All the while, Ramesses’ “greatest victory” was portrayed in temples throughout his realm and described on monuments set up at Pi-Ramesse, where the cult of the divine Ramesses flourished. Texts inscribed on obelisks originally raised in the capital city loudly proclaim that he “brought back the chieftains of Syria as prisoners of war and trampled the land of Hatti into the ground,” and “smashed this land of Hatti, plundering them by (his own) valor, and making a great heap of corpses (out of them)” (Montet 1935-37b: pls. 26,18).26 Ramesses also presents a brief account of the battle in a letter to Hattusili III; once again he emphasizes his own heroism. Nevertheless, the matter-of-fact tone he uses here indicates that the events he relates were already well known to the Hittite king (Edel 1994: vol. 1, 58-61, vol. 2, 100-01; Archi 1997: 11). Hittite allusions to the wars culminating in the Battle of Qadesh speak simply of Egypt’s defeat by Muwattalli: “At the time that Muwattalli took the field against the king of the land of Egypt and the country of Amurru, and when he then had defeated the king of the land of Egypt and the country of Amurru” (translation adapted from Goetze 1969 : 319),27 “then My Majesty’s uncle Muwattalli and the King of Egypt fought over the men of Amurru. Muwattalli defeated him, destroyed the land ofAmurru by force of arms, and subjugated it” (Beckman 1999:104-05). The hieroglyphic text of the subsequent treaty negotiated between Ramesses and Hattusili speaks only of Ramesses and Muwattalli having fought one another (Wilson 1969: 199; Davies 1997: 100-01).
The Egyptians, of course, took Ramesses’ miraculous escape from the jaws of death as proof of his incomparable bravery and a sign of his great favor among the gods, even his own divinity.28 The human failings so colorfully recounted in the literary account were interpreted positively: it was not merely Ramesses the man, but Ramesses thegod who had achieved such unexpected success under seemingly impossible circumstances; Ramesses’ godhood was actually enhanced!
One of them cried out to his companion, saying: “He is not a human being, this one who is in our midst, but (rather) supremely powerful Seth, Ba’al in the flesh! Beyond what a(ny) human can do is that which he does!” ... (Another) one of them cried out to his companion: “Stay back! Watch out that you don’t get (too) close to him! No question about it, Sakhmet the Great is the one who is with him; she is (joined) with him on his horses, (working) hand in hand with him. Anybody who goes (too) close to him, a hot blast of fire will come and roast his flesh!” (Poem §§157-59, 285-89).
World History
