rarely because of their high cost. This stabbing-piercing weapon, which was a semblance of a wide curved ax, planted on a long pole, was made of bronze, so it was extremely expensive.

As before, the army was divided into warriors who used shields in battle, and those who did without them. The first included spearmen, to whom at the end of the Middle Kingdom joined the infantrymen with axes, and to the second - the soldiers armed with darts, axes, axes, clubs and clubs.

Innovations in the tactics of combat

Partly altered and the order of building combat phalanxes. If in the previous period they were single-row, now the soldiers began to build in several rows, standing one after another. At the same time, those who were placed in the rear rows had spears with longer shafts, which allowed them to also hit the enemy.

This order of placing the lancers was called the deep construction and was then used by many armies. Despite the fact that the most famous example is the famous Macedonian phalanx, the ancient Egypt tried and developed this innovation, whose weapons even at that time allowed the use of such tactics of combat.

A characteristic feature of the Egyptian army of the Middle Kingdom is that it consisted exclusively of infantry, and has not yet used horses, although on the banks of the Nile they were already known at that time. As before, in the course of military operations an important role was assigned to archers, whose weapons had several modifications.

It was a very formidable force. The calculations show that the soldiers, armed with the most simple bows made from one piece of wood and reaching a meter and a half in sweep, were able to hit the enemy at a distance of up to 150 meters. At the same time, there were more sophisticated samples of these weapons, collected from different types of wood and covered with leather. But because of their high cost, they were hardly available to ordinary soldiers.

The decline and the subsequent rebirth of Egypt

For the Egyptians, the era of the Middle Kingdom ended very badly. This happened in part because they did not strengthen the army in a timely manner by a new army of troops-chariots of war that their neighbors had long used. As a result, they received a bitter lesson, presented to them by the tribes of the Hyksos nomads.

Using high-speed double chariots in battle, they made lightning attacks, showering the enemy with rain arrows and safely leaving the pursuit. For their mobile detachments, the army and weapons of Ancient Egypt, delayed at the previous stage of its development, did not pose a serious danger. The result was his capture by the Hyksos and the subsequent period of decline.

The revival of a powerful, but overthrown by the barbarians, began around the 17th century BC. E. The main reason for this process was that the soldiers of Ancient Egypt and their weapons underwent cardinal changes, which finally allowed the expulsion of the invaders.

First of all, they learned not only to breed horses, but also to manage them. In addition, Egyptian masters took over from foreigners the technology of making war chariots, and former infantrymen mastered the technique of conducting effective combat operations with them.

What did the chariot look like?

About what was an Egyptian war chariot, today you can judge from the images that have come down to us, as well as the artifacts discovered during archaeological excavations. It was a light wagon, designed for two people, one of which controlled two horses harnessed to it, and the second at this time fired upon opponents of the bow.

Its design was thought out in such a way that the chariot had the minimum possible weight and was able to develop a great speed. For this purpose, only the necessary number of side wooden fences was installed, and the floor was made of wicker from thin rods. Wheels with narrow wooden rims also did not have much weight. Towards the chariot mounted quivers with arrows, the stock of which allowed a long battle.

Innovations in Armsmanship

At the same time, the improvements in the processing of metal were the most important factor that enabled the army to raise its armament to a completely different level. Thanks to them, the former flint points of spears and arrows were replaced by iron sheet-shaped ones. The design of the bows was also improved, which made it possible to significantly improve their accuracy and range of combat.

During this period, the old weapons of Ancient Egypt, whose names are mostly familiar to history lovers, were supplemented with a novelty borrowed from the Sumerians, according to researchers. It was a so-called hopesh - a kind of cold weapon, consisting of a sickle-shaped curved blade and a hilt. A characteristic feature of this type of sword was its high punching ability, allowing to inflict warriors, clad in metal shells.

It is noteworthy that among the new types of weapons that appeared in this period, there are also boomerangs, almost outwardly practically indistinguishable from those used by the inhabitants of Australia and Polynesia. Since in this case any borrowing is excluded, it remains to be assumed that their homeland is directly Ancient Egypt.

Weapons and military organization of the New Kingdom

The technical innovations described above made it possible to substantially restructure the entire military organization of the state. In addition to the inherited from the previous centuries of infantry - the "mesh", there appeared the charioteer - "netherter", which became a kind of elite of the army. They devoted all their lives to learning combat skills and inherited from their father to son the places in chariots.

Clothing and weapons of infantrymen of Ancient Egypt also underwent changes. To the old skirts were added heart-shaped napivnye protective aprons, covering the belly of the warrior. The fur wigs that were not justified and disappeared were replaced by headscarves that protected from the scorching rays of the sun.

In its entirety, the Egyptian soldiers' equipment during the New Kingdom period was represented in the battle of Kadesh (1274 BC), where their army met on the battlefield with the troops of the Hittite kingdom. Ancient Egypt, whose weapons continued to improve, in addition to its traditional species such as bows, spears, darts, battle axes, axes, daggers and shortly before appeared hopshins, as described above, that day also revealed to the world two completely new types of daggers .

Their double-edged blades, forged from steel (earlier they were made of bronze), had a leaf-like shape, at which they were smoothly sharpened at the ends. Convenient, and handles, equipped with cone-shaped funnels. By design, they were identical, and the difference was mainly in size. This battle became a kind of frontier in which bronze and copper in the hands of the soldiers gave way to steel.

In subsequent historical periods, the weapons of Ancient Egypt (a photo of some of its samples are presented in the article) has undergone further changes that have resulted from both technical progress within the country itself and the development of international relations.