In the 1999 blockbuster, The
Mummy, reference was made to men who called themselves "Med-jai"
and served as the protectors of the city, Hamunaptra. A tribe called the
Med-jai did actually exist. They are mentioned in the written records of the
ancient Egyptians and known variously as Med-jai, Medjay, Medju, and Mazoi.
These people are believed to have originated in Nubia as pastoral cattle
herders. Later they served the Pharaohs' armies as mercenaries. In the New
Kingdom, the word 'Medjay' became associated with a corps of the Egyptian army
and the police force of the Egyptian state. This is an attempt to write the
story of the historical Medjay from the earliest predynatic periods to the
modern era.
Geographic
origins
It is generally accepted that the tribe known as "Medjay"
originated in the Eastern Desert of Nubia. In a reference from the Sixth
Dynasty (2355-2195 B.C.E.), the explorer Weni mentions using
"Medja-Nubians" in a campaign against the Asiatic Sand-dwellers
(Lichtheim 1976: 19). The land of Medja itself was supposed to be located near
the second cataract of the Nile ("Sixth Dynasty"), while the people
called Medjay could be found ranging between the first and second cataracts
(Quirke: 205, Shinnie: 91). During the reign of Merenere (2297-2290 B.C.E.),
Weni is said to have visited the first cataract, and received homage there from
the chief of the Medja ("Sixth Dynasty"). During the Middle Kingdom
(circa the year 1847 B.C.E.), Medjay were reported near the town of Semna, a
city just south of the second cataract. The records are known as the Semna Dispatches, military corrspondence
from a solider in Nubia to his superior up North (Berg: 28). The Dispatches
report sending Medjay back into the desert (Berg: 27, James: 210). Danièle
Michaux-Colombot reports tentative evidence that the Medjay could be found as
far North as the Qena-Thebes area (Michaux-Colombot) and the Pan-grave culture,
thought to represent the graves of Medjay warriors (mentioned in more detail
below), extends their range even farther North to Rifeh (Shinnie, 66). However,
this could simply be because these men were soldiers and consequently, traveled
away from their native lands and populations. Pepy I (2343-2297 B.C.E.)
mentions "peaceful Nubians" in his decree regarding the dependents of
Snefru's pyramids at Dahshur; it is thought that the Medjay could be included
under that grouping ("Sixth Dynasty"). "Several clauses forbid
interference with them [the pyramid dependents] by 'peaceful Nubians'…"
("Sixth Dynasty"). As Dahshur is close to Giza, it causes one to
wonder how Nubians could interfere, unless they were somehow nearby.
Barbara Mertz is the only author who does not refer to the Medjay
as Nubians. She calls them "a Libyan tribe" (Mertz: 159). Tamara
Siuda purports that elsewhere in Red Land, Black Land, Mertz does refer to them
as Nubians (Siuda). The confusion could possibly be due to a line from the Admonitions of Ipuwer. Ipuwer writes, "Every
man fights for his sisters and protects himself. Is it Nubians? Then we will
protect ourselves. There are plenty of fighters to repel the bowmen. Is it
Libyans? Then we will turn them back. The Medjai are content with Egypt."
(Lichtheim 1975:161). Ipuwer could be implying that the Medjay are from Libya,
but a more logical interpretation is that he distinguishes them from the other
Nubian tribes and that they are involved in repelling the Libyans.
Medjay in the
Predynastic period
According to Robert Berg, the Medjay were descended from a Hametic
people, who migrated into Africa from Asia via the Arabian peninsula circa 4000
B.C.E. (Berg: 29). They seem to have been a hunter-gatherer people who, like
their eventual descendants, lived outside the Nile Valley, in the desert,
though they interacted with the early Egyptians (Berg: 29). Berg implies that
the transition to pastoral nomadism, that is, domesticating animals as a
nomadic people, could have taken place between the time of their arrival and c.
3200 B.C.E., a period of about eight hundred years (Berg: 29-30). It seems that
by 3100 B.C.E., the transition had been made in full (Berg:30). Some
petroglyphs left by these people in the wadis and trails of the Eastern Desert
are contemporaneous with the A-group culture, c. 3100-2800 B.C.E., and clearly
depict domesticated cattle (Berg: 31). It should be noted that during and after
this time, Berg believes the Hametic/early Medjay tribes lived in groups of
about 25-50 to 100 people (Berg:30).
Medjay in the Old
Kingdom and during the First Intermediate period
During these periods and through to the Second Intermediate period
(about 1200 years from c. 2700-1500 B.C.E.), Medjay society was still simple
and tribal (Quirke: 207). It was in these years that the Medjay started
entering into the Nile (Quirke: 207), presumably because of drought and famine.
Strouhal mentions an "extreme desertification" between 2350 and 2200
B.C.E. (Strouhal: 189). A block from the causeway of the pyramid of Unas,
c.2355 B.C.E., shows people suffering from extreme famine (Aldred: 122). One
can assume that such famines, occurring from the Sixth Dynasty through to the
First Intermediate period (2355- 2066 B.C.E.) would have also affected the
Medjay.
The Medjay are mentioned in Egyptian writings from the time of Pepy
I (2343- 2297 B.C.E). In his decree concerning the dependents of the pyramids
of Snefru, Pepy I mentions possible interference from "peaceful
Nubians" ("Sixth Dynasty"). It is unlikely that Medjay
pastoralists would have journeyed as far as Dahshur; the Nubians Pepy refers to
may have been Medjay who served as soldiers for the Egyptian army and were
peaceful in that they were allied with Egypt. Weni uses them as soldiers in
Pepy's campaigns against the Asiatic Sand-dwellers (Lichtheim 1975: 19).
The Medjay appear diplomaticlly during the reign of Merenere (2297-2290
B.C.E.). Either Merenere himself or Weni visited them in Merenere's first year
to receive homage from the chieftain (Beck, "Sixth Dynasty"). Weni
saw the Medjay again when Merenere sent him to build barges and tow-boats from
acacia wood (Lichtheim 1975: 21). He says, "Then the foreign chiefs of
Irtjet, Wawat, Yam, and Medja cut the timber for them." (Lichtheim 1975:
22). This raises questions about the nature of the relationship between the
Medjay and the Egyptians. Some choose the interpret this as meaning the Nubians
were used as a labor force, as slaves ("History of the White Race").
However, evidence for a simply servile relationship is scanty at this point in
their history. The Egyptian did have slaves from the peoples they conquered and
did consider the Nubians friendly enemies, but the fact that the Medjay were
recruited for soldiers in the Egyptian army suggests that any wars with Nubia
were on too small a scale to call for the enslaving of whole tribes.
The Medjay continued to serve as mercenary soldiers during the
First Intermediate Period (Shinnie: 91). Shinnie remarks that they are
"clearly distinguished" from other Nubians (Shinnie: 91), as can be
seen in the Admonitions of Ipuwer.
Ipuwer says the Medjay are "content" while other Nubians may cause
trouble (Lichtheim 1975: 161). During this unhappy period, it is probable that
Ipuwer is making a distinction between the Medjay who served as mercenaries and
the Medjay pastoralists, who could have been afflicted by famine and in a
position to "cause trouble."
Medjay in the
Middle Kingdom
In the Middle Kingdom, the relationship between the Medjay and the
Egyptians took a turn for the worse. In the Eleventh Dynasty, they were still
employed as mercenaries, but by the nomarch of Hermopolis instead of by the
Pharaoh. There is an "allusion at Hatnub to men of Medja and Wawae among
the followers of a prince of the Hermopolitian nome. "("Eleventh
Dynasty"). This reflectes the growing power on the nomarchs during the
Middle Kingdom at the Pharaoh's expense. Relations between the Medjay and the
Pharaoh seem to have further soured in Dynasty 12. Amenhetep I (1994-1964
B.C.E.) said in his Instruction to
his son, "I captured the Medjai." (Lichtheim 1975: 137). A similar
remark was carved in an inscription found near Krosko in lower Nubia (Mokhtar:
256). This would be the time for large scale wars which would have allowed the
whole of the Medjay tribes to have been enslaved by Egypt. Presumably,
Amenhetep is continuing the distiction made by Ipuwer, referring to the
pastoral Medjay and not those who left the tribe and became soldiers. If in
fact the Medjay were enslaved, it was only for a short time, as they remained
an independent people, even after Lower Nubia was conquered in 1950 B.C.E.
(Quirke: 205, Williams).
The hostility between the pastoralists and the Egyptians continued
with Sesostris I (1974-1929 B.C.E.) and Sesostris III (1881-1840 B.C.E.) who
were busy building forts in Nubia in Medjay territory between the first and
second cataracts (Quirke: 204). One function of those forts was in fact to
monitor the pastoral Medjay (Quirke: 205, Williams).
Under Amenhetep III, (1842-1794 B.C.E.) the Medjay regained some of
their former status. This is the period of the Semna Dispatches, which give information about the administration
of the forts (Shinnie: 73). The Dispatches
mention use of Medjay for patrol (Kemp: 177, Shinnie: 73). They also relate
that the Medjay patrols were monitoring the activities of the nomadic, pastoral
Medjay.
Kindly note
that 2 of the Medjay men and 3 women… came down from the desert on the 27th day
of the 3rd month of winter in regnal year III [of Amenhetep III].
They said: 'We have come to serve the
Great House (may it live, be prosperous and healthy)'. They were asked about
the state of the desert and they said 'We have not heard everything; but the
desert is dying of famine.' So they said. Then this servant [the writer of the
dispatch] had sent them back to the desert on this day. (James: 210)
This appears to have been another period of famine in the desert,
when the desert people would have been trying to enter the fertile Nile Valley
for refuge. The forts and patrols were needed to control immigration into
Egypt. There were also Egyptian miners and prospectors who required protection
from the starving desert nomads.
Berg gives a possible explanation for the activities of the
pastoral Medjay during this time. He believes that the Egyptians had learned to
appreciate the Medjay's skill in herding cattle, useful in a time of drought
(Berg: 31). The painted frieze in the tomb chamber at Meir is contemporaneous
with the Semna Dispatches and depicts
Medjay, emaciated from famine, herding cattle while watched by Egyptian foremen
(Berg: 31). Berg thinks the group of 5 Medjay may have been trying to find such
a herding job among the Egyptians, but had come too late and were turned away
(Berg: 32).
Medjay in the
Second Intermediate Period
The Medjay seem to be found as soldiers for the Egyptians in about
every war the Egyptians fought. During the Second Intermediate Period, they
fought for Kamose against the Hyksos. The Carnarvon Tablet records Kamose
saying, "I sent forth a strong troop of Mazoi…" (Becker-Colonna:
132). Regarding their activity, it is reported that they were more than hired
mercenaries, but allies, the only non-Egyptians to help Kamose against the
Hyksos ("Kamose," Michaux-Colombot). Kamose is reported to have begun
the fighting with Medjay troops at Nefrusy (Beck). They supposedly fought
"hand to hand… in the front lines" ("Kamose").
Mokhtar mentions that during this period that the Medjay, both
nomad and warrior, were "of the same race and practically the same culture
as the sedentary Nehesyu people settled along the river" (Mokhtar: 241).
Pan-grave Culture
At this point, it is useful to mention the Pan-grave culture. The
Medjay people are known by name only in Egyptian records; there is no
archaeological evidence that can be definitely said to be Medjay (Quirke: 207).
However, many believe that the graves of the Pan-grave culture are Medjay, or
at the very least, the remains of other Nubian mercenaries living in Egypt
(Sadr, Shinnie: 67). The Pan-grave people first appear in considerable numbers
during the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate period, with sites
ranging from Rifeh to Toshka and they disappear from Southern Egypt around 1500
B.C.E .(Quirke: 207, Sadr, Shinnie: 66). Their graves are shallow pits,
circular in shape and covered with gravel (Quirke: 207, Shinnie: 67). Grave
goods included pottery, jewelry made from shells found in the Red Sea and some
gold, painted animal skulls, pottery, and in the case of males, Egyptian style
weapons (Quirke: 207, Shinnie: 67).
The shell jewelry shows that these people had ties to the Eastern
desert or to the Red Sea itself and the weapons demonstrate ties to the
Egyptian military forces. At present, the Medjay are the only group from the
east and the Red Sea who are known to have been soldiers for Egypt. Pottery of
the Pan-grave type has been found in Egyptian forts, supporting the Pan-grave
people as being mercenaries and allies of Egypt (Shinnie: 67). Evidence that
the Pan-grave people were Medjay can be found at a shrine at Toshka dedicated
to Horus and the deified Sesostris III. It was made by a man named Humay, who
identified himself as a Medjay and Pan-grave sherds have been found close by
(Shinnie: 91). Shinnie believes that the "presence of typical Pan-Grave
sherds close to the shrine presumably means that it was a place of worship for
locally based Medjay troops." (Shinnie: 91). Sherds of the Pan-grave type
are found associated with and used by the Medjay, so it is possible that the
pots themselves originated with the Medjay.
Medjay in the New
Kingdom
In the New Kingdom (1550-1064 B.C.E.), the Medjay again appear in
the Egyptian army. Berg suggests that extensive mining in Nubia resulted in the
active recruitment of Medjay as guards and guides (Berg: 32). This recruiting
was done in such great numbers that by the reign of Amenhetep III (1388-1348
B.C.E), there was a whole body known simply as "Medjay" (Berg: 32).
One hundred and fifty years later, the Stela of Merenptah states that his
"Medjai are stretched out asleep…." because there are no battles to
fight (Lichtheim 1976: 77).
With the new peace, the soldiers found another role in Egyptian
society as policemen, though Mertz also mentions them as the Pharaoh's
bodyguard (Breasted: 355, Mertz: 159). A man named Dedu appears as a chief of
the Medjay troops under Tuthmosis III (1479-1424 B.C.E) ("Dedu").
Mahu was chief of police in Amarna and from his tomb it is learned the Medjay
police were a unit separate from the army (Kemp: 292). There is a set of
buildings on the eastern side of the central city that Kemp identifies as the
Medjay headquarters (Kemp: 292). They are designed to house men and chariots
with cobbled floors, mangers, and tethering stones (Kemp: 292). Medjay-police
are also found near Deir el Medina. There they lived outside the city and their
names are found on ostraca as bartering with the villagers (Lesko).
A man named Nebamun commanded the Medjay under Tuthmosis IV
(1398-1388 B.C.E.) and Amenhetep III ("Nebamun"). It is worth
discussing his name, specifically the presence of "amun," the name of
an Egyptian god, and the cultural amalgamation it implies. This combines with
the evidence at Humay's temple, where the Medjay worshipped Egyptian gods with
traditional pottery, as evidence that the Medjay were adopting Egyptian culture
in the New Kingdom (Shinnie: 91).
Eugen Strouhal mentions a unit known as "Medjay of the
Tomb." (Strouhal: 189). They were located near Deir el Medina and policed
the town and the Valley of the Kings (Strouhal: 189). A diary from the 17th
year of the reign of Ramsses IX (1123-1104 B.C.E.) describes the Medjay force
near Deir el Medina. It says that there were 6 headmen and 18 policemen, which
was rather large (Strouhal: 190). Strouhal mentions Cerny's idea that the
number was high because the Medjay were investigating tomb robberies (Strouhal:
190).
There is no mention of the pastoral Medjay during the New Kingdom.
It may be that their disappearance is tied to the Pan-grave peoples, who are
last seen c. 1500 B.C.E. Karim Sadr suggests that the Pan-grave/ Medjay people
migrated south to the Southern Atbai and took over there (Sadr). But the
evidence did not suggest immigration, so any take-over would have been subtle
(Sadr). This is just one possible explanation for what became of the
non-military Medjay. It may be equally possible that they were wholly absorbed
into Egyptian culture, on a larger scale than the Pan-grave archaeological
evidence suggests, or that they remained in the Eastern Desert (Quirke: 207).
Medjay in the
Late Kingdom, the Ptolemaic Era and later
Robert Berg gives a chronology of the Medjay from the Late Kingdom
to the end of the ancient world. He mentions Heliodorus, author of Aethiopica, who says that the Medjay
were still warriors as late as 700 B.C.E., when they fought the Persians (Berg:
32). Under the Ptolemies, the Medjay and the Greeks intermarried and the Greeks
took an active role in Medjay life (Berg: 32). The name "Medjay"
disappeared with the Greeks and the eastern nomads from the Medjay's region
became known as Blemmyes (Berg: 32).
The camel was introduced to the nomads in the period and its use
made them stronger as a tribe and imparted a greater sense of identity, giving
them the power to challenge Rome (Berg: 32-33). According to Eusebius of
Caesarea, in 268 C.E. the Blemmyes overran the Nile valley from Aswan to
Ptolemais and it took the Romans years to get them out (Berg: 33). Berg and
Shinnie both mention Procopius and his De
Bello Persico, where he records the emperor Diocletian's difficulties with
the Blemmyes (Berg: 33, Shinnie: 118). In the end, Diocletian had to give them
the Dodekaschoinus (a stretch of the Nile from Syene to the present Sudanese
border), an annual tribute, and the right to worship at Philae and have priests
there (Berg: 33). During this period, the Blemmyes practically ruled the Nile
Valley well past Aswan; they felt capable of forcing the Romans to pay them
tribute (Berg: 33). They were finally ousted by Macrinus in 451 C.E. (Berg:
33).
When Justinian outlawed paganism in 536 C.E., the Blemmyes were
outraged and began raiding the Roman/ Byzantine ruled parts of the
Dodekaschoinus (Berg: 33-35). They were finally defeated and sent back into the
desert by the Christian king of Ethiopia, Silko, in 540 C.E. It is thought that
the Blemmyes are the ancestors of the modern Bega people, who still live in the
Red Sea Hills of Southeast Egypt and Northeast Sudan (Berg: 35, Shinnie: 118).
Conclusion
It can be said with certainty that the Medjay were a Nubian tribe,
coming from the Eastern Desert between the first and second cataracts. They
began and ended as a pastoral, nomadic people, whose young men were recruited
by the Egyptian military in such numbers that their units were simply known as
"Medjay." Too often, the idea of romantic adventure causes an
incomplete view of who the Medjay were; "Medjay" does not refer only
to an ancient mercenary, but also to their nomadic relatives. These soldiers
and the tribe of nomadic cattle herders who suffered from famine and drought
come from the same origins.
The Skin Color
and Race
First of all, ancient Egypt was a large country, and many people
immigrated into it. The Egyptians were not all a single skin color. The darkest
people came from Nubia while the lightest probably came from the Delta regions.
It was artistic convention, as later happened in ancient Etruria, that the men
were represented with dark, reddish skin, and the women with very light skin.
Foreign people were respesented wearing different clothing; the Nubians were
the exception as their skin was consistently dark. The famous Berlin bust of
Nerfertiti shows her with very light skin; her mother-in-law, Queen Tiye, has
very dark skin, and was probably from the South.
That being said, the Medjay were Nubians and were depicted on tomb
walls and in the part of The Mummy
that takes place in ancient Egypt as having dark skin. The fact that Ardeth Bay
has light skin can be explained by intermarriage. The Ptolemies, who were from
Greece, intermarried with the descendants of the Medjay. Overtime, this could
have produced Ardeth's light skin color.
The Twelve Tribes
of Medjay
As this pertains to the Medjay who patrol Hamunaptra, it is likely
pure artistic liscense.
References and
Bibliography
Aldred, C.
1998 The
Egyptians. 3rd ed. Thames and Hudson, London.
Beck, S.
1998
The Ethics of Ancient Egypt <http://www.san.beck.org/EC4-Egypt.html>
1996 Dedu. <http://touregypt.net/who/dedu.htm>Eleventh Dynasty <http://touregypt.net/hdyn11.htm>