Ancient Egyptian Armor
Ah Egypt, who hasn't learned something about it in their educational careers? Pyramids, mummies, hieroglyphics, Egyptian gods things we've all heard a thing or two about. One thing you don't hear to much about is what did the Egyptians use for protection? (and no not what you're thinking, although they were some of the first to use those also.) I'm talking about ancient Egyptian armor. The first thing we see in Egyptian history is the appearance of the shield. If you think about it the shield is a fairly simple invention and more likely than not Egypt isn't the first country to make use of them. Early Egyptian shields were tall as a man, and looked similar to the tombstones we see in modern day ghost stories. The Egyptians used a wooden frame for the shield and stretched the hide of an animal over it. Cowhide, cheetah, and antelope were all utilized in this manner. All of the leathers have similar consistencies so it was probably more of a who had the nicer looking shield type of thing. You can just imagine the infantry grumbling because Bob, who lived in a nice house down by the river was able to score a nice looking zebra shield. As time went on the large man sized shields slowly shrunk to a more manageable size so the Egyptian soldiers could use their spears more proficiently. Through history we'll see people trying to balance defense with being able to effectively attack. Egypt isn't the Bahamas, its a desert and rightly so its fairly hot. This might be why body armor never really took off in the same way that many other civilizations used it. Many paintings show Egyptian infantry sporting a sword, shield, and a nice white linen loincloth. You can only imagine the sunburns they must have tolerated running around in their skivvies day in and day out. Just because the climate was hostile to some decent body armor doesn't mean the Egyptians weren't aware of it. Some of the earliest evidence of scale armor, metal scales sewed onto some kind of flexible backing, have been discovered in pharaohs' tombs. Also there are several paintings of the Pharaohs wearing scale armor painted blue. The Infantry occasionally had a triangular groin defense made from stiffened linen, kind of like an ancient cup. They also sometimes wore leather straps crisscrossing the chest. It might be a stretch to call that armor because I don't really see that doing much else than holding up their loincloth or possibly making them look a little more bad ass. Eventually some Egyptians would start to wear padded linen cuirasses (chest armor) into battle but their effectiveness against the predominant weapon of the time, the bow and arrow, is questionable. What other part of the body is most likely to be protected by some kind of armor? The helmet is represented in Egypt but probably not as much as it should be. Again this is most likely due to the climate, on the plus side anyone fighting against the Egyptians probably didn't have much either. The most obvious helmet in Egyptian history is of course the blue pharaoh's crown, which was most likely made from linen and leather. the only other type of helmet that we have evidence of is a padded linen "hat" that looks very similar to the wool ski hats that people wear when they go skiing. Although Egypt is one of the first civilizations we have evidence of armor in, they pale in comparison to many of the other military juggernauts to come. Egypt was mainly a cultural empire and for hundreds of years its farmers doubled as its soldiers. Egypt also employed a lot of mercenaries namely Nubian archers and Sherden pirates. Once Egypt started to build up a sizable standing army of professional soldiers they were able to acquire a good sized empire. The Egyptians did well for what they had but as time went on, they would eventually be subdued by Persia and later Greece. Illustrated by Cyrus "killacaravagio" Hunter Advancement of Egyptian armor.
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