The importance of Nubian archers in the Egyptian army during this time is recognizable from contemporary wooden models (Bietak 1985; 1966; 1968; Strouhal and Jungwirth 1984: 120-1). The Egyptian foot-soldiers bear large cumbrous spears and cowhide shields. They all look alike and thus present an attitude of military cohesion whereas the Nubians have individual characteristics and lack regimentation.
The region of Assiut was not too distant from the border between the southern Theban (nomes I-VIII) and the northern Herakleopolitan domains (see above, p. 82ff). Three Assiut nomarchs of this time have large tombs containing inscriptions that enable us to reconstruct the civil wars between Thebes and Herakleopolis (Schenkel 1965: 69-89), and an early Middle Kingdom tomb in the same region covers one portion of its walls with marching soldiers (el-Khadragy 2006). The strategic geographical and political importance of this region, where rocks of the western desert encroach on the Nile, persisted even after stability had been attained.
Earlier inscriptional material documents the opening decades of this era. Ankhtify’s tomb biography, for example, recounts the struggles in the extreme south when the Thebans had not yet taken control over the first seven nomes of Upper Egypt (Goedicke 1993; 1995; 1998b; Morenz 2005; Gabra 1976). The disunity and internecine strife repeat the late Predynastic evolution of small kingdoms that often fought with one another until a single polity emerged (Kemp 1989: 38-46; Gabra 1976; Grajetzki 2006).
Carved models of soldiers recall the few military wall scenes at Thebes dated to the later Eleventh Dynasty (TT 386 of Antef; Bietak 1988: 88-95; Schulz 2002). If the Nubians do not march so powerfully as the Egyptians, ethnic bias may be the explanation. Furthermore, Nubian soldiers fought for more than one faction within Egypt. For example, the Assiut models reflect the Herakleopolitan side just as TT 386 depicts that of Thebes. The evidence of the Gebelein Nubian soldiers is the most significant (Fischer 1961; 1962a). These foreign mercenaries were frequently recorded in Upper Egypt, specifically at Moalla, Gebelein, Thebes, and Aswan. Indeed, some of these troops were attached to the Theban domain from the fall of the Old Kingdom to the reunification in the Eleventh Dynasty, although Egyptian archers are also attested in the pictorial evidence (Fischer 1958; 1962b). Moreover, it is clear that although Nubians were already in the Egyptian army late in the Old Kingdom, it was only in the First Intermediate Period that their value was acknowledged, perhaps because of the battles that were now taking place in the south of Egypt proper. These Nubians, whom the Egyptians called Nehesiu, were established along the banks of the Nile. The Theban inscription of Djemy indicates the area of Wawat, Lower Nubia, as their origin (Allen 1921; Goedicke 1960; Schenkel, 1965: 116-17; Darnell 2003: 42-3). It is striking that the first Nubian mercenaries were small compared to the Medjay or Nubian Pan Grave peoples of Dynasties XII-XVII - short stature was an advantage on the battlefield (Bietak 1988).
World History
