Chapter 4

Building the Empire: The Glories of the New Kingdom

In This Chapter

Meeting Egypt’s empire-builders

Defending the borders

Revising Egypt’s religious practices

Plastering over the cracks

The expulsion of the Hyksos (see Chapter 3) saw the end of the second intermediate period and the start of the New Kingdom. This period (1570–1070 BC) is one of the most famous, with the 18th–19th dynasties and all the popular kings, such as Tutankhamun, Akhenaten, and Ramses II. See the timeline on the Cheat Sheet for a wider chronology.

The start of the 18th dynasty saw the introduction of a permanent military (see Chapter 3) and also a change in international policy. The kingship ideology also included extending the boundaries of Egypt. This meant that each king tried to claim more land than his father, until eventually a large area of the Near East was under Egyptian control, with vassal kings who remained loyal to Egypt set up in foreign towns.

The New Kingdom was a time of renewal and empire building by some of the most powerful kings of Egypt. This chapter focuses on the people and personalities that made this era possible.

Meeting the Egyptian Napoleon: Thutmosis III

The first true empire-builder of the New Kingdom was Thutmosis III (1504–1450 BC) of the 18th dynasty, the husband and step-son of Hatshepsut (see Chapter 5).

Thutmosis III, the son of Thutmosis II and a secondary wife called Isis, was still an infant when he became king on the death of his father. Once king, he was married to Thutmosis II’s widow, his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut. For more than 20 years, Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III ruled officially as co-regents, although for the majority of this period Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as pharaoh, pushing the young Thutmosis III aside.

Thutmosis III spent his childhood and teenage years training in the army, until the death of Hatshepsut in year 22 of their reign. At this time, he took over the throne as a fully grown adult and military leader and continued to rule Egypt for more than 20 years on his own. Figure 4-1 shows him at his most regal.

Egyptologists often refer to Thutmosis III as the Egyptian Napoleon because he spent his adult life fighting and claiming land in the name of Egypt. He left some very elaborate military records in the Hall of Annals at Karnak temple, telling of the exploits in Syria that earned him his title.

Figure 4-1: Thutmosis III (Luxor Museum).

Fighting at Megiddo

The most famous of Thutmosis III’s battles was at Megiddo in Syria, in the first year of his sole rule (around 1476 BC). The King of Kadesh in Syria had slowly been gathering a number of Palestinian cities to join him in an attack against the borders of Egypt, because he wasn’t strong enough to do it alone. This attacking army occupied the desirable and fortified Syrian town of Megiddo (in modern-day Israel), which was strategically placed for trade and protection.

Megiddo was the site of many battles in antiquity. The biblical term ‘Armageddon’ actually means ‘mount of Megiddo’ in Hebrew and refers to a particular battle here.

Thutmosis III and his Egyptian militia travelled from the Delta, through the Sinai, until they reached Megiddo. They laid siege to various strongholds along the way so that their line of communication (and potential retreat back to Egypt) was clear and under their control.

Three routes led to Megiddo, and Thutmosis needed to decide which one to take. Two of the longer routes were difficult to defend, whereas the shorter and more direct route left the Egyptians in a vulnerable position because they needed to travel in single file and were under constant threat of ambush from the enemy.

Thutmosis was advised to take one of the longer routes, but he decided on the shorter, more interesting route. Luckily for him, the Egyptians travelled the path with no problems and emerged a short distance from the fortified town, where they set up camp waiting for the remainder of the Egyptian army to arrive.

Time to attack

After the Egyptian army started its approach to Megiddo, the enemy forces tried to organise themselves in a very rough-and-ready fashion to guard their town. The following morning, the Egyptians paraded in full battle regalia to psych themselves up and demoralise the enemy.

Thutmosis III led the attack in a gold and electrum chariot, leading one-third of the army. Battle records state that the Egyptians were greatly outnumbered by the Syrian army, which consisted of more than 330 kings and ‘Millions of men, and hundreds of thousands of the chiefest of all the lands, standing in their chariots.’

Despite being outnumbered, Thutmosis III was valiant:

The king himself . . . led the way of his army, mighty at its head like a flame of fire, the king who wrought with his sword. He went forth, none like him, slaying the barbarians, smiting the Retenu (the Asiatics), bringing their princes as living captives, their chariots wrought with gold, bound to their horses.

The Egyptian forces were too much for the skeleton army guarding the mount of Megiddo. The army at Megiddo quickly fled, leaving all its weapons, chariots, and belongings behind. The Egyptians were close on its heels, but the gatekeepers at Megiddo refused to open the doors to let the Syrians in just in case the Egyptians followed. Those inside the fort let down knotted sheets, rather like the story of Rapunzel – albeit less hairy – so that the rich and powerful among their allies could be rescued and brought within the fortress.

Missed opportunity

After the Syrians fled the mount of Megiddo, the Egyptian army had a perfect opportunity to storm the fortification before the Syrians were able to gather themselves and prepare to attack from within the fortress. However, rather than attacking straight away, the Egyptian soldiers were distracted by all the goodies left by the fleeing army and started to rummage through them. They lost their advantage over the Syrians, but filled their bags with all they could carry.

Thutmosis took control of the situation – albeit it a little too late – and organised for a wall and a moat to be built around Megiddo in preparation for a long siege of the town. It was particularly important for the Egyptians to capture the town to show their strength. They also needed to be able to defend their victory against numerous chieftains from surrounding towns who threatened to cause problems for the Egyptians and weaken the control on their empire. The siege lasted seven months before Megiddo finally fell to the Egyptians.

Giddy up

In year 30 of his reign, Thutmosis III was engaged with the Hittites in battle at Kadesh. Kadesh was particularly important because it was located on an essential trade route and gave the Egyptians access to territories in the north.

During the battle at Kadesh, the Hittites used a devious but common technique to destroy the Egyptian army. Stallions pulled the Egyptian chariots, so the Hittites sent a mare, in season, out into the field in order to distract the horses. Cunning, eh?

Luckily for Thutmosis III, his general, Amenemhab, saw and chased the mare with his chariot. When Amenemhab caught the mare, he sliced open her belly and cut off her tail, which he then presented to the king. A bit of a funny pressie really, although it obviously worked as a lucky charm because Thutmosis III won this battle and went on to fight another day.

Getting bootylicious

After the fall of Megiddo and the battle of Kadesh (see the sidebar ‘Giddy up’), the Egyptian soldiers had lots of goodies to boost their salaries (see Chapter 3 for wages information). Of course, the king enjoyed the profits of war as well. Thutmosis III’s annals at Karnak include booty lists that detail the following:

All the goods of those cities which submitted themselves, which were brought to his majesty: 38 lords of theirs, 87 children of that enemy and of the chiefs who were with him, 5 lords of theirs, 1,796 male and female slaves with their children, non-combatants who surrendered because of famine with that enemy, 103 men; total 2,503. Besides flat dishes of costly stone and gold, various vessels, a large two-handled vase of the work of Kharu, vases, flat dishes, dishes, various drinking-vessels, 3 large kettles, 87 knives, amounting to 784 deben. Gold in rings found in the hands of the artificers, and silver in many rings, 966 deben and 1 kidet [both weights of metal]. A silver statue in beaten work, the head of gold, the staff with human faces; 6 chairs of that enemy, of ivory, ebony and carob wood, wrought with gold; 6 footstools belonging to them; 6 large tables of ivory and carob wood, a staff of carob wood, wrought with gold and all costly stones in the fashion of a sceptre, belonging to that enemy, all of it wrought with gold; a statue of that enemy, of ebony wrought with gold, the head of which was inlaid with lapis lazuli; vessels of bronze, much clothing of that enemy.

Sadly, Egyptologists don’t know what happened to this booty and how it was absorbed into the Egyptian economy.

Changing His Religion: Akhenaten

Another 18th-dynasty king who has held worldwide fame for thousands of years is the heretic king, Akhenaten (1350–1333 BC). He was infamous for changing the religion of ancient Egypt from the worship of hundreds of gods to the worship of one god – the Aten or sun disc. Figure 4-2 shows the face of Akhenaten.

Akhenaten’s bold religious changes were the product of monotheism, as commentators often state. Although the Aten was elevated to the position of supreme god, only Akhenaten and the royal family were able to worship the sun god. Akhenaten raised himself up to the position of fully fledged god, more divine than any other king – and everyone else had to worship Akhenaten! So in Akhenaten’s system, there was not just one god but two.

Figure 4-2: The face of Akhenaten (Luxor Museum).

Meeting the family

Akhenaten was the youngest son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. He was born under the name of Amenhotep and only later changed his name to Akhenaten (‘Spirit of the Aten’) as his devotion to the god grew.

Akhenaten’s mother, Tiye, was of noble, not royal, birth. Some images show her as a somewhat domineering and frightening woman. She is regularly shown alongside her husband in a complementary rather than inferior position and is represented in her own right without the king, which was unheard of in earlier Egyptian history.

Akhenaten had one older brother, Thutmosis, who died before he could come to the throne, and three sisters: Beketaten, Sitamun, and Isis. The latter two were married to their father, Amenhotep III.

Marrying a mystery

Akhenaten married young, before he became king, and he married one of the most famous women in ancient Egypt – the rather serene and enigmatic Nefertiti. No one really knows where Nefertiti came from, who her parents were, and in fact who she was. But most Egyptologists believe that she was the daughter of Ay, the brother of Queen Tiye. Ay’s wife held the title ‘wet-nurse of Nefertiti’, showing that she wasn’t mum but step-mum to Nefertiti, because the title of mother would outstrip that of wet-nurse.

Nefertiti and Akhenaten had six daughters, the first born before the end of Akhenaten’s first year on the throne. The daughters are often depicted with the king and queen. Their names were

Meritaten

Meketaten

Ankhesenepaten (later Ankhesenamun)

Neferneferuaten

Neferneferure

Setepenre

Although there is no direct evidence, it is possible that Tutankhamun was also the son of Akhenaten and a secondary wife called Kiya. Some scholars also believe that Smenkhkare, the mysterious king who followed Akhenaten on the throne for a brief spell, was the son of Akhenaten; others believe that he was the son of Amenhotep III, and other scholars think Smenkhkare and Nefertiti are the same person. What chance do the rest of us have if the experts are unable to decide?

Praising the sun god

The main focus of Akhenaten’s reign was his religious revolution, which took place over a very short period. Akhenaten ruled for only 17 years, and the entire revolution was complete by year 9 of his reign. Despite the short time that this revolution took, this period is the most written about of ancient Egyptian history by modern writers.

Even stranger, for 12 years of his reign, Akhenaten was probably serving as a co-ruler with his father Amenhotep III, with his father ruling from Thebes and Akhenaten ruling from his brand-spanking-new city at Amarna in middle Egypt. Effectively, theirs was a divided rule – one of the few that was seen as acceptable in the entire span of Egyptian history (see Chapter 1).

The Aten is the key element in the reign of Akhenaten. The Aten was not a new deity: He was always part of the wider solar cycle and appears as an embodiment of the light that emanates from the sun disc. This light is represented in images by hands radiating from the sun disc, each ending in little hands that give an ankh sign (sign of eternal life, shown in Chapter 11) to the royal family. The entire image suggests that the sun provides life. All Akhenaten did was to elevate this element of the sun god to that of being the only sun god.

The favouring of the Aten over other deities started in the reign of Amenhotep III as part of a campaign to limit the power of the Priesthood of Amun at Karnak, which at the time was almost as powerful as the royal family. Akhenaten, however, went further and began to replace all the main gods with the Aten, although he didn’t close all the temples until nine years into his reign, when he diverted all revenue to the new temples of the Aten.

In year 12, Akhenaten started a hate campaign against the cult of Amun. This involved carving out the names of Amun wherever they appeared – even in the name of his own father, Amenhotep. This had never happened before in Egypt. Kings often eliminated other kings they didn’t like from their personal histories (see Chapter 3), but a king had never removed gods before. Akhenaten’s actions must have upset a lot of people.

Meeting an unhappy end

Despite his unpopularity, Akhenaten does not seem to have been assassinated, which is surprising. However, the end of his reign is vague and unrecorded, so historians can only guess at the actual events.

A stream of disasters in his personal life precede Akhenaten’s death and the collapse of the Amarna period:

In Year 12 of Akhenaten’s reign, his father Amenhotep III died.

In Year 13, Nefertiti disappears from the inscriptions, so she probably died, although some scholars believe she changed her name and ruled as co-ruler.

In Year 14, Amenhotep’s daughter Meketaten died as the result of childbirth

In Year 14, Akhenaten’s mother, Tiye, died.

This stream of deaths is often attributed to a plague epidemic referred to as ‘the Asiatic illness’ that swept Amarna; this epidemic may have been a form of bubonic plague. This plague was viewed by the ordinary people as punishment for the abandonment of the traditional gods – which made the masses very keen to start worshipping the traditional gods again.

Akhenaten died in year 17 of his reign, when he was in his 30s. He left no known male heir, except possibly Smenkhkare, a mysterious character, who co-ruled alongside Akhenaten for three years (see the section ‘Marrying a mystery’, earlier in this chapter). Some believe Smenkhkare is Nefertiti, although the evidence is not conclusive. Smenkhkare then ruled alone for a few months before dying, presumably from the plague as well. (You wouldn’t want to be a member of this family would you? They seem jinxed!)

At the death of Smenkhkare, only one more suitable heir existed, the famous Tutankhamun – a wee nipper at only 7 or 8 years old.

Growing Up a King: Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun is a name that conjures up images of gold and wealth, due to the amazing splendours discovered in his tomb. Prior to the tomb’s discovery, very little was known about this king – and to be honest, after the tomb was opened, the world was not enlightened a great deal.

There are many gaps in the life of Tutankhamun, and most studies concentrate on the treasure from his tomb. Many of these treasures were created for the tomb and may not have featured at all in the king’s life. However, the mystery surrounding this king has intrigued people since the tomb’s discovery in 1922. No doubt Tut will continue to interest people for another 100 years.

Keeping it in the family

Historians think that Tutankhamun was born between years 7 and 9 of Akhenaten’s reign, possibly at Amarna. Originally called Tutankhaten (‘the living image of the Aten’), his name was changed when he became king.

Egyptologists are even unable to agree on who Tutankhamun’s parents were. Theories include:

Akhenaten and Kiya (a secondary wife)

Akhenaten and Tadukhipa (a Mitannian princess)

Amenhotep III and Tiye (making Tutankhamun Akhenaten’s brother)

Amenhotep III and Sitamun (Akhenaten’s sister)

The first theory is widely accepted by most Egyptologists today.

At the start of his reign, Tutankhamun married Ankhesenepaten, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. Depending on who Tutankhamun’s parents are, Ankhesenamun is either his half-sister or his niece. They certainly liked to keep it all in the family. Ankhesenamun was a couple of years older than Tutankhamun, and they may have been raised together at the palace at Amarna.

Sadly, despite their youth and a ten-year reign, Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun had no surviving children. However, buried in Tutankhamun’s tomb in a plain white wooden box were two female foetuses, one who was still-born and another who survived for a short while before dying. These foetuses may be Tutankhamun’s children, indicating that this young couple had to endure a very trying time attempting to produce an heir to follow Tutankhamun on the throne.

Restoring the religion

The main task of the decade of Tutankhamun’s rule was to restore the religion of Egypt – essentially to correct all the changes that Akhenaten had instigated. Tutankhamun started this by abandoning the new capital at Amarna and using Memphis and Thebes as the capital cities of Egypt, as was traditional and expected. Because Tutankhamun was only young, he may have been controlled by his officials: Horemheb (the general and deputy king) and the vizier, Tutankhamun’s Uncle Ay.

At Karnak temple, Tutankhamun erected the Restoration Stela, which outlined some of the plans he had for re-establishing the cults and traditions of Egypt:

He restored everything that was ruined, to be his monument forever and ever. He has vanquished chaos from the whole land and has restored Maat [order] to her place. He has made lying a crime, the whole land being made as it was at the time of creation.

Now when His Majesty was crowned King the temples and the estates of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine as far as the swamps of Lower Egypt had fallen into ruin. Their shrines had fallen down, turned into piles of rubble and overgrown with weeds . . . Their temples had become footpaths. The world was in chaos and the gods had turned their backs on this land . . . If you asked a god for advice, he would not attend; and if one spoke to a goddess likewise she would not attend. Hearts were faint in bodies because everything that had been, was destroyed.

Tutankhamun needed to find trustworthy staff to work in the new temples and shrines that he was building. He employed men and women from well-known families who were loyal to the old king, Amenhotep III, ensuring that they would uphold the traditions of his time.

Death

For years, theories surrounding the death of Tutankhamun have dominated publications. He died when he was young – only 18 or 19 years old. Figure 4-3 shows the famous face of Tutankhamun.

For many years, historians thought that Tutankhamum had died from a blow to the head, because a small fragment of bone was found floating around inside his skull. However, in 2005, a CT scan was carried out on his mummy, which showed that these bone fractures happened after his death, probably caused by Howard Carter and his team when they were trying to remove the golden mask. The CT evidence also shows various fractures and breaks to Tutankhamum’s body that may have happened prior to death and probably led to death. One new theory is that he died in a chariot accident.

Figure 4-3: The Tutankhamun death mask (Cairo Museum).

Lethal letters and royal drama

When Tutankhamun died, his elderly vizier, Ay, took over the throne. Tutankhamun’s widow, Ankhesenamun, was still a young woman, perhaps only 21 years old, and clearly did not want to relinquish her position as king’s wife and the power that accompanied it. She was not keen to marry Ay, who was the only likely candidate for marriage.

Many scholars believe that Ankhesenamun wrote a letter to the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, requesting that one of his sons be sent to her, so that she could marry him and make him king of Egypt. In a letter attributed to Ankhesenamun, she states that she does not want to ‘marry a servant’, which may be in reference to her prospective marriage to the elderly Ay.

My husband has died. A son I have not. But to you they say the sons are many. If you would send me one son of yours, he would become my husband. Never shall I pick out a servant of mine and make him my husband . . . I am afraid.

The Hittite king was naturally suspicious and sent an emissary to Egypt to report on the political situation. The emissaries returned to the Hittite king and reported that the situation was as the queen had written. The queen, in her eagerness to marry a Hittite prince, sent her messenger to the king with another letter. The records show that the messenger, Hani, spoke on her behalf:

Oh my Lord! This is . . . our country’s shame! If we have a son of the king at all, would we have come to a foreign country and kept asking for a lord for ourselves? Nibhururiya, who was our lord, died; a son he has not. Our Lord’s wife is solitary. We are seeking a son of our lord for the kingship of Egypt, and for the woman, our lady, we seek as her husband! Furthermore, we went to no other country, only here did we come! Now, oh our Lord, give us a son of yours.

Such a request from an Egyptian queen was very unusual, and the Hittite king did not believe that it was a genuine request. However, he was convinced by the messenger’s words and eventually sent his son Zennanza to Egypt. Unfortunately, the son was murdered before he reached the Egyptian border – perhaps on the orders of Ay, who married Ankhesenamun shortly after.

Re-establishing Imperial Power: Sety I

Whatever the cause of Tutankhamun’s death, his passing was a real nightmare for Egypt. He left no male heir, so the succession to the throne was unclear.

Ay (possibly Tutankhamun’s great uncle) became king, even though Tutankhamun’s army general Horemheb held the title of deputy king. However, Ay was in his 60s when he came to the throne, which was considered old, and he ruled for only four years before he died.

Horemheb succeeded Ay on the throne and ruled for more than 30 years. He continued with Tutankhamun’s restoration work.

Horemheb’s most important action was to name Pirameses, a general in his army, as his successor. Horemheb could be called the founder of the 19th dynasty because it was he who found and promoted Pirameses (who became Ramses I on taking the throne) among his unruly rabble of military.

Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb started to re-establish Egypt’s borders, but the process needed to be continued. Ramses I came to the throne already elderly and ruled for only a short period (1293–1291 BC).

Fighting at Kadesh, Part I

The reign of Ramses I’s son Sety I (1291–1278 BC) saw the introduction of a number of political problems, which were to develop throughout the reigns of Ramses II and Ramses III (see the section ‘Fighting the Good Fight: Ramses II’, later in this chapter, for more information).

At the beginning of his reign, Sety I launched a series of campaigns to re-establish the boundaries of the crumbling Egyptian empire that had been neglected during the reigns of Akhenaten and Smenkhkare. In his first year in power, Sety embarked on a campaign across Syria, because he was told by his advisors:

The Shasu enemy are plotting rebellion! Their tribal leaders are gathered in one place, standing on the foothills of Khor [a general term for Palestine and Syria], they are engaged in turmoil and uproar. Each one of them is killing his fellow. They do not consider the laws of the palace [a euphemism for the king].

Throughout the journey to Palestine, petty chieftains attacked Sety, but luckily the army had no problems repelling them. These attacks were more irritating than threatening to the king, but they still needed to be dealt with, because the chieftains’ actions endangered the trade route that Egypt relied on.

The following year, Sety travelled further north to Kadesh, a fortified town in Syria surrounded by two moats fed from the river Orontes. The Hittites who were in control of the town were at the time stationed on the Syrian coast, leaving the city badly defended. The Egyptians took the city without much effort, and in fact Sety claimed to have made ‘a great heap of corpses’ of the enemy soldiers.

Despite this victory, Sety didn’t have enough military power to put pressure on the Hittites to gain a real stronghold in Syria. The Egyptians held the area for a short while and then it reverted to the Hittites without any further military action. Sety then left, which allowed the Hittites to widen their area of control slowly, moving closer to Egypt.

One down . . . how many more to go?

After the problems at Kadesh, Sety I didn’t rest on his laurels. His battle records at Karnak show that he then needed to subdue Libyans who tried to penetrate the Delta borders and squelch Nubian uprisings against Egyptian control.

The term Libyans was used by the Egyptians to describe Bedouin tribes of the Western Desert, rather than the inhabitants of modern Libya.

Sety and his army drove the invading Libyans away, and the Karnak relief shows Sety hitting the chief Libyan with a scimitar. That’s one way to ensure he doesn’t come back. However, the Libyans proved to be a thorn in the side of Ramses III in later years (see the section ‘Sailing to Victory: Ramses III’, later in this chapter) because they did not give up easily.

The Sety reliefs at Karnak show fortified Syrian towns surrendering to him, with the enemy soldiers fleeing to other towns or to higher ground to get away from the relentless Egyptian army. Sety no doubt led the battles, and, in one scene from Karnak, he has a captive foreign chief under each arm, showing his military prowess in the battlefield.

Fighting the Good Fight: Ramses II

Sety I was succeeded by his son Ramses II (1279–1212 BC). Ramses II has had many names and titles given to him over the centuries, including

‘Sese’ by his friends and loyal subjects

‘Ramses the Great’ by explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries AD

‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley when he wrote his poem based on a colossal statue at the mortuary temple of Ramses at Luxor (Ozymandias is a corruption of Ramses’s throne name (User-maat-ra-setep-en-ra) by the Greeks)

Maybe you can choose your parents

Due to his non-royal origins, Ramses II made a claim of divine birth in order to legitimise his place on the throne (although in reality, because his father was king, he didn’t need to).

The divine birth scene at the Ramesseum, Ramses’s mortuary temple at Luxor, depicts Amun as Ramses’s father. The image shows Ramses’s mother, Muttuya, seated on a bed, facing Amun. Amun is holding an ankh sign in his right hand and is reaching for Muttuya with his left hand. This (very demurely) represents the divine conception of Ramses.

Further images at Karnak show Ramses’s true divine status. In one image, Ramses is born by being moulded on a potter’s wheel by the ram-headed god Khnum; in another, Ramses as a child is suckled by a goddess (this scene is repeated in Sety I’s mortuary temple at Abydos).

Becoming royal

Ramses II was born in 1304 BC to Sety I and Muttuya, the daughter of the ‘Lieutenant of Chariotry’ Raia. Ramses II was not royal at the time of his birth because his grandfather, Ramses I, was chosen by Horemheb from within the army to be king because he had a son (Sety I) and a grandson (Ramses II). Ramses had at least two sisters, Tia and Hunetmire, and a brother, although the latter’s name has been lost.

In later years, Ramses married at least one of his sisters, Hunetmire, although what she thought of this set-up would be interesting to know. Because Hunetmire and Ramses were non-royal when they were born, suddenly being married just because their family status changed was certainly strange. Luckily for Hunetmire, she bore Ramses no children; theirs may have been a marriage of convenience rather than a marriage in the true sense. (See Chapter 5 for more on Egyptian marriages.)

Marriage and family (and more family)

During the later years of his reign, Sety had named Ramses as co-regent and marked the occasion by giving him his own harem of beautiful women, consisting of ‘female royal attendants, who were like the great beauties of the palace’, which I imagine was an exciting yet daunting gift for a young boy still in his teens.

Ramses maintained this harem throughout his 67-year reign, and no doubt greatly enjoyed it. But his two favourite wives were Nefertari, whom he married before he came to the throne, and Isetnofret, whom he married in the early years of his reign.

Although Nefertari and Isetnofret were Ramses’s favourite wives, his harem is reputed to have contained more than 300 women who bore him more than 150 sons and 70 daughters. A list of Ramses’s children is recorded at Karnak in birth order – although these numbers are likely to be greatly exaggerated to show how fertile he was.

In reality, Ramses II had a maximum of 46 sons and 55 daughters. Yes, this figure is lower than his official records show, but is still an awful lot of kids!

Ramses and Nefertari had numerous children, at least ten of which have been recorded, although they sadly all died before Ramses did. Nefertari had at least six sons, whose names and occupations are recorded:

Amenhirwenemef (first son) was in the army and held the title of general in chief.

Prehirwenemef (third son) was a teenage veteran of the second battle of Kadesh (see the section ‘Following in dad’s footsteps: Kadesh Part II’, later in this chapter) and was rewarded with the titles ‘first charioteer of his majesty’ and ‘first brave of the army’.

Meriamun (16th son).

Meritamun (second daughter) was the consort to Ramses by year 24 and acted as deputy for her sick mother.

Baketmut (third daughter) is believed to have died young, although her tomb has not been discovered.

Nefertari II (fourth daughter) is presented on the façade of the main Abu Simbel temple.

Nebettawi (fifth daughter) was the consort successor to Meritamun after the latter died. She is buried in QV60, which was reused in the Christian period as a chapel.

Henoutawi (seventh daughter) is represented on Nefertari’s temple at Abu Simbel, indicating that she was one of Nefertari’s daughters, although she was dead before the temple was dedicated.

Isetnofret, Ramses’s other wife, had at least six children:

Ramses (second son) was a general in the army and crown prince after the death of his half-brother Amenhirkhepshef. In year 30, he was a judge at the trial of a Theban treasury officer and his wife, who were stealing from royal stores.

Bintanath (first daughter) was married to her father.

Khaemwaset (fourth son) was crown prince after his brother Ramses had died. Khaemwaset is the most documented of Ramses II’s children. At 5–6 years old he went with his father and half-brother Amenhirwenemef to fight in a Nubian campaign. Khaemwaset then became a high priest of Ptah, a god associated with the funerary cults.

Merenptah (13th son) succeeded Ramses II to the throne. In the last 12 years of Ramses’s reign, Merenptah ruled Egypt as a co-ruler and then became king after his father’s death.

Isetnofret II married her brother Merenptah.

Ramses’s other children are recorded, although their mothers’ names have not been identified; it can be assumed they were born of minor wives or concubines.

The throne eventually passed to Merenptah, Ramses’s 13th son born of Isetnofret.

Following in dad’s footsteps: Kadesh Part II

Ramses II is well known for many things, but in particular he is remembered for his spectacular battle at Kadesh against the Hittites in the fifth year of his reign. Although Sety had won at Kadesh once, Egypt’s lack of military power had enabled the Hittites to encroach on the Egyptian borders. Ramses II needed to put a stop to the Hittites before they got any closer. For the first time in Egyptian history, Egypt was the aggressor in a battle.

The Hittite king had, however, anticipated the attack and gathered a huge army in coalition with a number of neighbouring states – 16 different provinces – which included:

2,500 chariots, each with 3 men

Two groups of cavalry totalling 18,000–19,000 men

The Egyptians were greatly outnumbered by the Hittite army with only 20,000 soldiers to the Hittites’ 26,000 or so men. At one point, records show that the Egyptians were outnumbered three to one.

Both the Egyptians and the Hittites utilised many of the same weapons, but their styles of attack differed:

The Hittites made greater use of hard, iron-bladed weapons than the Egyptians, who mainly used bronze and copper weapons.

Egyptian chariots carried two people (a driver and a weapons bloke), while the Hittite chariots carried three men (a driver, a spear thrower or archer, and a shield bearer to protect the other two). While the Egyptian chariots were lighter and had more manoeuvrability, the Hittites were able to move large numbers of men at one time.

The Egyptians also employed a group of runners to surround the chariots as they raced into the centre of the enemy amid a shower of Egyptian arrows. The runners then attacked from ground level while the enemy was recovering from the arrow attack.

The battle

Ramses II’s army marched to the Levant (modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and western Syria) and the site of Kadesh, via the Gaza Strip, in four divisions named after the gods Ptah, Ra, Seth, and Amun (Ramses II led the Amun division).

The Egyptian army forded the Orontes river 20 kilometres upstream from Kadesh, blocking the way north before entering a wooded area nearby. The army was spread over a large area, which resulted in the four divisions becoming separated.

Egyptian scouts then captured two Hittites who offered some information (a little too readily in my opinion):

Then came two Shosu of the tribes of Shosu tribes to say to his Majesty, ‘Our brothers who are chiefs of tribes with the foe of Khatti [Hittites] have sent us to His Majesty to say that we will be servants of pharaoh and will abandon the Chief of Khatti.’ His majesty said to them, ‘Where are they your brothers who sent you to tell this matter to His Majesty?’ and they said to His Majesty, ‘They are where the vile Chief of Khatti is, for the foe of Khatti is in the Land of Khaleb to the north of Tunip, and he was too fearful of Pharaoh to come southward when he heard that Pharaoh had come northward.’ But the two Shosu who said these words to his majesty said them falsely.

Ramses believed that the Hittites were much further north than he anticipated. The Egyptians continued north to the city, with the Amun division full of confidence that the takeover would be easy, reaching the destination first. As the Amun division approached the city, two more scouts were captured and they revealed that in fact the Hittites were just north of Kadesh and were ready to attack.

Ramses sent an emergency warning to the Ra division behind him, but it was still 8 kilometres away. The Hittites sent 2,500 chariots to the south of the Egyptian camp, under cover of trees, and burst on them from behind. But instead of ambushing the Egyptians unawares, the Hittites came face to face with the Ra division, which was slowly approaching the site from the south. Both sides were very surprised, and as the fleeing Hittite chariots had fallen into the river, blocking it, the new Hittites had nowhere to go but towards the Egyptians.

The Hittites burst through the Ra division, which fled (some back into the woods, some to the hills, some towards the Amun division). Both the Ra division and the Hittites charged at the Amun division at the same time. The Amun division wasn’t prepared for the attack and was probably somewhat surprised. Like the Ra division, Amun started to scatter and flee as the Hittites broke through the rudimentary defences of their temporary camp.

Ramses seemed to be the only one to keep his head during this whole ordeal. After saying a quick prayer to Amun, he gathered the chariots and troops nearest him and managed to hold his own against the Hittite onslaught. The texts state that Ramses was fighting the entire Hittite army single handed, which does seem somewhat unlikely – but hey, the Egyptian king is a god after all.

Better late than never

Luckily for Ramses, the third Egyptian division, which was travelling along the coastal route (either the division of Set or a crack force of Canaanite mercenaries fighting for the Egyptians), arrived just in the nick of time. Although still greatly outnumbered, the Egyptian army managed to repel the Hittites. (However, in reality, the Hittites only used a small proportion of their army and for some reason decided not to deploy the rest. If they had, this battle would have been the end of Ramses the Great.)

When the Hittites realised that the situation had turned against them, they fled into the fortified town of Kadesh. With the Hittites in the walled town and the Egyptians outside, further fighting was unnecessary. The Egyptians gathered their wounded, cut off the hands of the dead Hittites as an account of the battle, and travelled home claiming a great victory! (Seems more like a giant stalemate.)

Making peace

Sixteen years after the second battle of Kadesh, the Egyptians and the Hittites finally halted their hostilities. A peace treaty was drawn up, which is the only complete document of this type discovered in Egypt:

There shall be no hostilities between them forever. The Great Chief of Kheta [Hittites] shall not pass over into the land of Egypt forever, to take anything from there. Ramses Meriamun [beloved of Amun] the great ruler of Egypt shall not pass over into the land of Kheta to take anything from them forever.

In addition to the Egyptian version of this peace treaty, a Hittite copy was also discovered at the Hittite capital of Hattushash in modern Turkey.

However, as ground-breaking as this treaty was, it only lasted for as long as the kings who signed it, meaning that all the fighting had to be done over again with the next set of kings.

Rushing the Borders: Merenptah

Ramses was succeeded on the throne by his 13th son, Merenptah (1212–1202 BC). Merenptah’s reign saw a repeat of the Libyan problems that manifested themselves during the reign of Sety I. The war with the Libyans is recorded on an inscription at Karnak as well as numerous stelae.

In year 5 of Merenptah’s reign, the Libyans joined with numerous different tribes. Numbering 25,000 men, these forces were collectively known as the Sea People. They were strong enough to penetrate the Egyptian fortresses along the western Delta and overwhelm the Egyptians on guard duty. The Sea People were clearly travelling to Egypt with a plan to occupy it, because many were accompanied by their families and all their belongings stacked on ox-drawn carts.

Merenptah marched on the Delta with the remainder of the Egyptian army, made up primarily of archers. The army’s composition enabled the Egyptians to get close enough to fire hundreds of arrows from their composite bows, but not close enough for the enemy to engage in hand-to-hand combat, which was the Libyans’ strength.

Ultimately, this was a victory for the Egyptians. Their records show that they killed 6,000 Libyans and took 9,000 prisoners, including the Libyan chief’s wife and children.

This victory enabled the Egyptian people to live in peace once more. Records state that the Egyptians were now able to ‘walk freely upon the road’ and ‘sit down and chat with no fear on their hearts’. Just what everyone wants, really.

Of course, sadly the peace was not to last, as Merenptah’s son Ramses III was soon to discover.

Sailing to Victory: Ramses III

Ramses III’s reign (1182–1151 BC) was a difficult one. It was beset by invasions, the most important being a further attack from the Libyans and the Sea People.

More battles with the Sea People

The invasion by the Libyans in year 5 of Ramses III’s reign was very similar to the one that Merenptah dealt with (see the section ‘Rushing the Borders: Merenptah’, earlier in this chapter). A 30,000-strong army of a mixture of Libyans and Sea People faced Ramses III. Records note Ramses III killing 12,535 men and taking 1,000 prisoners – a great victory, according to the records anyway.

However, in reality, the Sea People were the first army who were strong enough to take on the Hittites and win, thus controlling trade in the Near East on both land and sea. On land, the Sea People fought in a similar fashion to the Hittites, with three-man chariots. But their seafaring vessels were smaller than the Egyptian boats, without separate oarsmen. Instead, Sea People soldiers rowed the boats, which meant that the soldiers were unable to fight and move at the same time. This was a major disadvantage against Egyptian boats, which had 24 dedicated oarsmen, protected by high sides, plus a contingent of soldiers.

Ramses III faced the Sea People on both land and sea and was successful in both areas. His naval battle is one of the earliest recorded in history. The Egyptian fleet followed the Sea People’s fleet of ships into the ‘river-mouths of the Delta’, trapping them between the Egyptian boats and the shore, where the Egyptian archers were waiting to shower them with arrows. The Sea People didn’t stand much of a chance really.

The Egyptians used fire-arrows against the Sea People’s ships and killed the majority of the enemy solders. The Egyptian ships then rammed the enemy ships with their decorative prows before seizing the Sea People’s ships with grappling hooks and engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting. These manoeuvres finished off the Sea People once and for all. Egypt was at peace once more.

Those pesky Libyans – again

In year 11 of the reign of Ramses III, the Libyans thought they’d have another go at breaking through the borders of Egypt. Ten out of ten for determination at least!

This time, the records show that Ramses III killed 2,175 enemy soldiers and took more than 2,000 prisoners. He then drove the enemy 11 miles into the Western Desert to ensure that they didn’t return straight away. (Chapter 5 describes the eventual return of the Libyans.)

At the end of the reign of Ramses III, the glory of the Egyptian empire ended. Ramses III was the last king to rule in true traditional style. Later periods were beset by invasions, divided land, and economic collapse. The empire that Thutmosis III built and Sety I and Ramses II maintained was slowly disappearing – and the Egyptian civilisation was vanishing along with it.