Sunday, November 6, 2016

The Great Eastern Pylon and The Battle Of Kadesh in The Ramesseum .. ( Part 2 )

The great eastern pylon which formed the entrance to the First Court is now a ruin ; but it was originally 220 feet across the front of its twin towers .




Some of the reliefs which adorned its west face ( next the court ) are still in fair preservation, though a field-glass is necessary to make much of them . They relate to the Syrian campaign which was waged by Ramses in the year 1288 B.C., the fifth year of his reign, and especially to the great feat of arms which the Pharaoh believed himself to have personally performed in his encounter with the Hittite army at the battle of Kadesh on the Orontes, major battle between the Egyptians under Ramses II and the Hittites under Muwatallish, in Syria, a feat on the memory and reputation of which his vanity subsisted during the remaining sixty-two years of his reign and life .



On the north pylon, as we look eastwards, we have at the left the list of the eighteen towns captured by Ramses in a later campaign, and a scene of prisoners being led into captivity . Next come scenes from the Hittite campaign of the fifth year, which are continued on the south tower .



Briefly the history of the campaign was as follows Ramses had as his objective in this campaign the capture of the Hittite stronghold of Kadesh on the Orontes, a stubborn enemy of the Egyptian power in Syria, which had cost Tuthmosis III a good deal of effort in his time . Ramses apparently encountered little resistance until he approached Kadesh, which was strongly placed on the river Orontes . His intelligence Department brought in prisoners who declared that Muwatallish, the Hittite king, had retreated to Aleppo in fear of the advance of the Egyptian army, and Ramses accordingly marched on Kadesh in headlong haste, neglecting the most elementary precautions .


His army was divided into four brigades, Amûn, Rê, Ptah and Sûtekh, and may have numbered about 25.000 men . It was all strung out in four long successive columns in the order named The Brigade of Amûn reached the north-wast of Kadesh, and pitched camp in a position which enabled it to cut off any retreat from the city, or any relief from the north . Meanwhile the Hittite king had arranged a pleasant surprise for Ramses . The report of his flight had been specially conveyed to the Pharaoh by his own spies, and was entirely false . He was actually concealed, with his whole army, behind the town of Kadesh, and kept his forces carefully out of sight of Ramses in his headlong march northward . As soon as the Egyptian king had fairly settled down to pitch camp, Muwatallish struck his blow by making a fierce attack on the flank of the Brigade of Rê, which was taken completely by surprise and scattered at the first shock . The torrent of fugitives rushed for safety to the camp of Amûn, and swept that brigade away in helpless rout along with themselves . Half of the army of Ramses was thus out of action, and the remaining two brigades were far from the field, and marching slowly up without the least idea of the muddle which they were approaching .


Fortunately for Ramses, Muwatallish seems to have been as hesitant on the field as he had been cunning in planning his battle . He did not push his advantage at once, and Ramses with his household troops succeeded, by successive headlong chariot charges, in driving back the triumphant Hittite chariotry, and in holding them back until the Brigade of Ptah reached the field . Muwatallish never put his strong force of infantry into the fight at all, though their appearance at the critical moment could scarcely have failed to make the Egyptian defeat decisive . He paid the penalty by seeing the final loss of his great opportunity, and the complete repulse of his chariot force, with severe loss . He ought, by all the rules, to have annihilated the Egyptian army ; but at the most he managed only to get perhaps rather the worse of a fairly drawn battle in which neither commander had shone, though the Hittite preparation for victory had been admirable, had it been followed up by equal promptitude on the field when once the chance was offered .


Ramses returned home with his sorely reduced army, having entirely failed to accomplish his object, for Kadesh does not appear to have been molested . But, once back in Egypt, he conveniently forget all about that, and remembered nothing but his own personal valour in the emergence which he had brought about by his own bad generalship . A poem was written about his feat of arms, pictures of it were standardized, and poems and pictures were repeated on every possible opportunity, until the Egyptian court, one imagines, must have been slightly weary of the whole business . Ramses, however, was not weary of seeing and hearing of his prowess ; and it was Ramses who called the tune, though the unfortunate soldiers of Amûn and Rê had paid the piper .


Here, at the Ramesseum, we have it all over again, as on the pylon at Luxor Temple . In the middle of the north pylon, high up, we have the unlucky Egyptian camp, with its shield-wall, and all sorts of military and unmilitary scenes taking place . The king holds a council of war to discuss the sudden emergency, and to scold his officers for what was his own blame ; the second batch of spies is being persuaded, by the familiar method of the bastinado, to tell the truth at last ; and the Hittite attack is developing .



On the south tower, we have Ramses charging the Hittite chariotry, who flee in confusion before his shafts, and fall into the Orontes . On the opposite bank of the river Muwatallish stands in fear, along with the massed columns of his spearmen . Fugitives swim for their lives across the Orontes ; the unlucky king of Aleppo is given rough first-aid by his friends, who hold him upside down that he may disgorge the water he has swallowed in his hasty retreat by way of the river . Above the massed Hittite spearmen is the town of Kadesh within its strong walls and its moat .


On the right half of the southern tower is the familiar scene of the king grasping his enemies by the hair and clubbing them . The series of scenes is not without vivacity ; but taken as a whole it is too complicated, and is in consequence confused .





Part ( 3 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....
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