Tristan Hughes

So in his eyes, he's rewriting history and making that truth.

He's seeing Kadesh to be more of a success than it really was.

I love this idea that Ramesses, over time, he just keeps telling himself that it's actually really good for him.

And then he ultimately leads himself to believe it.

But of course, so you have that pivotal moment of Kadesh early on in his reign as a key moment in his expansionism or attempted expansionism, external conflicts.

He returns, he does more external fighting, more wars abroad following that.

But that is interesting, the fact that that's maybe some 15 years after the Battle of Kadesh.

So there's still a long period of time when Ramses is going back up to Syria, the area around Kadesh, again and again to try and get that elusive total victory over the Hittites, that all-or-nothing feeling, that all-or-nothing idea.

But ultimately, as he gets a bit older, maybe he's a bit tired of going up to Kadesh again and again, he ultimately decides to get some sort of compromise and the Hittites are just like, yeah, we kind of want to compromise too now.

Because it's almost like, when you think of it on the larger scale of things, if the Egyptians lose Kadesh to the Hittites, it's not the end of the world.

It's hundreds of miles away from Egypt and the hearts of ancient Egypt.

But because Kadesh has been in the control of Egyptians back in the 18th dynasty or whatever,

It's symbolic importance, almost like, dare I say, like Stalingrad was for the USSR in World War II, not one step back.

Do you think that's part of the reason that might have driven Ramesses to keep going back?

He's the zenith of the preceding 18th century.

Indeed.

Egypt at that time, yes, we won't say an empire, but the control of Egypt does go all the way quite far upriver than Nala into Sudan.

Yeah, deep into Sudan.

Into Nubia.

And you've got Buhen Fortress or a place like that.