from a scene in the tomb of Amoni-
Amenemhait at Beni-Hasan.

While the sappers were hard at work, the archers endeavoured, by the
accuracy of their aim, to clear the enemy from the curtain, while
soldiers sheltered behind movable mantelets tried to break down the
defences and dismantle the flanking galleries with huge metal-tipped
lances. In dealing with a resolute garrison none of these methods proved
successful; nothing but close siege, starvation, or treachery could
overcome its resistance.

The equipment of Egyptian troops was lacking in uniformity, and men
armed with slings, or bows and arrows, lances, wooden swords, clubs,
stone or metal axes, all fought side by side. The head was protected
by a padded cap, and the body by shields, which were small for light
infantry, but of great width for soldiers of the line. The issue of a
battle depended upon a succession of single combats between foes armed
with the same weapons; the lancers alone seem to have charged in line
behind their huge bucklers. As a rule, the wounds were trifling, and the
great skill with which the shields were used made the risk of injury to
any vital part very slight. Sometimes, however, a lance might be driven
home into a man's chest, or a vigorously wielded sword or club might
fracture a combatant's skull and stretch him unconscious on the ground.
With the exception of those thus wounded and incapacitated for flight,
very few prisoners were taken, and the name given to them, "Those struck
down alive"--_sokiruonkhu_--sufficiently indicates the method of their
capture. The troops were recruited partly from the domains of military
fiefs, partly from tribes of the desert or Nubia, and by their aid
the feudal princes maintained the virtual independence which they had
acquired for themselves under the last kings of the Memphite line.
Here and there, at Hermopolis, Shit, and Thebes, they founded actual
dynasties, closely connected with the Pharaonic dynasty, and even
occasionally on an equality with it, though they assumed neither
the crown nor the double cartouche. Thebes was admirably adapted for
becoming the capital of an important state. It rose on the right bank
of the Nile, at the northern end of the curve made by the river towards
Hermonthis, and in the midst of one of the most fertile plains of Egypt.
Exactly opposite to it, the Libyan range throws out a precipitous spur
broken up by ravines and arid amphitheatres, and separated from th