Ancient Egyptian Warfare (3000 BCE–332 BCE)

by

Anthony Spalinger

• LAST MODIFIED: 22 November 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0261

Introduction

The culture of Egyptian history spans millennia. Hence, we can see major changes (developments, innovations, borrowings from abroad) as well as the persistence of organizational stability. Add to this the slow growth in corporate identity of the state’s army as well as its technological changes. The latter is most clearly revealed in the use of horses for the elite segment of the pharaonic army in the New Kingdom, the chariotry. It was roughly around the same time that the Egyptians had an independent army, whereas earlier such had not been the case. The war materiel, especially axes and maceheads in fighting, had slowly but effectively been replaced by the use of more effective swords—note the advance through the sickle-shaped types—and shields. Then, too, the introduction of bronze technology in the late third millennium BCE had effectively altered the earlier reliance upon stone and copper. During the Middle Kingdom (c. 2008 BCE–1775 BCE), massive fortress building took place at the Second Cataract in the south in Nubia. Furthermore, permanent military duty was established and some type of cursus honorum for high-ranking soldiers is discernible. Egyptian history is separated into unified periods, called Kingdoms, from those in between when disunity was prevalent and warfare frequent. The latter eras are called Intermediate Periods. This bibliography commences with Dynasties I and II, often called the Early State, and then follows on to the fully developed archaic state of the Old Kingdom, covering Dynasties III–VIII. Subsequent is the First Intermediate Period, which ended with the second unification of the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XII–XIII). The Second Intermediate Period comes afterward, to be succeeded in turn by the New Kingdom (Dynasties XVIII–XX). That was the era of Egypt’s great empire in Asia (Palestine especially, but also southern Syria) and Nubia in the south up to the Fourth Cataract. A third period of disunity then occurred (Dynasties XXI–XXV). The Saite Period of Dynasty XXVI (664 BCE–525 BCE) is often recognized as the final epoch of a strong independent Egypt. But due to outside invasions, the Egyptians of the Delta came to rely upon northern Ionian mercenaries. This is particularly evident during the reign of the first Saite ruler, Psammetichus I (664 BCE–610 BCE), but became stable thereafter. Then came the domination of Persia, which, despite some independent royal houses, effectively concludes the history owing to Alexander the Great’s invasion of Egypt in 332 BCE.

Egypt: The Early State (3000 BCE–2800 BCE)

The Old Kingdom plus the first two dynasties are now placed c. 3000 BCE–2200 BCE. At this time there was one king of Egypt, the pharaoh, and some type of elementary court plus bureaucracy was in place. There is no evidence of any standard army, much less a permanent small military sector. Warfare occurred nevertheless, mainly on the boundaries of this archaic state. The source material for the first two Egyptian dynasties is mainly archaeological. By and large, except for the later evidence derived from the Old Kingdom annals, which mainly covers the later period, the data are epigraphic (rock inscriptions), label or tags attached to funerary goods, large ceremonial slate palettes, carved royal objects and insignia such as maceheads, and the like. The effective study of this epoch is Bestock 2017. There is one detailed and significant review of the work that adds even more necessary information on warfare: Matić 2019. Bestock 2017 also may be contrasted with Gilbert 2004, which follows a formal and traditional approach to the data concerned with this era. From a sociohistorical vantage, see Goudsblom 1989.

• Bestock, Laurel. Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt: Image and Ideology before the New Kingdom. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315543505

  An excellent overarching study that covers the entire issue of violence, and thus military aspects are included and effectively integrated into this volume.

• Gilbert, Gregory P. Weapons and Warfare in Early Egypt. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2004.

  DOI: 10.30861/9781841715711

  This has been the “standard” work for some years. It is virtually complete in providing the primary data.

• Goudsblom, Johan. “The Formation of Military-Agrarian Regimes.” In Human History and Social Process. Edited by Johan Goudsblom, E. L. Jones, and Stephen Mennell, 79–92. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 1989.

  Much more sociologically oriented than the others three studies listed here, and non-Egyptological in outlook.

• Matić, Uroš. “Review of Bestock, L. (2017), Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt: Image and Ideology before the New Kingdom.” Archäologische Informationen 42 (2019): 427–432.

  Matićs approach is somewhat in contrast to that of Bestock as he tends to be au courant with the latest methodological proposals in the social sciences, but this review is a well-presented critique.