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Around 1274 BCE, Ramesses II led Egyptian forces against the Hittite Empire at Kadesh in one of the largest chariot battles in ancient history — and both sides claimed victory afterward, which tells you something about how the battle actually went.
An ambush that nearly worked
Hittite forces used false intelligence to lure part of the Egyptian army into a trap, nearly destroying Ramesses’ forward division before reinforcements arrived — a near-disaster Egyptian propaganda later rewrote into a triumphant personal victory for the pharaoh.
Massive chariot forces on both sides
Both empires fielded thousands of chariots at Kadesh, making it one of the largest chariot engagements ever recorded — a genuine clash between the era’s two dominant military powers.
The peace treaty that followed
Years after the inconclusive battle, Egypt and the Hittites signed what is considered one of the earliest surviving peace treaties in history, establishing a lasting, mutually beneficial peace between the two empires.
Kadesh is a genuinely useful reminder that ancient battle accounts, especially royally commissioned ones, need to be read as propaganda first and history second.
Quick question
The Greek historian Herodotus famously called Egypt what?
- “The land of a thousand gods”
- “The gift of the Nile”
- “The kingdom of the sun”
- “The cradle of kings”
Show the answer
B. “The gift of the Nile”
Herodotus wrote this in the 5th century BCE, recognizing that Egyptian civilization existed only because the Nile’s predictable flood made the surrounding desert farmable.
Hundreds more questions like this are in The Ultimate Ancient Egypt Trivia Book by Marcus Holloway, available on Amazon.
This trivia series is published by the team behind HistoryBookTales.