Nubian Archer in Ptolemaic Army

[Mega Mania]

Is there any evidence that Nubians served as archers for Ptolemaic Army? because i can't find any evidence at all!

[Lion.Kanzen]

Is there any evidence that Nubians served as archers for Ptolemaic Army? because i can't find any evidence at all!

Nubians even have serve as Mercenaries to the Post ancient era Egypt.

There were a number of large Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.

The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).

[Mythos_Ruler]

So then, it actually looks like the name should be adjusted. Ethiopian Archers? Kushite Archers?

[Lion.Kanzen]

Meroë (800 BC c. AD 350) in southern Nubia lay on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, ca. 200 km north-east of Khartoum. The people there preserved many ancient Egyptian customs but were unique in many respects. They developed their own form of writing, first utilizing Egyptian hieroglyphs, and later using an alphabetic script with 23 signs.[31] Many pyramids were built in Meroë during this period and the kingdom consisted of an impressive standing military force. Strabo also describes a clash with the Romans in which the Romans were defeated by Nubian archers under the leadership of a "one-eyed" (blind in one eye) queen.[32] During this time, the different parts of the region divided into smaller groups with individual leaders, or generals, each commanding small armies of mercenaries. They fought for control of what is now Nubia and its surrounding territories, leaving the entire region weak and vulnerable to attack. Meroë would eventually meet defeat and it's total destruction by a new rising kingdom to their south, Aksum, under King Ezana.

The classification of the Meroitic language is uncertain, it was long assumed to have been of the Afro-Asiatic group, but is now considered to have likely been an Eastern Sudanic language.

At some point during the 4th century, the region was conquered by the Noba people, from which the name Nubia may derive (another possibility is that it comes from Nub, the Egyptian word for gold[33]). From then on, the Romans referred to the area as the Nobatae.

For Romans was Nobateae, so its celar what we call Nub-ians.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Sighvatr]

Archers were such an ethically varied group of people in the Ptolemaic Empire. I don't think archers should represent only one group of people, but its not wrong either that Nubian archers were involved. Plus I kinda like the mercenary feel of buying them from the town center. If only I could play the game again.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Also Known As: Known as Kush in the Old Testament; Aethiopia in ancient Greek literature; and Nubia to the Romans. Nubia may have been derived from an Egyptian word for gold, nebew; the Egyptians called Nubia Ta-Sety.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/kterms/g/kush.htm

Edited December 21, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

Archers were such an ethically varied group of people in the Ptolemaic Empire. I don't think archers should represent only one group of people, but its not wrong either that Nubian archers were involved. Plus I kinda like the mercenary feel of buying them from the town center. If only I could play the game again.

yes many ethnic people.

Warning!

Please read the source sound some racial this fragment.

While Reisner's deductions still strike us as astonishing for their brilliance and essential correctness, we are equally appalled to discover his inability to accept that the monuments he excavated were built by bona fide black men. Using entirely specious evidence, he formulated a theory that the founders of the 25th or "Ethiopian" Dynasty of Egypt were not black Sudanese but rather a branch of the "Egypto-Libyan" (by which he meant "fair skinned") ruling class of Dynasty 22, and that they were called "Ethiopians" by the Greeks simply because they dominated a darker-skinned native "negroid" population, which, as he stated, "had never developed either its trade or any industry worthy of mention." Like Taylor and Lepsius, believing absolutely that skin pigmentation was a determinant of intellectual ability and enlightenment, Reisner attributed the apparent cultural decline of the Napatan phase of the Kushite culture (ca. 660-300 B.C.) to the "deadening effects" of racial intermarriage between his imagined light-skinned elite and darker-skinned hoi poloi. The Meroitic cultural renaissance (after ca. 300 B.C.) he explained as simply the result of new influxes of Egyptians. Nubian cultures, he reasoned, were not as developed as the Egyptian because the people were of mixed race, yet by virtue of their relationship to the superior Egyptian race, they were elevated far above the "the inert mass of the black races of Africa."

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm

Edited December 21, 2013 by Lion.Kanzen

[Mega Mania]

Nubians even have serve as Mercenaries to the Post ancient era Egypt.

There were a number of large Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.

The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).

AFAIK, not as archers in Ptolemaic period.

[Mega Mania]

So then, it actually looks like the name should be adjusted. Ethiopian Archers? Kushite Archers?

It would be better the team make them as Editor-Only-Unit and re-introduce Cretan Archers back into Ptolemaic Army.

[Mega Mania]

Archers were such an ethically varied group of people in the Ptolemaic Empire. I don't think archers should represent only one group of people, but its not wrong either that Nubian archers were involved. Plus I kinda like the mercenary feel of buying them from the town center. If only I could play the game again.

Oddly all scholar find no evidence that Nubians or any other people like Ethiopians appear in the Battle of Raphia or any other battle.

http://books.google.com.my/books?id=_B09AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com.my/books?id=F7TZxzZzbMUC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=army+and+society+in+ptolemaic+egypt&source=bl&ots=wzs2wuOyNk&sig=ie8AoQUFT4QAYpVev9XiDD5UYpI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XP21UsbpD8XxlAXS_4CgBw&sqi=2&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=army%20and%20society%20in%20ptolemaic%20egypt&f=false

Edited December 21, 2013 by Mega Mania

[Mega Mania]

Try to imagine if you're the Ptolemaic King who desperately need soldiers loyal their cause but have money and land.

Why would they raised mercenary archers from Nubia while Cretan mercenaries can do better and their loyalty are guaranteed?

[Prodigal Son]

Cretan mercenary loyalty wasn't that guaranteed. Around 150bc, Seleucid Cretan mercenaries abused their power when they found themselves in numbers, controlled a puppet king and wrecked havoc in Antioch, firstly oppressing and then butchering the revolting population.

I'm not sure about nubian archers, but since nubian spearmen are documented for the Ptolemaics, I can't see why not archers too. At least it's little risky guess, not something out of place.

[Mega Mania]

What about Ptolemaic Egypt? Where's the evidence?

IF?

[Lion.Kanzen]

So looks like you have right... For some strange reason they don't used Nubians.

"From their coastal possessions in Thrace and Anatolia, they were able to recruit the warlike peoples of the interiors: Thracians, Galatians, Lycians and Pamphlians. Most of these fought as thureophoroi. Libyans are also mentioned, but wither these are from Greek Cyrene or the Libyan desert-dwelling tribes is unknown. Cretan archers and Rhodian slingers were also prized specialist troops. Judeans and Idumean Arabs were also recruited, but seem to have been used mostly as police and border patrol forces.

Oddly, the Ptolemies seem to have made no use of the Nubian archers of the Northern Sudan; which had served to good effect in the ancient armies of the Pharaohs, and in the Medieval armies of Muslim Egypt."

http://deadliestblogpage.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/armies-of-the-macedonian-successor-states-the-ptolemies/

[Zophim]

Mega Mania, for what it's worth, I found this bit from your second reference link, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt, footnote 140, p. 96: http://books.google.com/books?id=F7TZxzZzbMUC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=vandorpe+pathyris+nubia&source=bl&ots=wzs2wwHBFg&sig=w3WJqMqtbQWJSx3SGE9ER71jrg0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-zC2UtCgPPTW2wWej4CAAw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vandorpe%20pathyris%20nubia&f=false

I just thought I'd throw that out there; I'm not saying the info is definitely conclusive either way.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Zophim

[Lion.Kanzen]

Mega Mania, for what it's worth, I found this bit from your second reference link, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt, footnote 140, p. 96: http://books.google.com/books?id=F7TZxzZzbMUC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=vandorpe+pathyris+nubia&source=bl&ots=wzs2wwHBFg&sig=w3WJqMqtbQWJSx3SGE9ER71jrg0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-zC2UtCgPPTW2wWej4CAAw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vandorpe%20pathyris%20nubia&f=false

I just thought I'd throw that out there; I'm not saying the info is definitely conclusive either way.

How lucky, I was read that one now. It's very interesting book.