Dr. Campbell Price

Yeah, I think we've covered the prelude to greatness, you know, being on the shoulders of giants, because I think Ramesses II owes a lot to his father and to his grandfather.

But Kadesh is undoubtedly a turning point because, as you said, he's going back and trying to win some grudge matches.

doesn't succeed in real terms doesn't succeed with an outright victory but is able to spin the story and again i'm very skeptical of using a modern term like propaganda so when you see the walls of temples where rameses ii

is talking about Kadesh, the fact that he writes that, not he himself, but he commissions that to be carved on the temple wall makes it so.

It seems strange to a modern point of view, but that is in some ways maybe anticipating a victory that he thinks maybe he will have in actuality in the future.

But that doesn't really matter.

The gods know the truth.

And he's carved it on the wall of the god's house.

So by writing anything in hieroglyphs, which are known as the words of the gods,

You make it so.

No, I don't think you can deceive a god.

Right.

Because a god's omniscient.

And I think he genuinely believed it.

You know, he believed that, yeah, as you said before, he snatched a victory from the jaws of real defeat.

Well, he snatched a draw from the jaws of absolute catastrophe.

In his own head, that draw is something to be proud of.

So I think that sets in motion a series of...

revisitations of the theme of victory over these vassal states in the Levant so he goes back because remember his reign is 66 years when he's young and you know he's got the fire in him he's going to go back several times as we know he does

Yes, so he keeps going back to those vassal states into what is now modern Syria.