David O’Connor and Stephen Quirke, eds. Mysterious Lands (Lon-
don: UCL Press. 2003).
John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (New York: Vin-
tage, 1999).
Th ucydides, Th e Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (Harmond-
sworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1954).
David Wengrow, Th e Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transfor-
mations in North-East Africa (Ca mbridge, U.K.: Ca mbridge
University Press, 2006).
▶ Military
introduction
Murderous confl ict among people dates back to ancient times.
Rock and cave paintings from the last great ice age show peo-
ple armed with spears and shields, sometimes trying to kill
one another. Th is does not mean that those ancient warriors
had military outlooks on what they were doing; it is possible
that anyone in a community would be expected to take arms
to protect it or to attack others.
Military thinking may have developed among people
who had something special to protect, such as an oasis in a
dry land, a crossing for a trade route over a river, especially
fertile farmlands, or accumulated wealth, as in a prosper-
ous city. Fortifi cations to protect a community are very
old. In many lands, villages were surrounded by wooden
palisades (a strong fence made of stakes) or defensive
ditches. Th e fi rst large-scale fortifi cations may have been
earthen walls. Th ese could be very extensive, surround-
ing even large cities and requiring thousands of workers to
construct. Clay bricks were popular in the Near East and
Egypt, where walls more than a dozen feet thick were built
around fortresses or cites. Both earth and brick had signifi -
cant problems. One was that they were subject to erosion
by water. Another problem came with the development of
siege weapons, which could knock down bricks. Th us, stone
eventually became favored. For instance, the Great Wall of
China began as mostly earthworks, slowly replaced over
hundreds of years with stone.
Some historians have argued that all great empires have
been built by warfare, and many ancient peoples believed
that a strong military was essential to survival. Of the vari-
ous kinds of writings that show up in ancient cultures, mili-
tary ones are among the most common. Th eories of warfare
and rules for warfare abounded, but the successful military
commander was oft en someone who surprised his enemy by
breaking the rules. An advance in technology was oft en the
secret to breaking the rules. For instance, chariots created
more mobility on the battlefi eld for elite warriors, playing key
roles in wars and sometimes changing the course of an entire
culture, as in the Aryan invasion of northern India. Still, the
stirrup made the chariot obsolete by providing a horseback
rider with the stability to fi re arrows into the enemy or hack
with a sword and remain in the saddle.
Militaries became complex organizations as military
technology advanced. A government needed to create a
chain of command and policies for when and how military
forces were to be used. Some cultures organized their armies
around heroes, elite warriors who fought for individual glory.
Th ose cultures that learned to organize their armies so that
all their troops worked together usually overcame the armies
that emphasized individualism. Th us military discipline be-
came a matter of great importance. Governments learned to
train their offi cers and troops.
Th e military was oft en the most expensive part of gov-
ernment. If a government wanted a successful army, it had to
be sure its army was fed. Th e soldiers needed proper quarters
in which to live, and they required armaments and training
in how to use the armaments. Th is expense meant that stand-
ing armies were usually small, with professionals being sup-
plemented by militias or untrained people in times of war.AFRICA
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Only three ancient African nations outside Egypt had mili-
taries: Karmah, Cush, and Axum. Not much is known about
Karmah, and much of its territory is now under Lake Nasser,
the reservoir behind the Aswān Dam, which hampers ar-
chaeological research into the kingdom of Karmah and the
ancient Nubians. Th e Karmahns were a mix of Nubians and
people from farther south, and the Karmahn kingdom ex-
isted from about 1900 to 1492 b.c.e. Sometime before 1650
b.c.e. Karmah extended its dominion to just south of the
fi rst cataract on the Nile river, beyond where the Aswān
Dam is now.
Th e Karmahn military still used stone spears. Its orga-
nization is not known, but it seems to have been infl uenced
by the nomadic cultures to the west, which would mean that
it favored individual heroism rather than group cooperation
in combat. Between 1504 and 1492 b.c.e. Egypt conquered
Karmah, sacked the capital, and seized land far to the south of
Karmah, bringing nearly all of Nubia under Egyptian rule.
Most of what is known about Kush comes from the
Egyptians. Th e Kushites created their own alphabet, but their
language has yet to be deciphered. Th ey regarded themselves
as the true inheritors of the ancient Egyptian culture and of-
ten wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphics, which have been inter-
preted and provide some light on Kush’s military. Kush arose
in Nubia in about 900 b.c.e., fi lling a power vacuum left when
Egypt withdrew aft er about 500 years of ruling Nubia. Kush
organized its military along Egyptian lines. One aspect of its
military not shared by Egypt was the use of elephants in pa-
rades and as elevated platforms for archers.
By the time Kush took over northern Nubia aft er the
Egyptians withdrew, the Egyptian fortifi cations in Nubia had
become show pieces rat her t han serious mi litar y insta l lations.
Th e fortifi cations tended to be inside a Nubian city, impres-
sively decorated but not of much value for protecting the city.Military: Africa 725