Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie.
They copied the lines of the Phoenician craft, imitated the rigging, and learned to manoeuvre their vessels so well, both on ordinary occasions and in a battle, that they could now oppose to the skilled eastern navigators ships as well fitted out and commanded by captains as experienced as those of Egypt or Asia.
There had been a general movement among all these peoples at the very time when Ramses was repelling the attack of the Libyans; “the isles had quivered, and had vomited forth their people at once.” *
* This campaign is mentioned in the inscription of Medinet-
Habu. We find some information about the war in the Great
Harris Papyrus, also in the inscription of Medinet-Habu
which describes the campaign of the year V., and in other
shorter texts of the same temple.
They were subjected to one of those irresistible impulses such as had driven the Shepherds into Egypt; or again, in later times, had carried away the Cimmerians and the Scyths to the pillage of Asia Minor: “no country could hold out against their arms, neither Khâti, nor Qodi, nor Carchemish, nor Arvad, nor Alasia, without being brought to nothing.” The ancient kingdoms of Sapalulu and Khâtusaru, already tottering, crumbled to pieces under the shock, and were broken up into their primitive elements. The barbarians, unable to carry the towns by assault, and too impatient to resort to a lengthened siege, spread over the valley of the Orontes, burning and devastating the country everywhere. Having reached the frontiers of the empire, in the country of the Amorites, they came to a halt, and constructing an entrenched camp, installed within it their women and the booty they had acquired. Some of their predatory bands, having ravaged the Bekâa, ended by attacking the subjects of the Pharaoh himself, and their chiefs dreamed of an invasion of Egypt. Ramses, informed of their design by the despatches of his officers and vassals, resolved to prevent its accomplishment. He summoned his troops together, both indigenous and mercenary, in his own person looked after their armament and commissariat, and in the VIIIth year of his reign crossed the frontier near Zalu. He advanced by forced marches to meet the enemy, whom he encountered somewhere in Southern Syria, on the borders of the Shephelah,* and after a stubbornly contested campaign obtained the victory. He carried off from the field, in addition to the treasures of the confederate tribes, some of the chariots which had been used for the transport of their families. The survivors made their way hastily to the north-west, in the direction of the sea, in order to receive the support of their navy, but the king followed them step by step.
* No site is given for these battles. E. de Rougé placed the
theatre of war in Syria, and his opinion was accepted by
Brugsch. Chabas referred it to the mouth of the Nile near
Pelusium, and his authority has prevailed up to the present.
The remarks of W. Max Müller have brought me back to the
opinion of the earlier Egyptologists; but I differ from him
in looking for the locality further south, and not to the
mouth of Nahr el-Kelb as the site of the naval battle. It
seems to me that the fact that the Zakkala were prisoners at
Dor, and the Pulasati in the Shephelah, is enough to assign
the campaign to the regions I have mentioned in the text.
It is recorded that he occupied himself with lion-hunting en route after the example of the victors of the XVIIIth dynasty, and that he killed three of these animals in the long grass on one occasion on the banks of some river. He rejoined his ships, probably at Jaffa, and made straight for the enemy. The latter were encamped on the level shore, at the head of a bay wide enough to offer to their ships a commodious space for naval evolutions—possibly the mouth of the Belos, in the neighbourhood of Magadîl. The king drove their foot-soldiers into the water at the same moment that his admirals attacked the combined fleet of the Pulasati and Zakkala.
