Lecture 2: 1274 B.C. Kadesh—Greatest Chariot Battle

1274 B.C. Kadesh—Greatest Chariot Battle ....................................

Lecture 2

I

n late May of 1274 B.C., on the banks of the river Orontes in Syria, the

young ruler of Egypt, Ramesses II, rode at the head of a vast Egyptian

army and was on the verge of leading them into a battle against his

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winning a victory that would catapult him into the ranks of the greatest

among Egypt’s long line of glorious pharaohs. Unknowingly, however, the

eager pharaoh was riding into a trap. The resultant clash would become

known as the Battle of Kadesh, and it is the earliest battle in human history

whose course and maneuvers we can reconstruct in detail.

Background to Kadesh

x In the generations leading up to the Battle of Kadesh, the main

challenger to Egypt for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean

was the powerful Hittite empire based in Anatolia, a region that

roughly corresponds to modern Turkey.

x Lying between was Syria, a strategic and economic crossroads

that connected the Mediterranean basin to Mesopotamia and,

therefore, became a hotly contested territory desired by both the

Hittites and the Egyptians and regarded by both as lying within

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city of Kadesh and played the Hittites and the Egyptians against

each other.

x From a broader historical perspective, the Battle of Kadesh is

notable not only for being our earliest detailed battle account but

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o It was one of the largest chariot battles in history.