Battle of Kadesh
May 1274 BCE · in Battle View, played out step by step on the ground where it was fought
Ramesses II fought the Hittite army of Muwatalli II near Kadesh on the Orontes, possibly the largest chariot battle ever fought; it ended without a decisive result.
The sides
- Egypt, led by Ramesses II: about 21,000 men
- Hittites, led by Muwatalli II: about 25,000 men
States that fought: New Kingdom of Egypt, Hittites.
How it went
Battle of Kadesh
Egypt and the Hittite empire are fighting for Syria. The young pharaoh Ramesses II marches north with four divisions to take Kadesh on the Orontes, where the Hittite king Muwatalli waits with the largest chariot army ever gathered.
False news
Two nomads tell Ramesses that the Hittites are far away, near Aleppo. They are planted. Ramesses hurries ahead with the Amun division and pitches camp north-west of Kadesh; the Ra division follows on the road. The Hittites wait hidden behind the city, across the river.
The Ra division smashed
The Hittite chariots cross the Orontes south of the city and fall on the Ra division as it marches, strung out and unready. It breaks at once.
The camp stormed
The fleeing Ra division runs into the camp with the chariots on its heels. The Hittites crash through the shield wall, and much of the Amun division runs too.
Ramesses fights back
Ramesses, by his own account all alone, charges with his guard and the chariots he can rally, again and again. Many of the Hittites have stopped to plunder the camp.
The Ne'arin arrive
Then the Ne'arin, an Egyptian force marching in from the coast, fall on the Hittites in the camp. Muwatalli throws in a second wave of a thousand chariots across the river, but too late.
Into the river
The Hittite chariots are driven back into the Orontes, where many drown; Egyptian reliefs show the prince of Aleppo held upside down to empty him of water. Muwatalli's infantry never crosses.
Kadesh
The Ptah division arrives at dusk. A second day's fighting settles nothing, and Ramesses goes home to carve his victory on temple walls from Abu Simbel to Karnak. Kadesh stays Hittite. Sixteen years later the two powers make the earliest peace treaty whose text survives.
Almost all we know comes from Ramesses' own account, carved on his temples, which gives the Hittites 37,000 foot and 2,500 chariots; these numbers are smaller, as most modern guesses are. Chariots are counted by their crews: two to an Egyptian chariot, three to a Hittite.
People and wars
- Ramesses II (c. 1,303 BCE – 1,213 BCE): Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty (r. 1279–1213 BCE), known for his long reign, military campaigns and vast building works such as Abu Simbel and the Ramesseum.