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How Egypt advertised the results of the Battle of Kadesh
Exclusive souvenirs about the Battle of Kadesh are also essential. Ramses specially made a battlefield restoration stele with his bow and arrow, and enlarged himself and the chariot under his seat in the same proportion, so as to set off the insignificance and helplessness of Heti’s opponent. In order to show his irreplaceable role as much as possible, most of the Egyptian soldiers who fought desperately for Wanming were mostly omitted by the artist.
When viewing the stone carvings, later generations can only witness the majestic giant pharaoh mercilessly crushing the Hittite chariots that turned their heads and ran away. As for more propaganda materials declaring self-victory, they have also been excavated by archaeologists in a hundred years. The result is that early modern histories, without exception, regard the Battle of Kadesh as an Egyptian victory.
Fortunately, although the face slap will be late, it will never be absent! The Hittite Empire site, which was originally unknown, was accidentally discovered in the 1970s. In particular, Hattusa, the imperial capital built in the mountains of Anatolia, has been very well preserved because there are few large-scale activities around it. When the Hittites were forced to abandon the land, many clay tablets in the royal library were also sealed up.
The documents inside include the famous “Egyptian-Hittite Peace Treaty”. Through the translation of Akkadian, which was used in ancient times, historians realized for the first time that it turned out that Ramses II’s Egypt had surrendered earlier and prayed for peace and stability to its sworn old rival.
In addition, more archaeological evidence has been unearthed on the Levantine coast, and scholars are increasingly inclined to doubt the guidance of Egyptian public opinion. Years of excavations have shown that the Egyptians stopped their offensives in West Asia after the war. Except for a small piece of outer territory adjacent to the Sinai Peninsula, there will basically no longer be regular northern expeditions as in the past. In other words, Ramses II dared not challenge the Hitti for a long time.
Instead, monuments and slabs later in his career show that the focus of the Egyptian military turned to other neighbors. Including the Nubians living in the upper reaches of the Nile, and the Libyan oasis tribes to the west. The characteristics of these new opponents are undoubtedly weaker than Egypt in terms of organizational size and military technology. At that time, they were not used to building monumental buildings with extravagance and waste. Therefore, Ramses’ victory in these areas was temporarily preserved.
However, the infighting between the two parties of the Hittites still triggered civil strife in the empire after the Battle of Kadesh. The young monarch Mursili III, who lost power, even went to Egypt to take refuge in himself. Ramses also took the opportunity to attack and carried out several relatively low-key northward raids.
But most of the endings were similar to the previous defeats, and they couldn’t support their huge ambitions at all. This in turn proves that the Egyptian army did not win the Battle of Kadesh at all. The pharaoh’s military talent can only stay forever on the piles of stones shaped by his own craftsmen.
Today, the complete process of the Battle of Kadesh has been gradually restored by military scientists of ancient warfare. The advantages and disadvantages of the weapons used by both sides were also mostly analyzed by technical experts. But Ramses II, who brags with the power of the whole country, is still the most famous pharaoh in the world. This has to be said to be a great achievement of the ancient Egyptian public opinion information strategy!
