Archaeologists think that this means the Egyptians had be-
come very secure in Nubia and had nothing to fear from the
local people.
Th e military’s function in Kush was to keep the king-
dom’s trade routes open and to protect the kingdom from
nomadic raiders who would steal crops and loot villages and
towns. For this, Kush maintained a standing army, perhaps a
few thousand troops at fi rst and possibly as many as 40,000
at the kingdom’s height of power. Kush may have had a mili-
tary academy for training its offi cers. It is not clear who was
and was not eligible to become an offi cer, but it is known that
women sometimes led the army into battle. A queen was
called candace, and ancient Greeks recorded an attack in 7
c.e. led by such a woman, Candace Amanirenas, against the
Romans in Egypt.
Th ere exist some impressive stone structures that may
once have been part of Kushite fortresses, but archaeologists
disagree over the purposes of the edifi ces. For maintaining
garrisons in its territories, particularly on its frontiers, Kush
seems to have followed Egyptian patterns of constructing
clay brick fortresses. Th ese had outer walls with towers at
their corners and an interior keep also made of brick. Defen-
sive ditches lay outside the walls. Siege engines were rarely
used in Egypt and Kush, so an attacking force would have to
overcome defenders in the ditches while archers on the walls
rained arrows on them. Th e typical way to lay siege to a for-
tress was to surround it and wait to starve out the defenders,
which could take a few years. Th e nomads who raided Kush
did not have this staying power, and the Kushite army could
relieve a fortress long before the raiders could overcome it.
Th e Kushite general Piye, who invaded Egypt in about
eighth century b.c.e., had as the core of his army veteran
troops who were highly disciplined. Army units tended to be
divided into archers, spearmen, and swordsmen. Th e spear-
men undertook the heaviest fi ghting. Th e archers fought be-
hind the spearmen, and the swordsmen protected the archers.
Even ordinary Kushites tended to be good warriors, and they
were oft en hired as mercenaries by Near Eastern kingdoms and
Egypt. Kush could therefore fi eld an army of fi erce fi ghters, all
of whom had some understanding of military discipline.
As he advanced north through Egypt, Piye renovated
Egypt’s fortresses and city defenses. He eventually took on
the duties of pharaoh (r. ca. 750–ca. 712 b.c.e.). His successors
continued to rebuild Egypt’s defenses. Although they orga-
nized Egypt’s military intelligently, their weapons and think-
ing were still in the Bronze Age, whereas the Near East was
in the Iron Age. When the Kushite pharaoh Tantamani (r. ca.
664–ca. 657 b.c.e.) tried to reestablish Egyptian infl uence in
Palestine, the Assyrians attacked. Plague helped to destroy
the fi rst Assyrian strike force, but superior armor, weapons,
and tactics enabled the Assyrians to drive the Cushites out of
Egypt around 656 b.c.e.
Th e Kush government took note of how Assyria had
defeated Tantamani’s armies and took fi rm measures to ad-
vance into the Iron Age. Although Kush’s soldiers appear to
have continued to use shields made of hide, their weapons
and tactics advanced to a level unmatched elsewhere among
Africans. Th e military became focused on protecting the
southern reaches of Kush as well as protecting its northern
and western territories. Commerce in eastern Africa seems
to have fl ourished in part because Kush’s army kept the peace
among the region’s southern tribes.
When Kush’s military power faded is not known. It
seems to have still been formidable in the 200s c.e., but little
else is known of the region during the early years of the Com-
mon Era. By 330 c.e. the Kushites had fl ed their country, and
it was occupied by nomadic tribes. By then a new power had
risen in eastern Africa, in present-day Ethiopia. Th is was the
kingdom of Axum. It had begun as a trading city that was
visited by Arabs and Indians from the east. By the 200s c.e. it
controlled much of eastern Africa.
Not much is known about Axum’s military. Axum seems
to have had a small coastal navy. Imposing forts made of
stone and masonry sat atop coastal hills and controlled access
to the interior of Axum. In 330 c.e. the nomads who had in-
vaded Kush violated a treaty they had with Axum, and Ezānā,
king of Axum, led an invasion of Kush that found only the
nomadic tribes Red Noba and Black Noba, who were soundly
defeated. Overall, Axum seems to have preferred diplomacy
to taking military action, and it emphasized commerce over
war, using its military mostly to keep pirates and bandits at
bay. Its hilltop fortresses suggest that it had a standing army
to man them and that the army was expected to defend Axum
from invasion. Perhaps Axum’s military played a role in pro-
tecting the country from Arab invasions from the seventh
century c.e. onward, but this is not yet known.EGYPT
BY AMR KAMEL
Egypt had no standing professional army before the New
Kingdom (ca. 1550–ca. 1070 b.c.e.). When the need arose,
provincial governors, temples, and estates provided units un-
der the command of local offi cials, as in the case of Unas (r.
2356–2323 b.c.e) in the Fift h Dynasty. Th e offi cial related in
his autobiography that the army under his command, who
fought the “Asiatic Sand Dwellers,” was originally composed
of men from Upper Egypt, Lower Egypt, and Nubia and that
he did not have strong military background or a previous
military title. Evidence does exist of a permanent royal army
led by professional offi cers during the Middle Kingdom (ca.
2040–ca. 1640 b.c.e.) in lower Nubia, which became a heavily
militarized zone, and references to a variety of military titles
increased toward the end of that period. During the New
Kingdom a large professional army with a fully developed hi-
erarchy fulfi lled the pharaohs’ plans to form a great empire,
including territories in Nubia and Palestine and areas of pres-
ent-day Lebanon, Syria, and northern Iraq.
Th e Egyptian military was composed primarily of in-
fantry, which was organized into four divisions named, un-726 Military: Egypt