ABSTRACT
The past decade has seen a resuscitation of scholarly interest concerning the militaryarm of pharaonic Egypt (Gnirs 1996; Cavillier 2001; Spalinger 2005). Some general surveys have been produced, but they lack the exactitude of modern scientific research (Partridge 2002). The following study, though in summary format, nonetheless adds to recent studies and draws some new perspectives on the issue of Egypt’s military. This reinvigoration of a perennial topic has brought with it a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects of the warrior class as well as a more fundamental perception of the archaeological implication of war logistics. The emphasis upon the Egyptian New Kingdom, nonetheless, remains strong, if only due to the wealth of textual (inscriptional and literary) information still extant and the accompanying artistic depictions. Yet one must turn back to the Second Intermediate Period in order to see the fundamental substructure of the war machine of the Egyptian empire, a foundation that owed its importance to new technology and a new ideological framework (Cavillier 2001).
