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Planning stage: Ancient egyptian footsoldier kit.
So, since seeing skallagrims review/ playing about with bronze swords, its made me want one, and while my money supplies are kinda short for now so a bronze sword, or any new sword might not be on the cards for a while, it's still gotten me thinking about what id be using as an ancient Egyptian foot-soldier i'd be inclined to either go for the time of ramses the great (the time of egypt at it's hieght or the late period around the time of tutnkhamn (since neil burridges sword is from said tomb)

so it makes me think, what would i need in terms of clothing weapons and protective gear?

my list so far goes

shield (shaped either like an arch, or almost like a kite that's been cut in half...

sword, either a khopesh

or some kindof bronze double edged sword which is depicted in art on occasion

spear for sure, i think with a tanged spearhead in this case

an axe, i knew a variety of axeheads were used but by the later periods the more narrow 'piercing axeheads' were used more commonly.

possibly a stone mace, although maybe not since those you need a permit to have one

and a dagger, most likely copper or bronze.

as for clothing, it seems basic equptian fashion was a basic tunic

the kilt

the classic egyptian headdress

and woven straw sandles...


Have i missed anything, and does anyone have any other insights as to what weapons/ clothing/ armour and defensive gear didancient egyptian men use

theres also the suggestion of some odd, stiff cloth groin shield thing in some illustrations online..
There is a summary on pp137-138 of my book and more details in the relevant chapters. Their equipment changes over time from Old Kingdom to Middle Kingdom to New Kingdom.


Last edited by Dan Howard on Mon 19 May, 2014 5:33 am; edited 1 time in total
Just FYI, Ramses the Great lived AFTER Tutankhamun.
Get thee to the Bronze Age Center!

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Center/index.php?

("William P" is fine for your username.) It's got a whole section for Egyptian stuff, and there are folks there (including Dan!) who know a lot more about it than I do. I've just never studied Egyptian stuff! I *do* know that the different eras tend to get lumped together--Egyptian military gear changes and evolves over time like any other culture, but the popular image is filled with anachronisms!

Egypt does have the advantage of better documentation than any other Bronze Age culture, including ridiculous numbers of frescoes and reliefs, 3-D scale models, and of course great archeological finds. Kinda like American Civil War, it's practically no challenge! All you have to do is narrow down from two millenia of history...

And yes, GET DAN'S BOOK.

Reshwet en'k!

Matthew
Re: Planning stage: Ancient egyptian footsoldier kit.
William P wrote:



Have i missed anything, and does anyone have any other insights as to what weapons/ clothing/ armour and defensive gear didancient egyptian men use

theres also the suggestion of some odd, stiff cloth groin shield thing in some illustrations online..


During the late-mid New Kingdom common foot soldiers wore little clothing except for the obiquitous kilt. Headdresses and sandals are rarely depicted with common soldiers. Foreign troops such as the Medjay, Sherden, or the Meshwesh Libyans are often depicted dressed in their "ethnic" fashion.

(it should be pointed out that the striped nemes headcloth was a ceremonial headdress exclusively reserved for the king, although it is still being erroneously shown on Egyptian guards and soldiers in modern interpretations, including Osprey books).
Matthew Amt wrote:
Get thee to the Bronze Age Center!

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Center/index.php?

("William P" is fine for your username.) It's got a whole section for Egyptian stuff, and there are folks there (including Dan!) who know a lot more about it than I do. I've just never studied Egyptian stuff! I *do* know that the different eras tend to get lumped together--Egyptian military gear changes and evolves over time like any other culture, but the popular image is filled with anachronisms!

Egypt does have the advantage of better documentation than any other Bronze Age culture, including ridiculous numbers of frescoes and reliefs, 3-D scale models, and of course great archeological finds. Kinda like American Civil War, it's practically no challenge! All you have to do is narrow down from two millenia of history...

And yes, GET DAN'S BOOK.

Reshwet en'k!

Matthew

Matt, im aware of that pitfall of having egyptian gear being this singlular mass which is why i wanna try and isolate myself to a reasonable period of time, and the time of king tutenkhamun and the campaigns of ramses II were luckily not too far from each other.

lucas, how silly of me, i somehow assumed they were much further apart.
Matthew Amt wrote:
And yes, GET DAN'S BOOK.

The third appendix was specifically written for threads like this.
Matthew Amt wrote:
Get thee to the Bronze Age Center!
Reshwet en'k!

Matthew


Funny. The absolutely most humiliating moment of my childhood was being forced to play an Egyptian overseer in a Sunday School play when I was about 6. My dad tried very hard to make me a wooden sword, my mom the rest of the "costume". It was horrible. The photographs were hauled out every time I had a girl over to the house for the first time.

I hope you have better luck with your kit than I did!
Dan Howard wrote:
Matthew Amt wrote:
And yes, GET DAN'S BOOK.

The third appendix was specifically written for threads like this.


Justr ordered a copy from book depository yesterday"

cant wait to see it's delicious contents

also, in amazon.com, they reccomended the osprey book on the sea peoples. is THAT one any good, or any of the stuff on the early bronze age? (theres one in the centre of sydney on very early aegean cultures early bronze age/ late chalcolithic, (5000-1450bc apparently)
William P wrote:

also, in amazon.com, they reccomended the osprey book on the sea peoples. is THAT one any good, or any of the stuff on the early bronze age?

My book will help you navigate through some of D'Amato's more wacky ideas.
Dan Howard wrote:
William P wrote:

also, in amazon.com, they reccomended the osprey book on the sea peoples. is THAT one any good, or any of the stuff on the early bronze age?

My book will help you navigate through some of D'Amato's more wacky ideas.
the trident on the cover felt.. a little excessive unless it was a staff of office so to speak
http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Egypt-Everyday-...1454909072 and this is, so far, my main source regarding other things like, mindset, clothing, food, accessories and makeup etc

it seems reasonable, but i suspect it might have a few flaws, ill hopefully be able to cross reference with dans book and the bronze age centre website

(i'll also probably, against strict historiocity, wear a simple linen shirt aat events when im not in armour/ military gear simply because it tends to get a touch nippy in our autumn and winter, and i suspect some event organisers might not appreciate topless males especially 'suitably well fed' ones.. walking around the event site

although with my girth i could maybe pass for a well to do (read here, fat) scribe or government bureaucrat than a soldier of common stock...
I will third Dan's book. For this it really helped me get a better grasp on what was going on at this period in arms and armour over some of the more unbalanced ideas out there. If you are not primarily focused on this period but perhaps better than average knowledge on the period it is hard to sift through some of the ideas.

RPM
Randall Moffett wrote:
I will third Dan's book. For this it really helped me get a better grasp on what was going on at this period in arms and armour over some of the more unbalanced ideas out there. If you are not primarily focused on this period but perhaps better than average knowledge on the period it is hard to sift through some of the ideas.

RPM


im there mostlyfor the egyptians but i would love to also pay close attention to the mycenean and minoan stuff.. heck the entire bronze age is a very much larger than life period, full of heros, and great monuments.. the trojan war, ramses, the pyramids, the israelites in judea, and the powerful babylonians hittites and assyrians, as well as the story of the minotaur and many others.

almost like it's a different world, a fantasy realm, and this includes continental europe and the british aisles as well.

the bronze age has arguably set the tone for our culture in the west, especially since.. a small canaanite tribe known as the israelites, managed to set the framework for the most influential trio of religions in the world. the impacts of this are still being felt to this day.

not to mention we began to tinker with the concepts of kingship, politics, organised religions, bureaucracies and concepts like philosophy, mathematics, astrology. and the worlds first 'standing armies'.

thos was the age that turned the hunter gatherers into city and farm dwellers.
I'm not planning to be thrilled by the new Sea People Osprey book. For starters, I strongly suspect the entire "Sea Peoples" thing is a 19th century dramatization of a rather more local event. (Though obviously the Egyptians tried to make it as dramatic as possible, too!) There certainly WERE many raids and invasions and a few migrations in that era, but there has been some very thoughtful analysis of the tribes mentioned, etc., that give a very different view of the whole thing.

PLUS, as always, D'Amato and Salimbeti are obsessed with leather and articulated linen armor, and with as much of the bizarre and extremely rare as they can cram in or imply as common. That "trident" may not even be a weapon. Not to mention they'll draw the wildest conclusions from the most vague and fragmentary pictoral evidence.

Oh, and the chronology problem...

Have fun, though! If more people did Egyptian right, even *I* would have a better idea of what it should all look like.

Matthew
Matthew Amt wrote:

PLUS, as always, D'Amato and Salimbeti are obsessed with leather and articulated linen armor, and with as much of the bizarre and extremely rare as they can cram in or imply as common. That "trident" may not even be a weapon. Not to mention they'll draw the wildest conclusions from the most vague and fragmentary pictoral evidence.

Oh, and the chronology problem...

Have fun, though! If more people did Egyptian right, even *I* would have a better idea of what it should all look like.

Matthew


as an addition to that project, i plan on creating a live steel combat kit for that soldier as well, usinbg bronze plated steel versions of the weapons, and, the most likely to be authentic egyptian helm i can get my hands on, again, made in steel but either brushed or electroplated with bronze or brass so it LOOKS like the real thing since i'd love to see how the soldiers weapons would fare in a melee engagement
http://www.manningimperial.com/catalogue/helm...n-helm/384 i wader what the source for it is, since honestly, i keep thinking it's a medieval bascinet or celata based on how it curls around to cover the back of the neck and the cheeks and ears

and for the sea peoples stuff.. is it bad that my first thought was that multicoloured chevron shaped laminated armopur would look AMAZING on the LARP field... because of how wild and extravagent it looks.

along with the trident it makes him look like posiden incarnate (which may have been the intention)
William P wrote:
and for the sea peoples stuff.. is it bad that my first thought was that multicoloured chevron shaped laminated armopur would look AMAZING on the LARP field... because of how wild and extravagent it looks.

That is one of his crazy ideas. It is based on some pretty crude illustrations that could represent anything from a bare chest to embossed metal. I interpreted it as embossed metal for my Agamemnon cuirass.
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=28063

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Out of curiosity, who are these so-called "sea people"?
The short answer is we are not sure. The long one is that during the last hundred and another or so years of the first century there is a great deal of movements of people around the eastern half of the Med. These groups caused some pressure on groups already in decline by raids and attacks helping to contribute to the fall of some and further decline of others. Then they disappear. The truth is some people have made them a very cohesive group but our evidence is very light. I suspect they are sort of really many very fluid groups or a group that incorporates many different group as they move around but once again not much evidence. Maybe Dan or Matt have some more info. I have a few notes here and there but nothing really that will clarify much.

RPM
Randall Moffett wrote:
The short answer is we are not sure. The long one is that during the last hundred and another or so years of the first century there is a great deal of movements of people around the eastern half of the Med. These groups caused some pressure on groups already in decline by raids and attacks helping to contribute to the fall of some and further decline of others. Then they disappear. The truth is some people have made them a very cohesive group but our evidence is very light. I suspect they are sort of really many very fluid groups or a group that incorporates many different group as they move around but once again not much evidence. Maybe Dan or Matt have some more info. I have a few notes here and there but nothing really that will clarify much.

That is pretty much it. They may have been involved in coastal raids but there is nothing to suggest a "Sea People" invasion. All the cultures that were present before the collapse are essentially the same as the cultures present after the collapse. "Sea People" have been blamed for the collapse but I'd put my money on internal strife. It seems pretty common in tribal societies - primary loyalty is to the tribe, not the state. When there isn't an Agamemnon-like strongman to keep them together, there is civil war. The same thing is evident today in Iraq after Saddam, Libya after Gaddafi, and Syria after Bashar. Egypt would have gone the same way except for the emergence of another strongman.


Last edited by Dan Howard on Sat 07 Feb, 2015 6:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
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