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Facts About Ancient Egypt They Didn’t Teach In School

Khalid Elhassan October 29, 2023 31 min

Egyptian - The Great Pyramids of Giza, as they would have looked when newly built — The Great Pyramids of Giza, as they would have looked when newly built. Quora

Ancient Egyptian Propaganda Boosted a Stalemate Into a Great Victory

Egyptian - Pharaoh Ramesses II in the Battle of Kadesh, slaying one foe and trampling another — Pharaoh Ramesses II in the Battle of Kadesh, slaying one foe and trampling another. Wikimedia

The Hittites were hidden behind Kadesh when Ramesses II reached the city. However, nomads falsely informed the pharaoh that his enemies were nowhere near. Emboldened, Ramesses hurried with the Amon Division to Kadesh, and left the rest of his army behind to catch up. As Ramesses advanced, the Hittites circled around the city, and made sure to keep Kadesh between themselves and the Egyptians as they did so. While Ramesses and the Division of Amon made camp, the Division of Re straggled up the road behind. That was when 2000 massed Hittite chariots charged directly across the Egyptian line of march. They wrecked the Division of Re, then surrounded Ramesses in his camp.

Charge of the Hittite chariots at the Battle of Kadesh. Evo Historia

The pharaoh gathered his personal guards, and led a desperate charge that drove some Hittite leaders into the Orontes River. Fortunately for Ramesses, the Hittites behind him abandoned their chariots to loot the Egyptian camp. That was when the Division of Sutekh arrived in the nick of time, and slaughtered the looters. As the Hittite King Muwatalli sent in the rest of his chariots, the last Egyptian Division of Ptah arrived, and the battle lasted until sunset.

After prolonged slaughter, the Hittites finally withdrew into Kadesh, and left the field – and technically the victory – to Ramesses. Upon his return, the warrior pharaoh littered Egypt with monuments and murals that detailed the engagement – or at least his version of the engagement. In them, he described himself as “Ramesses, the Great, Conqueror of the Hittites” – which is how we know so much about the battle.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.