The Overseers of Foreign Soldiers in Ancient Egyptian Army and their Titles

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor of History and Civilization of Egypt and Ancient near East. Faculty of Arts, Fayoum University (EGYPT)

Abstract

The Foreigners generally started to emerge in Egyptian army since the late Old Kingdom in Egypt, such as the Nubian and Irthet soldiers that appeared in Weni campaigns and merged into the ancient Egyptian army. After that, their role expanded in the Middle Kingdom beside other foreign soldiers, such as Libyans. The paintings and inscriptions depicted them with their weapons. In the New Kingdom, the Military campaigns increased and accordingly the number of foreign captives increased. Thus, other foreign soldiers appeared as the Sherdn, Nacrn, Asians, etc. These Foreign soldiers had overseers. This paper discusses the overseers, their groups, and their titles.
Some of the overseers were Egyptian officers, as shown in the archival texts of the New Kingdom, while in other groups their officers were foreigners. The officer was from the same group, to be able to communicate with the soldiers and understand their language. Some titles of these officers included geographical terms, while some of them were not referring to any group, but their affiliation could be traced from the officers themselves.
 

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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