The Chariots of Kadesh

JULIAN: This is Julian, reporting for the Chronos Network. The year is 1274 BCE. The location is the banks of the Orontes River, in what you know as western Syria. The heat here is a physical weight, pressing down on the chest. It smells of dried mud, horse sweat, and the acrid smoke of cooking fires.

I am currently crouching in the tall reeds just south of the city of Kadesh. To my left, the glittering fortress stands atop its mound, silent and imposing. To my right, the Division of Amun, led by Pharaoh Ramesses II himself, is setting up camp. They are relaxed. Shields are down. Horses are being unharnessed. They believe their enemy, the Hittite King Muwatalli II, is a hundred miles away in Aleppo, trembling in fear.

They are wrong.

I’m joined now by Pentawer, a scribe attached to the royal entourage. Pentawer, you’re looking at the Pharaoh’s tent with a great deal of skepticism for a man in the presence of a living god.

PENTAWER: A living god who listens to Bedouin liars. Look at them. The soldiers are polishing their khopeshes as if this were a parade in Thebes. Ramesses believes the Shasu spies who told him the Hittites fled north. But the wind... can you not smell it? It does not smell of fear. It smells of iron.

JULIAN: You’re referring to the rumors? That the Shasu were plants?

PENTAWER: Plants? They were venomous snakes. Just moments ago, the scouts dragged in two Hittite runners. Real ones. I heard the screams from the interrogation tent. They confessed. Muwatalli isn’t in Aleppo. He’s behind that hill. Old Kadesh. And he has not come alone. He has brought the world with him.

JULIAN: The intelligence failure here is catastrophic. Ramesses is separated from three-quarters of his army. The Division of Ra is still marching toward us, completely exposed. The Divisions of Ptah and Seth are miles behind. If the Hittites strike now—

PENTAWER: If? Look at the river, chronicler. The water churns.

JULIAN: Pentawer is pointing toward the ford. The dust cloud is rising like a sudden storm. It’s not wind. It’s wheels. Thousands of them.

I can see them now. They are emerging from the tree line. These aren't the light, two-man chariots of Egypt. These are Hittite heavies. Three men to a cab. Solid wooden wheels. They look like rolling fortresses. They aren't crossing the river; they are erasing it.

PENTAWER: They are cutting across the flank. They aren't coming for us. They are heading for the Division of Ra.

PENTAWER: The fools. They are bringing the panic with them. Look at the Pharaoh’s camp. The wall of shields is breaking. The Hittites are driving the survivors right into our laps to sow chaos before the main strike.

JULIAN: The scene here is dissolving into absolute bedlam. The fleeing soldiers of Ra are flooding through the Amun camp, trampling tents and overturning weapon racks. The Hittite chariots are right behind them, wheeling around the perimeter, firing composite bows at point-blank range.

Ramesses is mounting his chariot now. He looks... surprisingly calm. Or perhaps it's desperation. He’s calling for his household guard, the Sherden warriors.

PENTAWER: He calls to his father Amun, but Amun is in Thebes. He is alone. Muwatalli has outplayed him. The King of Hatti did not just hide an army; he hid a thunderbolt.

JULIAN: The Hittites have encircled the camp. They are stopping to loot the royal tent. That might be the only thing saving the Pharaoh right now. The greed of the Hittite mercenaries is buying Ramesses seconds—precious seconds to rally his personal guard.

Wait. To the north. Do you see that dust, Pentawer?

PENTAWER: More Hittites? Then it is truly the end of days.

JULIAN: No. The standards. That’s not Hittite. That’s the Ne’arin! The recruits from Amurru! They’ve arrived from the coast, completely by chance. They’re hitting the Hittite flank while they loot!

The momentum is shifting. The heavy Hittite chariots are sluggish, bogged down in the camp’s debris. The lighter Egyptian vehicles are swarming them now, turning tighter circles, raining arrows. Ramesses is leading the charge himself, cutting a path toward the river.

PENTAWER: He fights like a man possessed. Tomorrow, the poets will say he defeated thousands by his own hand. They will say he was a god in human form. But you and I, chronicler... we saw the loot. We saw the Ne'arin. We saw luck.

JULIAN: Luck or providence, the history of the Bronze Age turns on this hour. The Hittites are being pushed back into the river. The water is turning red.

As the sun begins to set over the Orontes, the largest chariot battle in human history is grinding to a bloody stalemate. Ramesses will claim a total victory. Muwatalli will keep the city of Kadesh. But here, in the dust and the dying light, there are no victors. Only the exhausted survivors of a war that will eventually lead to the world's first peace treaty.

For the Chronos Network, witnessing the fire and the lie of Kadesh, this is Julian, signing off.