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MEGIDDO
Egyptian-Kadesh War, c. 1479 B.C.
The Egyptian victory over the Kadesh alliance in the Battle of Megiddo reestablished
Egypt's control of Palestine and provided much of the riches to build its temples and
monuments. Megiddo also takes its place as an influential battle because it is the earliest
military conflict for which partial accounts by eyewitnesses survive.
From the time of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in about 2900 B.C., the
Egyptian Empire flourished. In less than five hundred years, its kings erected the Great
Pyramids, and for another thousand years, Egypt ruled the region with little opposition.
However, by the eighteenth century B.C., the kingdom was losing power to its own residents
as well as to neighboring tribes.
When Ahmose became king in about 1575 B.C., he initiated plans to regain power
and to expand the Empire into the northeastern frontier. For more than a century, Ahmose,
and later his grandsons, successfully pushed the Egyptian border to include current -day
Palestine and Syria. In about 1520 B.C., King Thutmose II died, leaving the throne to his
young son. Because of the age of Thutmose III, his mother, Hatshepsut, initially ran the
empire as her son's regent, but ultimately she openly assumed the role of pharaoh .
Hatshepsut did well in taking care of her people and in building new temples and
monuments. However, she did little to maintain a strong military or to control her far -flung
territories. By the time of her death in about 1480 B.C., the King of Kadesh, su pported by the
powerful Mitanni tribes along the Euphrates River, had declared the regions of modern
Palestine and Syria free of Egyptian rule.
Thutmose III, now of age, enthusiastically assumed Egypt's leadership. While it is
unknown if he was responsible for his mother's death, he did remove her name from all
public buildings and monuments. Meanwhile, he rebuilt and trained the Egyptian army that
had been mostly ignored for more than two decades.
In 1479 8.C. (varying accounts estimate ten to twenty years earlier or later), Thutmose
III led his army into Gaza and on into Palestine. Historians generally assume that his force
numbered between 20,000 and 30,000 men. A few aristocrats accompanied the army in
horse-drawn chariots armed with archers, but the bulk of
the force were infantrymen armed with shields, bronze swords, and axes. The Kadesh alliance
army was probably about the same size and armed with similar weapons.
In the late spring, the Egyptian army reached the mountains leading to the town of
Megiddo. The King of Kadesh placed a heavy ambush along one of three passes Eh he thought
the Egyptians would use and arrayed the remainder of his army between the passes and
Megiddo. Thutmose III correctly anticipated the enemy's plan an selected a more restricted
route that his opponent had discounted as too dangerous.
The Egyptian army negotiated the unguarded pass and attacked the unsuspecting Kadesh
force, driving it back within the walls of Megiddo. No detailed accounts of the formations
employed or other aspects of the fight have survived. Thutmose ordered the construction of his
own wall around the city to protect his army and to prevent any escape. After a siege of several
months, the town surrendered. The King of Kadesh escaped, but the Egyptians captured his
army, nearly a thousand chariots, more than two thousand horses, and about four hundred
pounds of gold and silver.
Thutmose continued his offensive after the fall of Megiddo and neutralized all of his
opposition as he expanded Egypt's border beyond the Euphrates. Generally, he treated
conquered tribes humanely, but he always took the sons of leaders back with him to Egypt to
hold as hostages and to teach an appreciation for the empire. He also demanded large payments
of gold and other resources that he used to further strengthen his army and to begin an era of
construction of temples and memorials rivaled only by the Pyramids.
Thutmose and his heirs fought on numerous occasions to maintain the empire, including the
Battle of Kadesh in 1290 B.C. (84). Shortly after this period, however, Egypt's power started to
erode as other empires began to rise.
While the Battle of Megiddo added several hundred years to Egypt's rule in Palestine, its
real influence lay in the records left by the chroniclers who accompanied the Egyptian army.
Although these early correspondents did not record an account of the actual battle, their
writings on the march and general campaign are the first of their kind in recorded history.
Even this record is vague at best. Information on the campaign and siege were recorded on a
roll of leather and later stored in the Temple of Amon. Unfortunately, the scroll itself did not
survive, but sufficient references to it in later writings confirm its existence.
Undoubtedly, battles and wars took place long before Megiddo, and it is likely that many
had far more influence than the Egyptian victory over the Kadesh alliance. It remains
important in history and worthy of this list not for its direct influence, but simply because it is
the first that was recorded by eyewitnesses.
While it does not impact on its original influence, it is also noteworthy that according to the
Bible's Book of Revelations, history's last battle will be fought between good and evil at
Armageddon. In Hebrew, the word for Megiddo is Armageddon.
Michael Lee Lanning, Maps-Bob Rosenburgh The Battle 100. The Stories Behind History’s
Most Influential Battles. Sourcebooks, Inc. Naperville, Illinois. 2003. pp 313-315.