The Egyptian army is one of the greatest fighting forces in the ancient world during the New Kingdom period (1550 BC - 1070 BC), and it became so thanks to its use of advanced weapons.
In its early history, Egypt's army relied on weapons of simple stone scepters, wooden-tipped spears, axes, bows and arrows to fight tribesmen from neighboring countries, and then came the Hyksos, who are an invading army from the side of Syria who occupied Egypt since about 1650 BC, with vastly superior weapons such as Fast chariots and powerful compound bows.
Ancient Egyptian forces
Ancient Egyptian forces
During the foreign colonialism, the Egyptians studied their enemy closely and built an arsenal of new lethal weapons, when Ahmose I liberated and reunified Egypt, and became the first pharaoh of the modern kingdom, which is the golden age in which Egypt used its advanced and effective weapons to expand the empire and achieve wealth, and we will mention the nine main weapons that She led the Egyptian army at the height of its power, according to History website.
1- A spear and a shield with a bronze head
The core of the Egyptian army's armament, like most ancient armies, was the spears, armed with a wooden shield in their left hand and a spear with a bronze head in their right, and the Egyptian "spears" were advancing on the enemy in tightly packed formations, and the length of the spear allowed Egyptian fighters to duel their enemy behind the relative safety of their shields , And the bronze tip was solid and sharp enough to penetrate the skin armor of enemy infantry, while the metal was extremely valuable, all you needed was a small piece of bronze at the edge.
2- The spear
The Egyptian spear was working in close combat as a short spear of about a meter in length, and the soldiers of the New Kingdom carried the quiver of spears on their shoulders like arrows, and from close range they used the spear to press the enemy behind their shields.
They could also fire armor-piercing spears to attack vehicles or infantry lines. The Egyptians did not treat the spear as a law that could be disposed of like an arrow. They installed their spears with metal blades and made them easier to aim and throw.
3- The ax
In earlier periods of Egyptian history, the battle ax was a secondary weapon tucked into a warrior's belt or suspended from his shoulder, and when the enemy did not wear armor, the blades of the battle axes were semicircular or crescent-shaped, designed to inflict deep and chopped wounds on the unprotected body.
4- Scepter
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of a distinctive Egyptian weapon, referred to as a mace, which is one of the oldest weapons on Earth. Starting in 6000 BC, the Egyptians armed themselves with simple straps made of a wooden handle topped by a heavy stone head, but during the New Kingdom, they improved the design by adding a curved blade incorporated into a solid wooden head.
5- Short swords
Swords and daggers were not a common Egyptian weapon before the Hyksos introduced advances in bronze casting, only then was it possible to make short swords strong enough to withstand the rigors of battle, since bronze is not the strongest of metals, some swords were cast in a single solid piece, either blade And the handle, to provide additional strength.
6- Curved sword
Perhaps the most famous Egyptian weapon from the New Kingdom era is the bowed sword, and the distinctive blade of the sword looks like a question mark.
7- Compound bow
Before the invasion of the Hyksos, the Egyptians relied on the "self" bow, which is a simple weapon for the bow and arrow made of a single piece of wood, but the Syrians introduced them to the compact strength and accuracy of the composite bow, which is a complex and expensive weapon made of layers of wood and animal horns and strings that have been "strengthened." "To generate great power, the compound bow became the Egyptian super weapon.
8- War wheels
The charioteer was the fastest and most terrifying war machine, and the Hyksos were the ones who introduced the Egyptians to lightweight wooden wheels with flexible leather floors to absorb shock, but the modern Egyptian kingdom, with its enormous wealth, deployed swarms of heavily armed vehicles to the battlefields.
9- The shield
The average Egyptian soldier in the New Kingdom army did not wear many protection methods on the battlefield, perhaps they wore simple textile rolls reinforced with animal glue.
Wed, Dec. 9, 2020
