page_title: Military of ancient Egypt
section_title: New Kingdom armies
hierarchical_section_title: Military of ancient Egypt / New Kingdom armies
caption_attribution_description: English: Rod Dailey took this photo with a Canon, Powershot SD1400IS camera at the Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago. Photography is allowed there at all times. This photo is from Ramses II's temple of Beit el-Wali in Northern Nubia.
context_page_description: Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the northern reaches of the Nile River in Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history occurred in a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as intermediate periods. Ancient Egypt reached its pinnacle during the New Kingdom, after which it entered a period of slow decline. Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign powers in the late period, and the rule of the pharaohs officially ended in 31 BC, when the early Roman Empire conquered Egypt and made it a province. Although the Egyptian military forces in the Old and Middle kingdoms were well maintained, the new form that emerged in the New Kingdom showed the state becoming more organized to serve its needs.
  For most parts of its long history, ancient Egypt was unified under one government. The main military concern for the nation was to keep enemies out.
context_section_description: The major advance in weapons technology and warfare began around 1600 BC when the Egyptians fought and finally defeated the Hyksos people who had made themselves lords of Lower Egypt. It was during this period the horse and chariot were introduced into Egypt, which the Egyptians had no answer to until they introduced their own version of the war chariot at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty. The Egyptians then improved the design of the chariot to suit their own requirements. That made the Egyptian chariots lighter and faster than those of other major powers in the Middle East. Egyptian war chariots were manned by a driver holding a whip and the reins and a fighter, generally wielding a composite bow or, after spending all his arrows, a short spear of which he had a few. The charioteers wore occasionally scale armor, but many preferred broad leather bands crossed over the chest or carried a shield. Their torso was thus more or less protected, while the lower body was shielded by the chariot itself. The pharaohs often wore scale armour with inlaid semi-precious stones, which offered better protection, the stones being harder than the metal used for arrow tips.
  The principal weapon of the Egyptian army was the bow and arrow; it was transformed into a formidable weapon with the introduction by the Hyksos of the composite bow. These bows, combined with the war chariot, enabled the Egyptian army to attack quickly and from a distance.
  Other new technologies included the khopesh, which temple scenes show being presented to the king by the gods with a promise of victory, body armour and improved bronze casting; in the 18th Dynasty soldiers began wearing helmets and leather or cloth tunics with metal scale coverings].
  These changes also caused changes in the role of the military in Egyptian society, and so during the New Kingdom, the Egyptian military changed from levy troops into a firm organization of professional soldiers. Conquests of foreign territories, like Nubia, required a permanent force to be garrisoned abroad. The encounter with other powerful Near Eastern kingdoms like the Mitanni, the Hittites, and later the Assyrians and Babylonians, made it necessary for the Egyptians to conduct campaigns far from home. Over 4,000 infantry of an army corps were organized into 20 companies between 200 and 250 men each. There were also companies of Libyans, Nubians, Canaanite and Sherdens who served in the Egyptian army. They were often described as mercenaries but they were most likely impressed prisoners who preferred the life of a soldier instead of slavery.
caption: Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II in his war chariot charging into battle against the Nubians
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