Mend on the Orontes River, was widely publicized, with
many scenes of the battle engraved on the walls of several
temples in Egypt and Nubia. Th e scenes, which proclaim the
military prowess of Ramses II, propagate a version of events
that claim Egyptian victory in the battle. Like Th utmose III
at the battle of Megiddo, Ramses II was misled by false intel-
ligence. Th e Egyptian forces were ambushed, and although
both sides fought ferociously, the Hittites did not yield the
land. In fact, extant Hittite records of the battle indicate that
the Egyptian troops suff ered a severe defeat and fl ed in chaos.
Th e ensuing peace treaty between Ramses II and the Hittite
king Mutewalis preserved the status quo, with both sides suf-
fering considerable losses.
Th e Egyptian account of the battle of Qadesh is most sig-
nifi cant because it indicates that the Egyptian military was
subdivided into four battalions, each named aft er one of the
major Egyptian deities. Indeed, the Egyptian versions focus
on the bravery of Ramses II who, having been deserted by
his infantry and chariotry, continued to fi ght gallantly. Th e
poetic version of the battle surprisingly preserves a passage
in which Ramses II complains that the god Amun-Re had de-
serted him in battle. Despite the lack of divine support, how-
ever, Ramses II is able to single-handedly defeat thousands
of enemy troops. Indeed, this seems to be the sole purpose of
the numerous inscribed versions of the battle: the glorifi ca-
tion of the reigning king and the further establishment of his
bravery and divinity.
Egyptian military forces were not always on the of-
fensive. In its long history Egypt also experienced several
invasions by the armies of other Near Eastern nations: the
Nubians, Assyrians, and Persians, and later the Greeks and
Romans, all invaded Egypt. At the end of the New Kingdom,
Egypt witnessed a period of political fragmentation known
as the Th ird Intermediate Period (ca. 1070–ca. 712 b.c.e.).
During this period several rulers simultaneously claimed the
k ingship of Eg y pt. Occasionally these rivaling dynasts fought
over territorial hegemony. Sometime in the early to mid-sev-
enth century b.c.e. Egypt’s southern neighbor in Sudan, the
kingdom of Napata, rose to power. One of its earliest rulers,
Kashta, marched north and may have controlled all the area to
the south of Egypt up to Aswān. Located at the fi rst cataract,
Aswān was Egypt’s traditional southern border. Kashta’s sons,
Piye and Shabaka, invaded Egypt several times: Piye twice in
his fourth and 20th regnal year and Shabaka in his second
year. Th e Nubians eventually succeeded in having a fi rm grip
on Egypt; from 715 to 671 b.c.e. they fully controlled Egypt
as its Twenty-fi ft h Dynasty. Th e penultimate ruler of that dy-
nasty, Taharqa, was a military man who had spent the early
part of his career leading his predecessor’s armies. Taharqa
tried to expand Egypt’s northeastern frontiers.
Assyria was the main military force in the ancient Near
East at the time, with a strong presence in Palestine. Taharqa’s
ambitious military intervention in western Asia may have
prompted several subsequent Assyrian invasions into Egypt
(in 674, 671, and 667–666 b.c.e.). Th e Assyrians’ invasion ofEgypt was a natural consequence of its need to secure Pales-
tine’s southern boundary. Th ey left Egypt only aft er install-
ing their Egyptian ally, Psammetichus I (664–610 b.c.e.), as a
vassal king. Psammetichus I succeeded in driving Tantamani,
the last Nubian ruler of Egypt, from Egypt, having chased his
armies all the way to Nubia in the Sudan. Psammetichus I and
his successors of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty relied heavily on
the use of mercenaries. Cretans, Greeks, and Jews were among
the many nationalities employed in the Egyptian military at
the time.
But perhaps the most devastating of all invasions was the
Persian invasion of Egypt in the spring of 525 b.c.e. Having
swept through the Near East, the Persians conquered Egypt
and ruled it for more than a century. An Egyptian revolt in 401
to 399 b.c.e. led to the expulsion of the Persians from Egypt.
Shortly thereaft er, in 343 b.c.e., the Persians reconquered
Egypt. Th is time their rule of Egypt was short lived. Aft er a
brief decade Alexander the Great invaded Egypt in 332 b.c.e.
Aft er Alexander’s sudden death his generals divided
the territories he had conquered. Egypt fell into the hands
of General Ptolemy, who declared himself king of Egypt. His
decedents constitute the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and the period
from 305 to 30 b.c.e. is known as the Ptolemaic Period. Th e
last Ptolemaic ruler was none other than the famous Queen
Cleopatra VII. Egypt was fi nally annexed to the Roman Em-
pire aft er Cleopatra and Marc Anthony’s defeat at the naval
battle of Actium in 30 b.c.e.THE MIDDLE EAST
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
In the ancient Near East the objective of warfare was the cap-
ture or defense of a capital city. Th e original cities of Mesopo-
tamia were sacred, the homes of specifi c gods in the religions
of the peoples of the area. When a city became the urban cen-
ter of a state consisting of towns and villages, it retained its
central place in the hearts of its populace. To capture a capital
was to capture the hearts of its people and usually to bring the
end of resistance.
Until about the era of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (1050–
609 b.c.e.) another objective of war was to slaughter the
enemy, and prisoners of war were typically executed. Even
though the Neo-Assyrians were especially bloodthirsty, they
changed the practice of routinely killing prisoners, because
they valued their prisoners as potential slaves and tended
to ship them off to parts of their empire where labor was
wanted.
Th e archaeology of Near Eastern warfare before about
1200 b.c.e. is sketchy, but the scant physical evidence is oft en
all that speaks of wars. Even aft er writing became common,
war records usually contained the statistics of victory—such
as how many of the enemy were killed, how many were cap-
tured, and what sort of loot was found—rather than descrip-
tions of tactics, military organization, or even the reasons for
the wars.1130 war and conquest: The Middle East0895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1130 1130 10/10/07 2:31:11 PM