Battle of Djahy (12th century BC)

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Djahy
partof=Egyptian-Sea People wars
campaign=


caption=
date=c.1178 BC or 1175 BC [Gary Beckman, "Hittite Chronology", Akkadica, 120 (2000). p.23 The exact date of the battle is unknown and depends on whether Amenmesse had an independent reign over all Egypt or if it was subsumed within the reign of Seti II. However, a difference of 3 years is minor.]
place=Djahy
casus beli=Attack of the Sea Peoples
territory=
result=Egyptian victory
combatant1=Egypt
combatant2=Sea Peoples
commander1=Ramesses III
commander2=Unknown
strength1=Unknown
strength2=Unknown
casualties1=Unknown
casualties2=Many killed, and captured

The Battle of Djahy was a major land battle between the forces of pharaoh Ramesses III and the Sea Peoples who intended to invade and conquer Egypt. The conflict occurred somewhere on the Ancient Egyptian Empire's easternmost frontier in Djahy or modern day Lebanon, in the eight year of pharaoh Ramesses III or about c.1178 BC. In this battle, the Egyptians, led personally by Ramesses III, defeated the Sea Peoples who were attempting to invade Ancient Egypt by land and sea. Almost all that we know about the battle comes from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III in Medinet Habu. The description of the battle and prisoners is well documented on temple walls where we also find the longest hieroglyphic inscription known to us. On temple reliefs, we can see many bound prisoners defeated in that battle.

Historical background

In Egypt, Ramesses III was fighting to save his country and Empire in the midst of the Bronze Age collapse which was caused by the Sea People's invasion of various Near Eastern Powers. Ramesses III had already previous defeated an attack BY the Libyans on the Egyptian Empire's western frontier in his fifth year. But the greatest threat was posed not by the Libyans, but by a group of migrating peoples called the Sea Peoples. These were times of crisis in the Mediterranean as many 12th century B.C. ancient civilizations were destroyed from attacks by the Sea Peoples and other migrating nations. The great Hittite Empire fell together with the Mycenaean civilization and other great cultures including the kingdom of Cyprus and Ugarit. Whatever their origins, the Sea Peoples moved around the eastern Mediterranean, attacking the coasts of Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria and Canaan, before attempting an invasion on Egypt in the 1180s. Although we know that the Sea peoples were great warriors, some evidence also suggests that the Sea Peoples had a high level of organization and military strategy. Egypt was in particular danger because the invaders did not merely want the spoils and goods of the land, but the land itself, and there was no country with better soils and access to gold than Egypt. The Egyptians state that no other country except Egypt could withstand their attacks, as these inscriptions from the mortuary temple of Ramesses III in Medinet Habu clearly establish:

:"The foreign countries (ie. Sea Peoples) made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms: from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya on, being cut off [ie. destroyed] at one time. A camp was set up in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting: 'Our plans will succeed!"' " [Medinet Habu inscription of Ramesses III's 8th year, lines 16-17, trans. by John A. Wilson in Pritchard, J.B. (ed.) Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition, Princeton 1969., p.262]

Battle

Prior to the battle, the Sea People's had sacked the Hittite vassal state of Amurru which was located close to the border of the Egyptian Empire. This gave the pharaoh time to make preparations for the expected onslaught by the invaders. As Ramesses III notes in an inscription from his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu: "I equipped my frontier in Zahi (Djahy) prepared before them." [Extracts from Medinet Habu inscription, trans. James H. Breasted 1906, iv.§§ 65-66] The Sea Peoples "land forces were moving south along the Levantine coast and through Palestine when they were confronted and stopped by Ramesses' forces at the Egyptian frontier in Djahi in the region of later Phoenicia" writes the Hittitologist Trevor Bryce. [Trevor R. Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, sub-chapter 'The Fall of the Kingdom and its Aftermath', Oxford University Press, 1998. p.371]

Ramesses III refers to his battle with the Sea Peoples in stark, uncompromising terms: : "The [Egyptian] charioteers were warriors [...] , and all good officers, ready of hand. Their horses were quievering in their every limb, ready to crush the [foreign] countries under their feet...Those who reached my boundary, their seed is not; their heart and soul are finished forever and ever." [Breasted, op. cit., pp.65-66]

Aftermath

While the battle ended with a great Egyptian victory, Egypt's war with the Sea Peoples was not yet over. The sea People's would next attack Egypt proper with their naval fleet in an unsuccessful assault. The next attack, which came from the sea, occurred around the mouth of the Nile river. The invaders were eventually defeated by Ramesses in a great sea battle in which many of the foreign aggressors were either killed by hails of Egyptian arrows, or dragged from their boats and killed on the banks of the Nile river by Ramesses III's well prepared forces. Although the pharaoh defeated them, he could not eventually prevent them from settling in the eastern parts of his empire decades after his death. With this conflict, and a subsequent second battle with invading Libyan tribes in Year 11 of Ramesses III, Egypt's treasury became so depleted that she would never fully recover her imperial power. The Egyptian Empire over Asia and Nubia would be permanently lost less than 80 years after Ramesses III's reign under Ramesses XI, the last king of Egypt's New Kingdom.

Reliefs depicting the battle

The reliefs depicting the battle in the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu provide us with much information regarding the battle. There we can see Egyptian troops, chariots and auxiliaries fighting the enemy that also used chariots, very similar in design to Egyptian ones.

References

See also

*Ramesses III
*Sea Peoples
*Battle of the Delta