Blackwell Reference Online

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( c . 1300 bc ) The Hittite empire in Anatolia frequently clashed with Egypt. The Hittite king, Muwatallish, encouraged Egypt's client rulers in Canaan and Syria to rebel against Egyptian domination. To put down this rebellion, Pharaoh Ramesses II led an army of c .20,000 men through Lebanon into Syria, while a force of 5,000 Canaanite mercenaries, the Ne'arim, advanced by a coastal route with orders to join Ramesses on the River Orontes around Kadesh. Ramesses' main force was arranged in four divisions which marched separately: Amon, Re, Ptah and Seth, names of Egyptian deities. The Hittite army, perhaps 16,000 strong and containing Syrian and Canaanite troops, spread false intelligence that it had withdrawn into Aleppo. Actually, it lay in ambush beyond the River Orontes near Kadesh. Ramesses with the Amon division encamped at Kadesh and waited for the other divisions and the Ne'arim to join him. Within a mile of Ramesses' camp, Re, the second division, was attacked and put to flight by the Hittite chariotry, which had forded the Orontes. The Hittites then set about the encamped Amon division and forced it to withdraw, but they delayed their pursuit in order to loot the Egyptian camp. This gave Ramesses sufficient time to attack at the head of the Ne'arim, just arrived from the coast, and these elite troops drove the Hittites back against the Orontes and routed them. The Egyptian ... log in or subscribe to read full text