Amarna Period Down to the Opening of Sety I's Reign
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oi.uchicago.edu STUDIES IN ANCIENT ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION * NO.42 THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Thomas A. Holland * Editor with the assistance of Thomas G. Urban oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu Internet publication of this work was made possible with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber THE ROAD TO KADESH A HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE BATTLE RELIEFS OF KING SETY I AT KARNAK SECOND EDITION REVISED WILLIAM J. MURNANE THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO STUDIES IN ANCIENT ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION . NO.42 CHICAGO * ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-63725 ISBN: 0-918986-67-2 ISSN: 0081-7554 The Oriental Institute, Chicago © 1985, 1990 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1990. Printed in the United States of America. oi.uchicago.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS List of M aps ................................ ................................. ................................. vi Preface to the Second Edition ................................................................................................. vii Preface to the First Edition ................................................................................................. ix List of Bibliographic Abbreviations ..................................... ....................... xi Chapter 1. Egypt's Relations with Hatti From the Amarna Period Down to the Opening of Sety I's Reign ...................................................................... ......................... 1 The Clash of Empires and the Self-Serving Vassal States of Syria ......................... 2 The Affair of the Egyptian Queen and the Consolidation of Hittite Power in Northern Syria ......................... ............................ .............. ........................... 22 Early Treaties Between Egypt and Hatti .............................................. 31 Chapter 2. Sety I's Early Wars in Western Asia ............................................. 39 T he Shasu W ar .................................................................................................................. 40 War(s) in Palestine and Syria ........................................ ...... ..................... 42 The Earliest Wars of the Nineteenth Dynasty ........................................ 45 Chapter 3. The Later Wars of Sety I ................................................................... .................... 51 The Amurru-Kadesh Campaign ........................ ................................. 52 T he H ittite W ar ..................................... ............................................................................ 58 Summation .................. ................... ................... 67 Appendix 1. Nt- ' mty = "Agreed Arrangement" .......................................... ....................... 73 Appendix 2. Two Stelae and the Dating of Sety's First Campaign ................................. ..... 75 Appendix 3. Movements of Armies and Timings of Travel in Egypt and the Levant .......... 95 Appendix 4. The Libyan and Nubian Campaigns ........................................ ....................... 99 Appendix 5. The King of Carchemish in Sety I's Battle Reliefs? ..................... .. ... .. ... .. .. .. 103 Appendix 6. The Still Mysterious Mehy ............................................................................... 107 Appendix 7. The Chronological Framework ............................. ........................... 115 Appendix 8. The Status of Kadesh and Amurru ............................................ 139 Index ........................................................................................................... ...................... 14 5 oi.uchicago.edu LIST OF MAPS M ap 1. Hatti, M itanni, and the Syrian Vassals ...................................................................... xvi M ap 2. Palestine and the Gaza Strip .................................................................................... 50 Map 3. Egypt and Nubia During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties ........................ 98 vi oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Since an author seldom enjoys the luxury of second thoughts so soon after the initial appearance of his work, some explanation of this revised Road to Kadesh seems appropriate. First, no one (and least of all I) could have anticipated that the first edition would be sold out barely five years after it appeared. Second, a great deal of work on the "international relations" of the Amarna Age and its aftermath has appeared during this time. Thus, when the Oriental Institute's publications director, Thomas Holland, broached the subject of a reissue in the summer of 1989, I was delighted to find him so amenable to publishing a substantially changed version of this study. Not only were many substantive alterations made as a result, but the entire text was reformatted on a Macintosh SE computer. I am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Holland and his staff, especially Thomas Urban, for the help and facilities that made this task easier than it might otherwise have been. I would like to thank those scholars who reviewed or commented on the first edition of this book in professional journals. My indebtedness to their remarks will be apparent in the following pages, not only in matters of detail, but in approach as well. This book is not a comprehensive treatment of Western Asia and its interactions with Egypt from the later Eighteenth to the early Nineteenth Dynasties. It is still, as it began, a historical essay on the background of Sety I's battle reliefs at Karnak. If I sometimes appear to dwell on matters well known to specialists in cuneiform studies, it is with no pretense of "discovering" much that is new to them. Rather, my aim has been to cover significant developments in Western Asia in a way that will help Egyptologists and other scholars understand both the importance of the cuneiform evidence and why it is so frequently used to support contradictory conclusions. If this essay can encourage similar enterprises to "widen the borders of Egypt," the extensive road work that went into this new edition will not have been done in vain. William J. Murnane Memphis State University Summer, 1990 vii oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION A draft of this study was first written as a chapter of historical commentary, to accompany the Epigraphic Survey's publication of the battle reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak. As I worked on this project, however, I came to realize that the material demanded a more detailed treatment than that which I had originally planned. The wars of Sety I, after all, are but one episode in the long process of adjustment between the Egyptian and Hittite empires which would culminate, first in the Battle of Kadesh, then with the treaty enacted during Ramesses II's twenty-first regnal year. Proper understanding of this one stage of the conflict involves a host of other issues, many of them remote from the war monument at Karnak and even from Sety's own reign. The chapter was rewritten several times, with progressively more cumbersome footnotes, until finally, in the summer of 1983, it was completely reconceived and rewritten as a monograph. Many of the conclusions reached here are based on the documentation published in Reliefs IV; and this book is still, to a great extent, a companion volume to that publication. But my primary aim has been to explore the significance of Sety I's wars, not only in his own time, but as part of the pattern of Egyptian-Hittite relations that had been evolving since the twilight years of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Many other scholars have worked on these problems before me. They will find their work reflected in my own, not always with full agreement, but with constant and sincere gratitude. I am happy to thank my colleagues, Egyptologists at the Oriental Institute (Chicago) and at Chicago House (Luxor)-in alphabetical order, Klaus Baer, Lanny Bell, Janet H. Johnson, Charles C. Van Siclen III, Edward F. Wente, and Frank J. Yurco-for reading the manuscript, entire or in part, and for offering their criticism. I am also grateful to Professor Alan R. Schulman (Queens College, Flushing, New York) and Dr. Rolf Krauss (Agyptisches Museum, Berlin), both of whom read parts of the text with useful results. A special debt of thanks goes to all those scholars at The Oriental Institute in Chicago who graciously gave of their time and expertise with the Akkadian, Hittite, and Hurrian sources: once again in alphabetical order, I am indebted to Richard Beal, Gary Beckman, Robert Biggs, Gene Gragg, Hans G. Gilterbock, Silvin Kosak, JoAnn Scurlock, and Wilfrid Von Soldt for their advice. I am especially grateful to Professor William L. Moran (Harvard University), who took time away from his own translation of the Amarna letters to read my sixth appendix. In order to keep the cost (and thus the price) of the book to a minimum, the published text was produced using the TREATISE/SCRIPT text formatter on the IBM 3081D computer and XEROX 9700 printer at The University of Chicago computation center. The maps were drawn by W. Raymond Johnson; Katherine Rosich and Theresa Bicanic were immensely helpful at a crucial stage of the preparation of the manuscript; and it was edited by Pamela Bruton, Elisabeth Garner, and Paul Hoffman-all working with their customary patience and skill. I could not have asked for better colleagues. William J. Murnane Chicago House Luxor, Egypt