Egyptian Chariots at War
Ancient Egypt's Support Gunships
The chariot had been around for centuries before it reached Dynastic Egypt, and would remain in use in civilisations for centuries to come. Whereas other civilisations used it for transport or racing, the Egyptians perfected a specialist use for the vehicle, that shares the a concept with today's helicopter gunships.
The Chariot Arrives in Egypt
Chariots came to Egypt, like so much military technology, from the Hyksos. By 1500BC, the Pharoah had over a thousand of them at his command. To start with, chariots had an axle across the centre of the floor, but the Egyptians would change this, to take into account the rough desert terrain.
The Egyptians wanted a lightweight, maneuverable chariot for fast strikes - essentially to do the job that mounted cavalry would do much later. The different was that the Egyptians preferred to use archers for their firsts strikes, and so the chariot was to be a shooting platform.
Design and Construction
The Egyptian chariot was a two-man vehicle, carrying a driver and archer. It was a D-shaped wooden platform - usually sycamore - with a waist-high railing around the front and sides. The back was left open. For sport and hunting, the rail was just that- a rail. For war, however, wooden walls were fitted, sometimes with laminated leather or gilded decoration. This would stop arrows or spears from getting through to the occupants.
A bar from the front was harnessed to two horses, but the most important change was to the positioning of the axle. Where other societies' chariots had an axle in the centre of the floor, the Egyptians put it directly under the rear edge of the floor. This meant that the body of the chariot wouldn't tip back and forward as it went over bumps, and would remain a perfect platform from which to shoot arrows. The ash-wood axle was also sheathed in metal to reduce wear and tear.
Originally the wheels, which were a metre across, had four spokes, but this proved occasionally brittle on stony ground, and so by the 19th Dynasty had been replaced by six spokes. There are some Egyptian illustrations showing chariot wheels with eight spokes, but no examples of these have survived, and these might have been a short-lived test variant, or simply a result of miscounting.
Armaments
The war chariot would have two quivers for arrows slung from the sides at the rear, and a sheath for bows and one for javelins slung from the sides nearer the front. Sacks of supplies could also be carried.
As well as being stable for shooting from, the chariot was remarkaby lightweight, weighing perhaps as little as 35kg. In fact it could be lifted by one man alone, for example to right the vehicle if it had been overturned. This made it faster than the heavier chariots of the Hittites or other enemies (who also tended to use three man teams, including a shield-bearer, and thus making their chariots heavier.)
Use in Warfare
The Egyptians used chariots for two main purposes. Firstly they would protect the vital infantrymen by engaging enemy chariots. The lighter, faster Egyptian chariots would charge down the oncoming enemy chariots and pass between them. They could then loop round, and engage each enemy chariot from the rear, as the heavier enemy vehicles could neither outrun nor out-turn them.
Secondly, they were used as fast hit and run forces to stake out enemy units most dangerous to the infantry, such as archers. The typical strategy would be to send a stream of chariots towards the enemy group being targeted, and have the archers aboard shoot as rapidly as possible into the enemy while the driver wheeled the chariot in a tight turn before the enemy, in order to get out of the way of the next chariot in the stream behind him.
The chariots could then retreat, loop round and repeat the attack until they ran out of arrows, or turn back to make a similar attack on another part of the enemy force. Afterwards, the chariots could harry retreating forces with any remaining arrows, or with spears.
Modern tests have shown that a squadron of around fifty Egyptian chariots wheeling in front of an enemy force for the archers to shoot at, could put down up to a thousand arrows a minute onto a specific grouping of the enemy. This is not much less than the rate of fire delivered by the chaingun on a modern AH -64 Apache helicopter gunship.
Warrior Upper and Lower Classes
What is perhaps most interesting is that the Charioteers became a new class of their own. Being a charioteer was an expensive business, as one had to pay for the upkeep of five servants, the horses, and the vehicle.
This led to the creation of a slightly more aristocratic class of Egyptian warrior, and being a charioteer was seen as socially and politically significant.
The chariots were also followed by chariot runners, specialised infantrymen not unlike later panzer-grenadiers. These would run along behind the chariots during engagements with enemy chariots, and finish off wounded enemy charioteers and destroy their vehicles while the Egyptian chariots wheeled. They would also recover fallen Egyptian weapons or personnel.
By the First Millennium BC, horse-borne cavalry had largely replaced the chariot in Egyptian warfare, but its excellence as a shooting platform meant it never lost its popularity as a recreational vehicle for hunting game. Its legacy as the creator of a warrior aristocracy also meant it would not go out of fashion as an object of social and political value.
Sources
Fighting Pharoahs, Bob Partridge, Peartree, 2002
The Warrior Pharoah, Mark Healy, Osprey, 1993
Egyptian Warfare And Weapons, Ian Shaw, Shire, 1991
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles