Meriotic Kushiite in 28mm

[stevenneate]

Baccus and Irregular Miniatures do plenty in 6mm. I've just done several bases of thureophoroi types for Numidians.

[dwkay57]

Attached photograph is taken from The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilisations. Whether it is really Kushite or just an imported product, I'm not sure but it feels about right.

In terms of figures I was looking at a mix of the Baccus Egyptian, Indian and probably Zulu (they seem to have big ovalish shields and spears) plus potentially some from the Mahdist groups. The Rapier Trojan range also throws up a few options. Most of the pictures / reconstructions I've seen suggest mostly kilt wearers.

My thinking behind whether any of the troops were regular or barbarian as opposed to truly irregular is that with such a long lived and organised society, there ought to be some form of recognised military function. Perhaps that is where the distinction between "tribal" and "Meoritic" comes in.

[CarlL]

David

Interesting "cavalry" .... charge jumbo.....

CarlL being a bit silly

[CarlL]

I am not knowledgeable about the Kushites but you may find that Newline Biblicals 28mm range has lots to offer with little conversion, both from their Nubian and Libyan ranges
sadly the crash on website led to loss of photos re Nubians but I have bought a few from Newline and included them in other armies
see
https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/product-category/newline-designs-28mm-ranges/biblical/libyans-biblical/
https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/product-category/newline-designs-28mm-ranges/biblical/nubians/

Newline do units bags eg 24 foot for £24 see
https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/product-category/newline-designs-28mm-ranges/unit-packs-newline-designs-28mm-ranges/biblical-unit-packs-newline-designs-28mm-ranges/

for cavalry you might try colonial figures like the Baggara or Galla and maybe the Irregular Miniatures range of Blemye under 28mm then personality range (there are two cavalry - P48, P49 - possibly with some variations ask Ian Kay, who may also be willing to swop the horses if you want unarmoured horses unlike his Blemye.

Under their 28mm / colonial tabs you will find Col18 and Col19, Abyssinian Galla horseman and armoured horseman, forget the 'Abyssinian' tag, they are the 'Sudanese' heirs to the Kushites and should mix well.
Not sure if clo20 the Dervish infantry is useful or not.
see http://irregularminiatures.co.uk/
A search for Galla or Baggara horsemen may wider your net. They do exist in 28mm colonials but as I play 20mm colonials I am bit ignorant.

CarlL

[CarlL]

PS
I forgot to add that Irregular Miniatures do 'unit packs' too 24 infantry or 8 cavalry, so if the colonial cavalry are any use then in UK you can get them 8 riders plus horses  for £17.60p including P&P in UK.

CarlL

[CarlL]

PPS

Under the Indians / 28mm tab again, there is a range of classical indians, the elephants may be overdressed but the elephant riders mixed with the Irregular plain elephant might be interest, again if interested email Ian Kay at Irregular Miniatures. He does an Indian elephant [AN10 at £6.16 inc P&P] and an African elephant [AN23 at £6.60p inc p&P in uk)  in his animals range another tab under 28mm.
His Indian elephants with crew are T34 at £11.99p and T33 with general etc., for same price (inc P&P)

Carl

[dwkay57]

Had the opportunity to delve around a bit today, starting with Wikipedia which has a reasonable amount on the Kingdom of Kush including some photos of wall carvings depicting warfare.

In the bibliography, there were three books / articles that stood out to me as potential further reading:
Derek Welsby - The Kingdom of Kush
Jean LeClant - The Empire of Kush
George Hatke - Aksh and Nubia : Warfare etc.
Be useful to know if anyone has read any of these before I commit to acquisition?

Did also look at the africanhistory.com site which had some interesting short bits on rulers (i.e. monarchs not measuring sticks) including an interesting drawing of Queen Amanitore shooting at an elephant in 5CE, but not much that I could find otherwise.

[Duncan Head]

I've got the Welsby, among others.

Online, if by any chance you haven't seen them:

Estigarribia on elephants
Haaland on Indian Ocean trade
Rilly on Meroe and the Noba

[Erpingham]

Having followed your suggestion of looking at wikipedia (or rather wikimedia commons), there are some nice multi-angled views of the elephant in the Meroitic Art category  You can see clearly the decoration on the elephant housing, and that the riders tunic is covered in round dots.  An impression of mail or just a pattern?

Add : I forgot. The elephant has a calf tethered to it by a chain.

[Jim Webster]

I've got the Welsby, among others.

Online, if by any chance you haven't seen them:

Estigarribia on elephants
Haaland on Indian Ocean trade
Rilly on Meroe and the Noba

Thanks for that, I've bagged them as well 

[dwkay57]

Sorry got diverted on to watching some youtube videos on Kush. At least I now know where Marvel got some ideas for Wakanda from....

On the basis that better brains than I are reading or have read them, I'd welcome some recommendations on which may help in terms of army organisation and structure? Or are just useful /interesting for getting more background information.

[Jim Webster]

It does raise some interesting questions. Given there appear to be no records, do we know anything about the Kushite (25th dynasty and before) organisation?

[Jim Webster]

I just had a look through the books I've got on the area and frankly there is virtually nothing with regard organisation

[DBS]

Have started re-reading Welsby.  (Note that he regards the Napatan and Meroitic kingdoms as a continuum, and does not like the modern practice of dividing them.)  Anyway, he openly admits that we know nothing about the army's organisation or whether professional or rural militias, though he suspects there may have been a royal contingent that was standing to some degree or other; whether that would translate into "regular" or "drilled" in wargames terms is of course a further judgement.  From the inscriptions, fairly clear that there were military offices - given the Kushite love of Egyptian legacies, seem somewhat reminiscent of the old nome nobility, with military office sometimes combined with priestly office and so on.

There are also apparent references to some of these offices being command of fortresses (he is not always clear on during which periods, which given he is arguing for a millennium long kingdom is unfortunate).  I suppose this is another minor argument to some troops being "formed/standing" to provide garrisons, though of course that does not mean that anyone would be rushing to strip out such garrisons for a field army, always a potentially counter-intuitive move.

Given there were still nomes, perhaps that is a possible basis for organisation, regardless of troop classification?

[dwkay57]

Thanks for the feedback chaps, useful and interesting.

I always wonder where some of the army list compilers get their information from, Jim, seeing that the rest of us struggle to find "stuff".

There does seem to be a change in the Kushite culture and approach following the rule of Ergamenes (probably different spellings in different articles) when he reduced the power of the priesthood. After that it seems that queens became more common in terms of rulers.

Low quality border garrisons (half-soldiers / half-farmers) seems to match what other empires did, but as David suggests probably didn't form a large part of a field army.