Skirmishes may have persisted throughout Horemheb’s reign as king; it is also possible that a treaty regarded as still in effect during the reign of Muwattalli II (mentioned above) was arranged at this time. In Dynasty 19 an uprising in Egyptian Canaan once more escalated the level of tension in the area. Having dealt successfully with this problem at the beginning of his reign, Sety I later turned his attention to Amurru and the lost Qadesh. This time there would be no doubt that Egypt was responsible for disturbing the fragile peace. Sety’s family had originated in the Eastern Delta near the old Hyksos capital of Avaris (now Tell el-Dab’a) at the site which would come to be known as Pi-Ramesse (modern Khata’na-Qantir). His father, the general Pa-Ramessu (later Ramesses I), served as commander of the nearby frontier fortress of Sile (modern el-Qantara), before his promotion to vizier and heir apparent under Horemheb; Sety had succeeded his father in these positions, before becoming king himself. Under Sety the capital of Egypt was moved to Pi-Ramesse, giving his armies easier access to Western Asia; with an extensive harbor located on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, this site also had easy access to the sea. Royal rhetoric styled the reign of Sety as a Renaissance; one aspect of this conceit was his plan to reconstitute the empire of the glory days of Thutmose III. Amurru’s return to the Egyptian fold under Sety is apparently referred to in the historical introduction to a later treaty between Tudhaliya IV and a Hittite prince, his nephew and brother-in-law, ruler of Amurru: “But when Muwattalli, uncle of My Majesty, became King, the men of Amurru committed an offense against him, informing him as follows: ‘We were voluntary subjects. Now we are no longer your subjects.’ And they went over to the King of Egypt” (Beckman 1999:104-05). Sety’s campaign is designated “The ascent which Pharaoh... made in order to take apart/dismantle the land of Qadesh and the land of Amurru,” and the surrender of the fortress of Qadesh is depicted in the accompanying scene at Karnak (Epigraphic Survey 1986: pl. 23).
Sety would soon boldly move north to challenge the Hittite army directly. Charging into the amassed Hittite forces, and claiming to have scattered them in disarray and to have annihilated them, he is represented returning their leaders to Egypt to be dedicated to the service of the imperial god Amun-Re (Epigraphic Survey 1986: pls. 3336). Hatti is described as “the wretched land of the Hittites, of whom his Majesty... made a great heap of corpses.” The many images used to portray Sety include
A ferocious [var.: mighty] lion, who (freely) roams over [var.: treads] the (most) impenetrable pathways of every mountainous land, a mighty [var.: young] bull, sharp-horned and implacable [var.: resolute], who tramps/stamps all over the Asiatics [var.: utterly devastates the mountainous lands] and tramples down the Hittites [var.: the land of Hatti], one who slays their chieftains - thrown to the ground in (pools of) their (own) blood - who forces his way through them like a hot flame and annihilates them (composite text collated from Epigraphic Survey 1986: pls. 34-35).
Nevertheless, not long after Sety’s withdrawal, Qadesh defected again to the Hittites, thus prompting the next assaults mounted under Ramesses II, who unsuccessfully pressed his father’s claim to it.
World History
