Dr. Campbell Price

So compared to earlier periods, say the Middle Kingdom, you know, a few hundred years before,

when we know there are military raids going on down into Nubia, up into the Levant, it seems that to raise an army, you basically go around and say, come on, chaps, who wants to fight?

Whereas by the end of the 18th dynasty, there was a professionalization.

So you will say, I'm a charioteer.

My father was a charioteer.

So there must be, I hesitate to say a military class, but there are a group of people who's

ancestors have fought and done some pretty impressive things possibly in the 18th dynasty so yes I think there is a professionalization and maybe these people have been in the reign of Akhenaten possibly sitting around with nothing to do and you could imagine someone like Horemheb

organising these people in a charismatic figurehead right yeah and in Horem Hebs first because he has two tombs because he becomes a pharaoh and therefore takes a tomb in the Valley of the Kings down at Thebes but in his first tomb he's shown you know engaged in

things to do with military activity under Tutankhamun.

So we should understand that Tutankhamun is the nominal, the notional patron.

He's sending off the troops into battle, but it's Horemheb who's actually doing it and commanding them.

Yeah, so remember we're still in the Bronze Age, you're fighting with bronze metal weapons.

This is not the Iron Age yet in Egypt.

You are going into battle as a foot soldier with a shield, which is pretty important, a dagger or a sword and an axe.

So you're going to axe someone.

But you should also, I guess, remember that the chariot is still a fairly modern invention.

It's a couple of hundred years old.

And I think we think of ancient Egypt as always having used chariots, but they've come into Egypt from the north, maybe brought with the Hyksos in these wars of liberation.

And those are only, yeah, a couple of hundred years before.

So Horemheb,