Continuing essay from William Sierichs Jr.

HATTI’S ALLIES
Ramesses’ Kadesh inscriptions listed 19 Hittite allies, identifiably from all over Anatolia and northern Syria.

A key factor in identifying Hatti’s allies in the Egyptian account is a long controversy over “A(k)hhiyawa,” “Millawata/Millawanda,” “Truisha/Taruisha” and “Wilusa/Wilusiya,” suggestive names that appear repeatedly in Hittite records.

The Ahhiyawa were longtime pains in the butt for the Hittites. While relations sometimes were cordial, the two powers repeatedly clashed in western Anatolia, and the Land of Ahhiyawa furnished a refuge for Hittite enemies.

The identity of Ahhiyawa and Millawanda have been contentious since a scholar, Emil Forrer, argued in 1924 that the Ahhiyawa were the Achaean (Mycenaean) Greeks; Millawata was the city of Miletus; Wilusiya was (W)ilios, or Ilium; and Truisha was the famed city of Troy. Additionally, the Egyptian “Drdny” would be the Dardanians (of Aeneas), relatives of the Trojans. For decades, skeptics rejected Forrer’s map and put its peoples elsewhere. This was not sheer perversity, as scholars admitted that Hittite records were confusing.

A 1995 expedition reportedly proved “Millawanda” is Miletus, so the other identifications presumably fall into place as Forrer suggested. So this makes it highly likely that “Drdny” is the land of Dardany, possibly including Troy and Ilios.

More intriguingly, a treaty drafted after Kadesh, probably under Hattusilis III, says the Hittites restored an exiled Wilusan king, Aleksandush, to his throne. “Aleksandush” is the equivalent of the Greek name Alexander (Alexandros), which happens to be an alternate name in the “Iliad” for Paris of Troy, son of Priam. Scholars point out that the Anatolian names Para-zitis and Pariya-muwas correspond to the “Iliad” names, and that “zitis” is Anatolian for “man.” Like Alexander, “Hector” is also Greek, and his son in the “Iliad” has both Greek and Anatolian names (Skamandrios, Astuanaks). Is it only coincidence then that “andros” is the Greek word for “man,” suggesting Paris (Para-zitis) is an equivalent?

Even though the Ahhiyawa are not named as allies at Kadesh, several western Anatolian states are in the list and likely would have covered any Ahhiyawa areas on the mainland.

Kadesh appears to have been a typical, large, Canaanite city of the era. It sat at the intersection of a major north-south road and a mountain passage to the coast. The Plain of Kinza could feed the city and a sizable herd of horses. The city sat on a mound, protected by a double wall, with a natural moat formed by the north-flowing Orontes River on its east and a stream to its west, entering the Orontes after circling north of the city. Despite later slurs in the Jewish scriptures, the Syro-Canaanites appear to have been as civilized as their neighbors and had competent engineers and sea-farers. The famed seamen of the Iron Age, the Phonecians, were descended from Canaanites, as were the people of the famed city of Carthage, founded by Phonecians. Carthage’s military leaders had such names as Maharbal, Hasdrubal and the great Hannibal. “Bal” is the Canaanite word “Lord,” used instead of names for the chief gods of some Canaanite cities. Some cities had “balaats,” goddesses.

All the other questions about who was at Kadesh pale beside the issue of what actually happened at the best-documented (in a sense) battle of the ancient world.

For Egypt, operations north of Kadesh itself or along the coast would have been impractical with a threat of attack from behind or on supply lines unless the city were friendly. Yet capturing the city would have been impossible in the presence of an enemy army — certainly the decisive factors in both Ramesses’ decision to attack the city in the fifth year of his reign and to retreat from the battle when blocked by the Hittites.

Despite a massive amount of historical material — compared with the usually-thin Bronze/Iron Age archives available — scholars are still not clear on just what happened. Was it a big battle or a small one? Did it last one day or two? Did the Egyptians get their clocks cleaned?

Many historians long took the view that it was a massive, two-day battle, even though they usually downsized the number of combatants listed in the Egyptian account, which said the Hittites had 3,500 chariots and, as long thought, 17,000 infantry, divided into two bodies of 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers.

One later modification to this traditional view was the recognition of Egyptian glyphs for “10,000” in front of the troop strengths — implying the Hittites had 37,000 infantry total.

More-recent analyses argue for a conflict between limited parts of the two armies, after which Ramesses executed some soldiers who routed. The executions have been misinterpreted as a second day of combat, in this view.

Several sets of artwork and inscriptions — traditionally seen as a brief “Bulletin,” a longer narrative account and a long poem — were inscribed on the walls of Egyptian temples in the years after the battle. The details of the accounts differ — in some pictures, the Hittites attack Ramesses’ camp from the west, in others from the east! — and the texts are often vague and bombastic, allowing wide interpretations.

The basic outline of events is that Ramesses marched his army to Kadesh in four divisions in the summer.

In the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, two Bedouin told Ramesses that the Hittites were far to the north of Kadesh, afraid to confront the Egyptians. Ramesses believed them and continued his march confident that he had plenty of time to besiege Kadesh and prepare to meet the Hittites if they dared to fight.

Ramesses’ retinue, personal guard and Amon Division crossed the plain of Kinza, bypassing Kadesh on the west to camp on the north side of the city. Ra Division was behind them and began arriving that afternoon. Meanwhile, the Egyptians captured two Hittite scouts who revealed that the Hittite army was just across the Orontes River, east of Kadesh.

Ramesses sent messengers to summon Ra and Ptah Division, which followed Ra, to hurry to join him. Set Divison was described as “on the road.” As Ra crossed the plain, Hittite chariots that had crossed the Orontes River at a ford south of the city, charged Ra’s right flank. Ra’s soldiers scattered, and Hittites pursued refugees into the Amon camp, even breaking into Ramesses’ royal camp within. The inscriptions say the Hittites numbered 2,500 chariots. Ramesses led a series of counter-charges with his guard and, probably, some of Amon’s charioteers. The Kadesh drawings show Hittite chariots crashing under a rain of enemy arrows.

At some point, Muwatallis, watching from a high point on the east bank, ordered a second assault force — purportedly 1,000 chariots, led by many high-ranking Hittites and allied kings — to cross by another ford north of Kadesh and support the first assault force. But a new Egyptian force appeared — the mysterious “Neharin” — and helped drive the new attackers into the river, where many drowned or were shot down. The drowning king of Aleppo was rescued and resuscitated by being held upside down to drain the water he’d swallowed.

In the traditional version, Muwatallis allowed the Egyptians to encamp, then launched a blitzkrieg to destroy the enemy piecemeal. Only the bravery of Ramesses and his elite guard, plus the Neharin, saved the day. A second day of combat followed, presumably between the infantry, based upon a statement about a group who “took their stand far off and did obeisance with their hands in front of me. Thereupon My Majesty prevailed against them and I killed among them and did not relax, they sprawling before my horses and lying flung down in their blood in one place.” This was assumed to mean Ramesses claimed he led a successful assault against the Hittites.

He then accepted a truce offered by the Hittites and retreated. Historians assumed that his army had taken considerable damage, despite savaging the Hittites, and that he was too vulnerable. A siege of Kadesh itself was impossible with the Hittite army nearby. So Ramesses made the best of a bad situation, saved face and returned to Egypt.

But the Hittites showed they knew the real score, as they then occupied Egyptian territory around Damascus. Muwatallis appointed Hattusilis III to be governor of this territory. The Canaanite city-states also knew who’d won, as they rebelled against Egyptian control. Ramesses spent several years suppressing the rebellions, before he could return to Syria.

In recent years, an alternate view of the battle has developed, with details open to debate. I use historian Hans Goedicke’s analysis for this alternative narrative.

He suggests Muwatallis and Ramesses had agreed to meet at Kadesh to settle the war, its plain offering plenty of open space for the chariots. The encounter lasted three days; Ramesses and Amon arriving on Day One; Ra and Ptah on the second, when the clash occurred. The fourth division’s path was different, which Goedicke says solves the “Neharin” riddle.

While Ramesses’ main army marched through the interior, Set came up the coastal highway, partly to show the flag, partly to collect chariot units from subject states. The Neharin possibly were a force of Canaanite charioteers gathered ahead of Set, or possibly just an advance guard of Egyptian charioteers. Neharin means “young man,” and could have been either. If Canaanite-Syrian, they were the “maryannu,” the nobility. Through careful planning, Set was scheduled to cross the Amanus Mountains from the coast to Kadesh and join the army right about the time Ra was arriving on Day Two. Upon arrival, the Neharin leaders rode to report to Ramesses, Goedicke argues.

Meanwhile, Muwatallis and his chariots had arrived on the east bank, the infantry trailing, about the same time that Ra started crossing the plain. The king sent a scouting force across the ford south of Kadesh, not knowing Ra was approaching. Despite the official claim of 2,500 chariots, the Hittites likely numbered no more than a couple hundred, Goedicke argues. The larger number might have been available in Muwatallis’ whole army, still en route.

The ford allowed the Hittites to cross only in a narrow column, at most two chariots abreast, and Goedicke argues they were further slowed because horses are skittish about crossing water bodies. The Hittite leaders worked their way through the vegetation around the river and found themselves on the flank of Ra. The leading Hittites charged, as retreat was impossible, and the rest of the charioteers followed.

Their weapons stowed in carts, Ra’s soldiers panicked and broke, with the Hittites cutting them down. However, most of Ra’s soldiers escaped to nearby hills, and the Hittites turned northward to attack Amon.

Goedicke sees Ramesses’ counterattacks as involving his guard and available charioteers, launched to stop the slaughter of Ra. He says it’s possible the first Hittite force penetrated Amon’s camp, as depicted in Egyptian art, but thinks it more likely that Ramesses stopped the Hittites.

Muwatallis made a desperate attempt to save his charioteers by sending his personal retinue, perhaps 100 chariots, not 1,000. The number of prominent Hittites and foreign royals among the slain shows that these were not the ordinary Hittite chariotry but a small force of high-ranking officials who ordinarily accompanied the king.

This attack broke into Amon’s camp, in Goedicke’s view, but the Neharin leaders were arriving by coincidence, and immediately attacked, driving the Hittite elite back into the river.

What happened on the third day was not another battle. Goedicke argues that the tone of the inscriptions does not describe a battle but rather punishment of the soldiers who fled the battlefield. The ones who did obeisance could not have been Hittites but could only have been Egyptians frightened at Ramesses’ wrath. They had a duty to fight for him and they let him down, so they had to be given a lesson.

Ramesses illustrated his rage at this disloyalty by employing the Egyptian version of the Roman decimation of a disgraced legion. Ramesses similarly selected a number of soldiers for execution, perhaps also as a sign to Muwatallis of his ruthlessness, Goedicke argues. This lesson in Egyptian implacability, combined with his heavy loss, persuaded Muwatallis to offer a truce. However, the Hittites subsequently took advantage of the Egyptian retreat as noted.

Although this version solves several puzzles, I see possible objections.

For one thing, Kadesh is listed as a Hittite ally. Anyone on its walls had a clear view of the disposition of the Egyptian army. Unless he was incredibly lax or stupid, Muwatallis should have had a full report of Ramesses’ maneuvers. He should not have needed to send chariots — hardly useful as a scouting tool — to find out where the Egyptians were located. In crossing a river, a veteran general like Muwatallis would have preferred his infantry as an advance force.

A minor question is when Goedicke says horses don’t like crossing rivers. I’m not an expert on horses, but horse-equipped armies have crossed countless streams and rivers over the centuries. It’s difficult to imagine the Hittites trying to cross a river in the face of the Egyptian army if its horses were expected to be balky.

I can speculate on alternate scenarios. For example, maybe the Hittites did put several hundred chariots across the river before or during Ra’s approach, hiding on the riverbank until they launched a surprise attack, which proved to be too weak. Or maybe the Hittite advance squads intended to lurk on the riverbank until a larger force could assemble, but someone charged prematurely, hardly an unusual occurrence in military history. The Charge of the Light Brigade anyone?

The bottom line is that the Egyptian account is inadequate to understand what happened, and all solutions are speculation, although Goedicke’s might be the closest yet, even if it were to be proven flawed.

The value of Goedicke’s account is that he strips away the shallower, hyper-dramatic arguments. Additionally, he makes a case that Ramesses had the account scrawled across his temples as a public warning to his commanders and civilian leaders. Despite the modern view that the pharaohs were absolute monarchs, evidence suggests Egypt had a complex political structure, with power centers to hold a pharaoh in check, and military leaders who constituted a “council” that Ramesses had to consult for approval of important decisions.

Goedicke argues that Ramesses faced considerable opposition, speculatively leading to rebellions, in the southern area of Thebes, which was known to be hostile to the northern, Memphis-based 19th Dynasty. In close readings, Goedicke sees a political context to specific statements in Ramesses’ descriptions of the slaughter of “rebels” and to his later Hittite treaty, in which both sides guaranteed to help the other against rebellious subjects. Goedicke even makes a case that Ramesses spent much of his second decade as ruler campaigning in Canaan-Syria, perhaps in modern Jordan and Iraq, and putting down a major rebellion in Egypt, before settling down to a mature, less-belligerent, domestic policy.

As for the Hittites, after Muwatallis’ death, his son Mursilis III took the throne, but ran afoul of his Uncle Hattusilis, who rebelled, won the civil war and became king, aided by his remarkable wife, Pudahepa. Hattusilis signed a peace treaty in Ramesses’ 21st year; signed a treaty with Aleksandush of Wilusa; and apparently maintained the empire’s borders relatively intact.

Readers can see why many are fascinated by the battle. Skeptics of religion also see something else: If scholars cannot agree on what happened, even on some basic details, of such a well-documented event, how can we begin to assess the many historical claims in the Bible? We have zero documentation for most biblical stories; the stories have many problems; and even the texts can offer serious challenges to translators. The existence of contradictory versions of the same event adds another crushing weight to the Bible’s credibility. (Which is true, Gen. 1 or Gen. 2; whom did Cain marry if his parents were the only other living people; who slew Goliath, David or Elhanan, the son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, (2 Sam. 21:19); how did Goliath and other Giants survive a flood that killed everyone not on Noah’s ark; on which day was Jesus executed; who went to his tomb on Sunday; was it guarded or unguarded; etc.?)

The basis of modern historical scholarship is the need to analyze sources critically, not simply to accept stories no matter how plausible or pleasing. Uncritical use of sources has tripped up quite a few scholars over the centuries; it’s why modern historians are wary of scholarship even up to roughly the mid-20th century. It’s why Petrie, cited earlier, took the Egyptian account of Kadesh as accurate to the point of suggesting the Hittite army disintegrated after its “defeat”; even the then-ignorance of the Hittites’ identity does not excuse an unwarranted assumption based upon a highly-propagandistic text.

Even Christians get this concept right when evaluating the miracle stories of other religions, both modern and ancient. The Trojan War has some plausible elements, particularly with the discovery of Troy’s ruins and confirmation of the Mycenaean civilization, but no Christian believes a river god chased Achilles or that Apollo sent a plague to the Greeks. Yet Jesus walked on water; he and biblical prophets raised the dead; an angel slaughtered all the first-born of Egypt; Moses parted the Red Sea; etc., and for more than a thousand years Christians would burn you alive for denying these; and even today, many Christians defend these stories.