Soldier of Sidon

Not only was Egypt open to foreign invasions, it was subject to internecine fighting of every kind. When the monarchy was weak, local governors behaved as local governors have elsewhere.

A rational discussion of Egyptian history and military organization requires an understanding of Egyptian geography. Above the delta, Upper Egypt was little more than a river valley stretching south along the Nile for about five hundred miles. Borders are always dangerous, and Upper Egypt was all border. Prudent statesmen draw the borders of nations along seacoasts-or when that is not feasible, down the cha

Small wonder then that Egypt had history's first standing army, for centuries not merely the best but the only standing army in the world. (The gripes so characteristic of infantrymen were first recorded in hieratic script.) This army was a large force organized along startlingly modern lines, with disciplined units similarly equipped. It consisted of two corps, one of infantry and the other of chariots. A third corps might be formed of mercenaries, most often from Nubia, less often from Greece or Libya. In one well-nigh incredible instance there was a fourth corps, of students from the Egyptian equivalent of West Point. The ships of the Egyptian navy were commanded by soldiers, and were considered a part of its army.

It would be easy to fill an entire book with details of Egyptian weapons and military practice. Two very different swords were in use, for example. One, apparently of Egyptian design, was a sharply curved scimitar. The other was long, straight, and double-edged; it seems to have been an importation, probably from Nubia.

Writing of the Sudanese more than two thousand years later, Kipling said, 'E 'asn't got no papers of 'is own,

'E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, So we must certify the skill 'e's shown

In usin' of 'is long, two-'anded swords…

After describing these weapons, which are far older than Christianity, modern commentators sometimes theorize that they were copied from swords brought to Egypt by the crusaders. Spears, maces, angled war-clubs like that used by the narrator, daggers, hatchets, and broad-bladed battle-axes were in common use as well. Armor was light, and worn almost exclusively by the soldiers and officers who ma

There were two areas in which Egyptian military capability was notably deficient. Although the upper class (which furnished the army with chariot commanders) boasted fine archers, the use of the bow was almost unknown to the middle and working classes. Further, the Egyptians were charioteers, not horsemen as that term is usually understood. Their army needed cavalry and more archers; both these deficiencies were made up by enlisting mercenaries from Nubia whenever Egypt and Nubia were not at war.

To picture Egypt and, particularly, Nubia at the time this scroll was written, the reader must understand that North Africa has been drying up for thousands of years. Twenty thousand years ago, the Sahara was a damp plain dotted with shallow lakes, the home of great herds of hippopotamuses. Rock carvings in the pitiless desert west of the Red Sea show men and dogs hunting giraffes.

The term "Nubia," so often employed by the narrator, is itself interesting. It was only just coming into use in his day, and he may well have introduced it. If so, he presumably picked it up from his Phoenician friends and Latinized it. The original Phoenician probably meant "Land of the Nehasyu." This is the riverine tribe the narrator most often calls the Crocodile People.

The ancient Greeks called Nubia Aethiopia-"Land of Burnt Faces." Note that some ancient geographical terms such as Nubia, Aethiopia, Kush, Nysa, and Punt were very vague and meant different things in the mouths of different speakers. Nysa may sometimes have referred to the area around Lake Nyasa in Central Africa.

People speak carelessly of Egyptian darkness and the Riddle of the Sphinx. The facts are that the Riddle of the Sphinx is Greek, not Egyptian, and that we know a great deal about ancient Egypt. We understand its language and possess thousands of inscriptions and documents, up to and including love songs and love letters. (Some are charming. In one letter a young man stoutly avers that he would wade a crocodile-infested stream to be with his beloved. In a love song, a young woman yearns "for him to send word to my mother." He may have preferred the stream.)

Nubia, however, is a genuine enigma. At the time this scroll was written, its people did not speak Nubian, but the largely unknown language that we call Merotic. Because they wrote it in Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as in what we call Merotic script, we know how it sounded, the names of some kings, and a few other words. But no more than that. There has been no Nubian Rosetta Stone.

Both the Nehasyu and the Medjay, the principal Nubian tribes, were expert archers and horsemen. Nubian kings paid enormous prices for fine horses from Arabia Felix. (Fortunate Arabia-Arabia, too, was better watered in those days.) Favorite horses might be buried with great ceremony in elaborate tombs.

The Medjay, the narrator's Lion People, were nomads who drove their cattle and horses wherever the grass was long. Employed originally to fend off raiding parties from Libya, their duties were soon enlarged. By late Pharaonic times they were Egypt's police. Many Nubian mercenaries married Egyptians and settled in Egypt.

Allow me to note in closing that the ancient Egyptians, who invented and discovered so many things, never had a coinage of their own. The gold pieces with which the Phoenician captain fees the priest of Hathor, and no doubt most of the other coins mentioned in this scroll, are those of the occupying Persian Empire.

PART I

1

I AM TO write everything that takes place on this scroll, as concisely as I can. I will try. I must read this every morning, too. Muslak will tell me. I must have Myt-ser'eu tell me also. Let me begin with the first things I remember.

We left the ship and searched for an i

I woke when the others did, awakened, I think, by their footsteps. We ate again, and Muslak told me his name and that he is the captain of our ship. "We're in Kemet, Lewqys, with a cargo of hides. This was where you wanted to go."

I said, "I have been trying to remember my name. Thank you."

"You couldn't remember it?"

I shook my head.

"That's bad. Your memory comes and goes. Now it seems like it's gone. Know why we're here?"

I said, "To sell the hides, I suppose."

"But what about you? Why are you here?"

I had thought myself one of his ship's crew. Clearly I was not, so I shook my head again.

"That settles it. I'm taking you to a healer. They have the best healers in the world right here, and you're going to see one." He rose and motioned to me, and I followed him.

We spoke about healers with the i

It is of great interest. First, because it seems so strange. Second, because I feel that I have seen such a place long ago. It is familiar, in other words, yet seems very foreign.

The houses of the poor are thatched mud huts, so small that most of the things other peoples do in their houses must be done outside. They have no windows. Only a few are painted.