Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

DW. six. PICTURE OF THE BATTLE AT ZAENAK 267

The beginning of the battle is described in a short
inscription annexed to the picture :—

When the king had halted, he sat down to the north-west of the
town of Kadesh. He had come up with the hostile hosts of Kheta,
being quite alone, no other was with him. There were thousands
and hundreds of chariots round about him on all sides. He
dashed them down in heaps of dead bodies before his horses.
He killed all the kings of all the peoples who were allies of the
(king) of Kheta, together with his princes and elders, his warriors
and his horses. He threw them one upon another, head over
heels, into the water of the Orontes. There the king of Kheta.
turned round, and raised up his hands to implore the divine
benefactor.

The battle, or rather butchery, seems to have been
as little agreeable to the people of the Kheta as to their
lords, for

the hostile Kheta speak, praising the divine benefactor thus :
Give us freedom (literally, breath) from thy hand, O good king !
-ket us lie at thy feet; the fear of thee has opened the land of
■Kheta. We are like the foals of mares, which tremble in terror at
the sight of the grim lion.'

In the customary manner, as already described, the
inscriptions sing the praise of their king :—

The brave and bold conqueror of the nations, of the highest
valour in the field of battle, firm ' on horseback, and glorious on.
his chariot, whom none can escape when he seizes his bow and
arrows.

A less poetical and ornate description of the great

battle of Kadesh is preserved in a record repeated

several times on the temple walls. It runs as follows :—

(1) In the 5th year, in the month Epiphi, on the 9th day, in.
the reign of King Kamses II., the Pharaoh was (2) in the land
°f Zahi, on his second campaign. Good watch was kept over the
king in the camp of Pharaoh on the heights to the south of (3) the-
°ity of Kadesh. Pharaoh came forth as soon as the sun rose, and
Put on the (war) array of his father Mentu. And the sovereign
went further (4) upwards, and came to the south of the town of
Shabatun. There came to meet him two Shasu, in order to speak
to (5) Pharaoh thus :—