african mandinka warrior
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Since modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens evolved in Africa, that ugly and universal human tradition known as war almost certainly has a longer history on that continent than anywhere else in the world. However, compared with the vast libraries of books about European and Asian warfare, relatively little has been written about African military traditions. Part of the problem is that, since the majority of pre-colonial African societies had no written language, most Africans african mandinka warrior not describe their own militaries in writing the way Europeans and Asians did.
However, there were exceptions to the rule of African pre-literacy. Some African cultures, such as those of West Africa and Ethiopia, adopted written scripts from Southwest Asians with whom they traded, while others, like the Egyptians and Nubians of the Nile Valley, created their own african mandinka warrior.
We therefore have relatively more knowledge about these civilizations' armies. That said, even those Africans who did not have written languages sometimes had their militaries described by European visitors and settlers, so some information exists about them as well.
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Given Africa's cultural diversity, a complete, detailed survey of every African nation's army would require an encyclopedia series, so for the sake of concision, I will focus only on three of the continent's most famous historical cultures: the Egyptians, the Mandinka, and the Zulu. In the beginning, the ancient Egyptian army was primitive, at least in comparison with the armies of ancient African mandinka warrior and Asia.
No armor was worn by the common soldier, just the linen loincloth that was standard for Egyptian men. Only a cowhide shield protected him. Since early Egyptians had no knowledge of the horse, they warrilr lacked cavalry. Further handicapping the Egyptians was a relative lack of discipline, since their warriors african mandinka warrior usually conscripted commoners rather than trained professionals. However, the ancient Egyptians did start out with a broad variety of weapons: spears, axes, daggers, clubs, cudgels, and simple bows.
Of these, it was the bow that was the Egyptians' favorite weapon warrior Nubians to the south were also fond of it, as their land was sometimes called "Land of the Bow"for Egyptians typically began their attacks by showering their enemies with arrows. Only after these volleys had softened up the enemy would the Egyptian melee infantry charge. The poor equipment and discipline of the nascent Egyptian army was no problem when fighting other Africans, but once confronted by the more technologically advanced armies of Southwest Asia, the Egyptians were forced to upgrade and reform their military.
When the Asian Hyksos took control of the Nile Delta after the Middle Kingdom, they introduced a number of new technologies which the Egyptians would take advantage of once they drove the Hyksos out and began the New Kingdom. Perhaps the most significant of these new technologies was the horse-driven chariot. However, the Egyptians did not simply adopt this new contraption in its initial form, instead modifying its design so that it was smaller and lighter and therefore more suitable to Egyptian terrain. In New Kingdom armies, chariots were each manned by two men, an archer of noble origin and a driver. If the archer african mandinka warrior out of arrows, he also had spears african mandinka warrior afrrican use in close combat.
Charioteers were better armored than other Egyptian soldiers, wearing either scale armor or leather bands across the chest. The New Kingdom also saw a change in military organization. No longer composed of conscripted peasants, the new Egyptian armies were professional in nature.
Initiated with a haircut and subjected to rigorous training which included wrestling, knife-throwing, and stick-fighting, the new generation of Egyptian warriors experienced severe discipline in the form of thrashing from fellow recruits. The New Kingdom militaries each had three to four main divisions, all named after Egyptian gods. There were also two big military corps, one for Egypt's northern provinces and another for its south. In all periods of Egyptian history, the supreme leader of the army was the Pharaoh or one of his relatives. The Mandinka of western Africa were the ethnic group responsible for founding the Mali Empire of african mandinka warrior 13th to 15th centuries AD. This empire is most often noted for its wealth in gold https://digitales.com.au/blog/wp-content/custom/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-technology-in/transition-matrix-calculator.php well as including Timbuktu, home to the world-famous Sankore University.
The Mandinka's ascension to power followed acrican collapse of the Ghana Empire in At this time, a number of small kingdoms such as Sosso, Diafanu, and Jolof filled in the power void left by Ghana. Africwn was against these kingdoms that the early Mandinka fought to expand their territory.
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When the Empire began under the Mansa emperor Sundjata Keita in the 13th century, the Mandinka army was divided into 16 clans, each led by an archer of noble status known as a ton-tigi african mandinka warrior master". Each ton-tigi commanded a unit of horsemen, also of elite status, who were armed with lances, sabers, and longswords and wore iron helmets and chain mail. The early Mandinka armies also had foot soldiers commanded by kele-koun "war heads" ; these were mostly bowmen who shot poisoned arrows, although spears and javelins were also used. Providing protection for the infantry were leather helmets and reed shields.
According to the Epic of Sundjata, which describes the Mandinka's defeat of Sosso at the Battle of Krina, Mandinka battle formations had cavalry in the center and infantry on the flanks.]
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