Does anyone know of a surviving image of the Egyptian troops descibed by Xenophon in the Cyropaedia 6.2.10:
" armed with shields that came to their feet, with huge spears, such as they carry even to this day, and with sabres."
What is the shape of the shield? Round-topped flat, or hemicylinder? Something else?
Well, I'm not certain what they *did* use, but I think we can rest assured that they were NOT still using equipment from the Bronze Age! The well-known round-topped or pointy-topped shields, "epsilon" axes, and khopesh swords were all long gone by that time. It's more likely that they looked much more Hellenistic by Xenophon's time. His reference to large shields brings the Fayum shield to mind--Romans were not the only people using large oval shields back then! The Greeks referred to that as a theureos, I believe.
Probably even the clothing had changed, to some extent. But I don't know for certain!
Khairete,
Matthew
Quote:Does anyone know of a surviving image of the Egyptian troops descibed by Xenophon in the Cyropaedia 6.2.10:
" armed with shields that came to their feet, with huge spears, such as they carry even to this day, and with sabres."
What is the shape of the shield? Round-topped flat, or hemicylinder? Something else?
I've wondered the same thing about Iron Age Egyptian (Saiatic?) armies myself, but never had a chance to research it and I don't know where to begin. He has a similar description in the troublesome but fascinating
Anabasis description of Cunaxa. There is also a bit on Egyptian troops in Herodotus.
There is a shield carried by some Assyrian troops that looks as though it could be related to much earlier egyptian types. It was rounded on top and would cover a man from chest to feet, probably a hemicylinder like a rounded topped scutum, not flat. I wondered if this might be close to what is described.
You can see some in the image attached, especially in the bottom left.