Empires at War: The Battle of Kadesh, Sea Invaders, and the Fall of the Ramesside Kings

• May 21, 2026

Late dynastic period

1. The Boy King and the Restorer: Tutankhamun’s Gold and Horemheb’s Order

Towards the end of his reign, Akhenaten took his brother Smenkhkare as co-regent and sent him to Thebes from Akhetaten, but he did not live more than a year or two. Akhenaten died at about the same time leaving Tutankhamun (1361 BC, a son of Amenhotep III) and Queen Tiy to assume the throne. The boy king reigned for about ten years and died just as he was coming to manhood, leaving in his tomb an unsurpassed treasure, found in 1922 pra,ctically untouched. The last king of the dynasty, Horemheb, originally a general in command at Memphis, was not of royal blood, although he may have married one of the royal princesses to legitimise his position. He did much to restore Egypt both internally and externally.

2. Warriors of the 19th Dynasty: Seti I and the Revival of Egyptian Splendor

The 19 Dyn. (1320-1200 BC) was also not of royal blood, its founders had been generals under the last rulers of the 18 Dyn. Ramesses I, the first King, was already elderly when he came to the throne, and only reigned for two years. His son, Seti I (1318 BC), was in the prime of life he restored Egypt's position by campaigns in western Asia and by a building programme, of which the best known examples are his temple at Abydos, and his tomb on the West Bank at Thebes. His taste was far superior to anything that the Egyptians had achieved for many years.

3. Ramesses the Great: The Propagandist, the Builder, and the Battle of Kadesh

His son, Ramesses II  (1304 BC),  who came to the throne after a co-regency with his father, was also a great builder, but he was too hurried to accomplish really fine  work,  and his best memorial is probably his temple at Abo Simbel in Nubia. He also carried out further campaigns in Western Asia but here too he was not as successful as his father. There are varying accounts of the Battle of Kadesh, which Ramesses fought against the Hittites, and announced as a great victory. The Hittites, too, claimed success and the battle, in which Ramesses showed considerable bravery but not much judgement, was probably drawn. The Hittite problem was not settled until Ramesses married one of the Hittite princesses and concluded a peace treaty with Hattusilis II of Hatti, 21 years later.

4. Holding the Line: Merneptah and the First Waves of Mediterranean Invasion

Ramesses was followed by Merneptah (1236 BC), one of his many sons, a man already in middle age. Almost at once he had to face a threat of invasion from Libya but he won a decisive victory in the Western Delta. The rest of the 19 Dyn. is a period of confusion, with incursions from Asia and bad harvests. The last king, Siptah, seems to have been the legitimate heir of Seti II; he died childless and his wife Tawsert assumed the throne as either regent or queen. Internal stability was not restored before the accession of Sethnakhte in 1200.

5. The Sea Peoples and the Final Stand of Ramesses III

Thus began the 20 Dyn. ( c 1300-1085 BC), the only memorable king of which was the second ruler of the dynasty, Ramesses III (1198), who successfully defended Egypt against attacks from the Libyans and the Peoples of the Sea in his fifth and seventh years.

6. Twilight of the Pharaohs: Striking Workers, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of the Priests

Egypt, by now, was in a poor way. She had lost her Asiatic empire and was thus denied the use of Asian iron; the gold mines of Nubia were exhausted and low Niles and bad harvests upset the internal economy. The later kings of the dynasty, all called Ramesses, are shadowy figures (even their number is disputed), struggling with strikes of the necropolis workers and tomb robberies that they could not prevent. Towards the end the power of the king was shared by the High Priest of Amun, partly because the earlier rulers had given away vast state wealth to the priesthood of Amun, so that the temple became mightier than the state