20 MARCH/APRIL 2020
opponent. Based in their fortified capital of Hat-
tusa (about 130 miles east of Ankara, Turkey,
today), they rose to regional dominance in part
because of their mastery of the chariot. Facing
ranks of thousands of their chariots at Kadesh
was certainly something for Ramses the Great
to boast about.
The official Egyptian record of the “victory,”
the Poem of Pentaur, was inscribed on Ramses’
temples, including Abu Simbel in southern
Egypt. The poem recounts how the Hittite king
Muwatallis II “had sent men and horses, mul-
titudinous as the sands.... The charioteers of
His Majesty [Ramses] were discomfited before
them, but His Majesty stood firm.”F
or an Egyptian noble, living in or just
after the time of Ramses II, the truth
must have seemed clear and simple:
In a heroic push to regain their former
imperial lands in Syria, their great pha-
raoh had waged war against the Hittites at the
Battle of Kadesh in 1275 b.c., where he had won
a resounding victory.
Ramses was as much a master of public rela-
tions as he was of war, and historians now know
that the Battle of Kadesh was not a definitive
victory over the Hittites. It was almost certainly
a draw. As masters of an empire that stretched
through much of modern Turkey to parts of
Syria, the Hittites were a worthy, formidableCLASH AT
KADESH
In a relief from Abu
Simbel (above),
Ramses II fires arrows
from his chariot (top
left) surrounded by
swarms of smaller
attacking Hittite
charioteers.
WAR
ON
WHEELS
ca 2600 b.c.
The Standard of Ur casket
depicts a driver of a Sumerian
chariot with solid wooden
wheels. This early form of the
chariot would come to domi-
nate Bronze Age warfare.THE STANDARD OF UR (DETAIL). BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDONARALDO DE LUCASCALA, FLORENCE