Discovering Ramses II as a Chief and Commander
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Interviewed by Primavera Fisogni, Dr Mohamed Raafat Abbas—Egyptologist and scholar, author of the forthcoming book War in the Age of Ramesses: Campaigns, Strategy, and Empire in Late Bronze Age Egypt (Oxbow Books, January 2027)—reassesses Ramesside warfare beyond royal propaganda. Download the article.
By Primavera Fisogni, PhD
In this insightful interview, Dr Mohamed Raafat Abbas—Egyptologist and scholar, author of the forthcoming book War in the Age of Ramesses: Campaigns, Strategy, and Empire in Late Bronze Age Egypt (Oxbow Books, January 2027)1—reassesses Ramesside warfare beyond royal propaganda. He emphasizes that while texts like the Poem of Kadesh are deeply ideological, they remain essential historical sources when analyzed alongside archaeology. Dr Abbas highlights the crucial role of logistical networks like the "Ways of Horus" and shows how Egyptian power relied on strategic strongpoints, frontier management, and diplomacy alongside battlefield action. In light of present-day Middle Eastern conflicts, examining this ancient history offers a timeless reflection on war strategies, showing that long-term stability ultimately required balancing military force with diplomatic containment.
Dr Abbas, how should we assess the historical reliability of the royal inscriptions describing Ramesses II’s military campaigns? To what extent can texts such as the Poem of Kadesh and the Bulletin be treated as historical evidence, given their highly ideological and apologetic character?
The royal inscriptions of Ramesses II should neither be read as straightforward factual accounts nor dismissed simply as royal propaganda. They are certainly ideological texts, but ideology does not make a historical source useless. On the contrary, these inscriptions preserve a substantial amount of historical information, provided that we read them critically and within their historical and literary contexts.
The Poem of Kadesh and the Bulletin, for example, were not intended to provide an objective military report in the modern sense. They were also designed to construct and commemorate the image of Ramesses II as the victorious warrior pharaoh, emphasizing his courage, his relationship with the gods, and his ability to overcome his enemies. The events are therefore framed selectively through the perspective of royal ideology. We must consequently distinguish between the historical event itself and the royal representation of that event.
At the same time, however, the ideological character of these texts does not mean that their historical information can simply be rejected. They contain valuable details concerning military movements, geographical locations, troop formations, enemy forces, Egyptian army units, and the sequence and circumstances of the campaign. Such information can be evaluated through comparison with other textual evidence and, where possible, with archaeological evidence.
Kadesh is particularly instructive. The Poem and the Bulletin should not be treated as two fully independent accounts in the modern historiographical sense. They are different royal representations of the same campaign, shaped by the ideological purposes of Ramesside kingship. Yet their comparison, together with other evidence, allows us to distinguish more carefully between the course of the campaign and the way in which Ramesses II subsequently presented his role in it. For me, therefore, the key question is not whether these inscriptions are simply “true” or “false”. The more productive question is: what kind of historical evidence are they, and how can we extract historical information from texts whose primary purpose was ideological? Once we make that distinction, royal inscriptions become indispensable sources for reconstructing Ramesside warfare—but they must always be interpreted critically and tested against other evidence.
How has the interpretation of the Battle of Kadesh changed in modern scholarship?
The interpretation of Kadesh has changed considerably in modern scholarship. For a long time, the battle was approached largely through the Egyptian royal narrative, and Ramesses II’s claim to a great victory exercised considerable influence on modern representations of the event.
The growing study of the wider Egyptian, Hittite, and Near Eastern evidence has produced a much more balanced picture. Kadesh is now generally understood not simply as an Egyptian victory, but as a highly complex military confrontation between two major powers competing for imperial influence in northern Syria.
The battle itself appears to have been tactically dramatic but strategically inconclusive. Ramesses II survived a dangerous situation after the Hittite attack on the Egyptian forces, but the evidence does not support the image of an Egyptian conquest. Indeed, the subsequent Egyptian campaigns in the Levant and the diplomatic developments are extremely important: neither Egypt nor Hatti succeeded in achieving decisive strategic domination, and the conflict ultimately moved toward negotiation and the famous Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty. This shift is important because it changes the historical significance of Kadesh. Rather than asking only, “Who won the battle?”, we should also ask what the battle reveals about the limits of military power, the importance of logistics and coalition warfare, and the relationship between battlefield performance and long-term imperial strategy.
In this sense, Kadesh is perhaps most valuable not as a simple example of Egyptian victory or defeat, but as a case study in the interaction between warfare, diplomacy, and imperial competition in the Late Bronze Age.
What do we actually know about Ramesses II as a military commander? I mean, what’s new beyond the heroic image constructed by the royal inscriptions?
What we can reconstruct beyond the heroic image is a more complex picture of Ramesses II as a military strategist who had to adapt his policies to the realities of warfare in the Levant.
The Battle of Kadesh was a crucial moment in this development. Whatever one makes of the royal claim of victory, the campaign demonstrated that Egypt was facing a powerful and highly organized Hittite rival in northern Syria. Ramesses did not abandon his ambitions in the region after Kadesh. On the contrary, his subsequent campaigns show a sustained effort to restore Egyptian influence in Canaan and Syria and to recover strategically important positions that had been lost or had become unstable.
What is particularly interesting is the changing strategic character of these campaigns. Ramesses II appears to have understood that a single battlefield victory was not sufficient to secure Egypt’s position in the Levant. His subsequent military operations targeted important routes, cities, fortresses, and key ports including Akko, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Byblos, Ullaza, Irqata and Sumur. He adopted an indirect strategic approach by advancing inland through the Eleutherus Valley and subsequently northward along the Orontes Valley. This maneuver carried Egyptian forces deep into Hittite-controlled territory, where Egyptian armies had not operated since the cam-paigns of Thutmose III. The campaigns of the later part of Ramesses II’s reign therefore reveal a continuing attempt to re-establish Egyptian strategic depth and to prevent the Hittites and their allies from extending their influence farther south.
The campaigns against Syrian strategic towns such as Dapur (which was under direct Hittite control) and Tunip—cities that had remained outside Egyptian control for more than a century—are particularly revealing in this respect. They demonstrate Ramesses’ willingness to project Egyptian military power deep into northern Syria and to attack fortified strategic positions. At the same time, the temporary nature of some of these occupations exposes an important limitation of Egyptian power: capturing a city was one thing; maintaining it after the withdrawal of the main Egyptian army was another.
This distinction is essential for understanding Ramesses II as a commander. His military career was not simply a succession of heroic victories. It was a prolonged process of adapting military operations to the realities of distance, logistics, political geography, and the proximity of the Hittite power base.
We should also remember that Ramesses II operated within a sophisticated military system rather than as a commander acting alone. Egyptian armies included infantry, chariotry, specialized units, commanders, auxiliary forces, and logistical structures capable of sustaining campaigns far beyond Egypt’s borders. His role was therefore not only to lead troops personally, but also to mobilize and coordinate a much larger imperial military apparatus.
In this sense, I think the most interesting way to understand Ramesses II is not simply as the “heroic warrior” of the royal inscriptions, but as a ruler whose military strategy evolved in response to the geopolitical realities of his age. His career illustrates both the considerable reach of Egyptian military power and its limits—and, ultimately, the growing importance of combining military force with diplomacy, strategic containment, and the management of imperial frontiers.
Could you explain the strategic importance of the so-called “Ways of Horus” in the eastern Delta and northern Sinai? What did this military corridor consist of, and what do the archaeological remains of fortresses, settlements, water installations, storage facilities, and roads tell us about how the Egyptian state projected military power towards Canaan?
The Ways of Horus was far more than a military highway. It was a strategic military corridor connecting the eastern Delta with the northern Sinai and, ultimately, the southern Levant. Its importance lay precisely in the fact that Egyptian armies could not operate effectively in Canaan without securing the route by which troops, horses, weapons, food, water, and other supplies moved eastward.
The archaeological remains demonstrate that the Egyptian state developed a chain of installations along this corridor. Fortresses and military settlements were accompanied by wells and water installations, storage facilities, roads, and other infrastructure. These were not isolated defensive buildings; together, they formed a logistical and administrative network that supported military mobility and allowed Egypt to maintain a sustained presence along the route.
This is particularly significant because it allows us to see Egyptian imperial power as an infrastructure of movement. An army could not simply march from the Nile Delta to Canaan by relying on courage or numbers. It required water, food, animals, weapons, transport, communication, and secure staging points. The organization of these resources was therefore an essential part of Egyptian military strategy.
The corridor also provided the Egyptian state with a means of controlling movement itself. By maintaining fortified positions, water sources, storage facilities, and settlements along the route, Egypt could monitor the movement of its own forces and supplies while also strengthening its control over the eastern approaches to the country.
The Ways of Horus therefore represents one of the clearest archaeological expressions of Egyptian imperial strategy. It shows that the projection of Egyptian power toward Canaan began well before the army reached the battlefield. It began with the organization, protection, and control of the corridor through which that army had to move.
What is the current state of Egyptian military archaeology for the Ramesside period?
Egyptian military archaeology has advanced considerably, although it remains a developing field, especially when compared with the archaeology of temples, tombs, and settlements.
One of the major challenges is that military sites are often located in areas that have been affected by later settlement, agriculture, erosion, shifting coastlines, or modern development. Many installations have therefore survived only partially, while others remain insufficiently excavated or archaeologically difficult to identify.
Nevertheless, the archaeological picture is becoming much richer in the last decades. Excavations in Egypt, Sinai, and the Levant have provided evidence for fortresses, garrisons, military roads, storage facilities, workshops, and other installations. Sites such as Tell Heboua (ancient Tjaru), Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, Qantir (Pi-Ramesses), Jaffa and Beth Shean are particularly valuable because they allow us to examine Egyptian military installations archaeologically rather than relying only on Egyptian textual representations.
What is especially important, in my view, is that military archaeology should no longer be limited to identifying individual fortresses. We need to reconstruct the entire military landscape: the routes along which armies moved, the resources upon which they depended, supply points, communication networks, settlements, and the relationships between Egyptian installations and local communities.
On the other hand, the various Ramesside war scenes depicted on Egyptian temples constitute major historical sources for scholars interested in the study of Egypt’s imperial policy in its territories in Syria and Canaan during the New Kingdom, the organization and development of the ancient Egyptian military, the political landscape of the ancient Near East during the Late Bronze Age, and Biblical archaeology.
I have also been personally involved in this development of the field. In December 2021, I co-organized the international conference Perspectives on the Ramesside Military System at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (with Professor Friedhelm Hoffmann), which brought together leading Egyptologists, archaeologists, and historians working on different aspects of Ramesside warfare and military organization. The proceedings were subsequently published in the Egyptological series Ägypten und Altes Testament (ÄAT 121, 2023).
The conference and its published proceedings reflected an important tendency in current scholarship: to move beyond the study of individual battles and royal military narratives and to examine the Ramesside military system as a broader historical phenomenon.
I would therefore say that Egyptian military archaeology is entering an increasingly productive phase. Much remains to be discovered, but the field is moving toward a more integrated reconstruction of the military landscape—and this has considerable potential to change our understanding of how Ramesside Egypt projected and maintained military power beyond its own borders.
How can archaeological evidence be used to test the claims made by Ramesside royal inscriptions?
Archaeology is particularly important because it allows us to ask questions that royal inscriptions themselves cannot answer. It can confirm, modify, or sometimes challenge the picture presented by the royal texts.
A particularly good example is the system of fortresses along the eastern Delta and northern Sinai associated with the so-called Ways of Horus. These installations are portrayed in considerable detail in the reliefs of Sety I’s campaigns on the north exterior wall of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. The reliefs depict the king’s campaigns in Canaan, Syria, and Libya, including his campaign against the Shasu bedouin in the region of the Ways of Horus and Canaan, followed by his arrival at the major fortress of Tjaru on Egypt’s northeastern frontier.
The textual evidence becomes particularly interesting when we compare the Karnak reliefs with Papyrus Anastasi I. Both sources preserve lists of eleven forts and nine wells, many of which bear names or epithets associated with Sety I or Ramesses II. This suggests that the military corridor was not simply a literary or ideological construct, but represented a real infrastructure of fortresses, water sources, and staging points supporting Egyptian military operations toward Canaan.
The archaeological evidence provides an important means of testing this picture. Tjaru, which was the starting point of the Ways of Horus in northern Sinai and a major headquarters of Egypt’s defensive strategy on the eastern frontier, is now generally identified with the archaeological site of Tell Heboua in northwestern Sinai. Excavations conducted by Egyptian archaeologists of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, under the supervision of the late Dr Mohamed Abd el-Maksoud, have revealed a succession of Egyptian fortresses extending from the Second Intermediate Period into the Ramesside Period. The later fortress complex covered a very large area—approximately 140,000 square metres—and included an inscribed block mentioning Tjaru.
This is exactly where archaeology becomes so valuable. The textual sources tell us that a major Egyptian frontier fortress and military corridor existed; archaeology allows us to investigate what that system actually looked like on the ground, its scale, its chronology, and the infrastructure required to sustain it.
The archaeological record can therefore confirm, modify, or sometimes challenge the picture presented by royal inscriptions. This is why I would not place texts and archaeology in opposition to one another. The strongest historical reconstruction emerges when different categories of evidence are allowed to interrogate one another.
What can the archaeology of Egyptian fortresses tell us about the actual nature of Egyptian imperial control in the Levant? Do the surviving installations indicate a system of territorial occupation and direct administration, or was Egyptian power based primarily on a network of strategic strongpoints controlling roads, trade routes, resources, and military corridors?
I would avoid choosing between these two models too rigidly. Egyptian imperial control in the Levant was probably more flexible and differentiated than either model suggests.
The archaeological evidence indicates that Egypt maintained strategically important strongpoints, particularly along major routes and coastal corridors. These installations enabled Egypt to move troops, secure communications, protect supply routes, and maintain a military presence in key areas. But Egyptian power did not depend exclusively on fortresses.
Egypt also relied upon local rulers, political alliances, tribute, diplomatic relations, and the administrative structures of Canaanite city-states. In other words, imperial control was exercised through a combination of direct and indirect mechanisms, whose relative importance could vary according to the region and the political circumstances.
This is why I would understand the Egyptian fortress as one component of a wider imperial system. It was a node within a network rather than necessarily the administrative centre of a fully occupied or colonized territory.
The archaeological evidence for Egyptian garrisons during the Ramesside Period comes from a considerable number of sites in the Levant, including Tell Mor, Tell el-Far‘ah South, Tell esh-Shari‘ah, Jaffa, Ashdod, Beth-shemesh, Lachish, Megiddo, Beth Shean, and Tell es-Saidiyeh. Taken together, these sites demonstrate that the Egyptian military presence was geographically extensive, but they do not necessarily imply uniform territorial occupation.
This distinction is important. Egyptian imperialism in Canaan was not simply a matter of occupying every part of the landscape with Egyptian troops. It was a strategy of controlling strategically significant places, routes, resources, and political relationships while maintaining the capacity to intervene militarily whenever necessary.
The fortress, therefore, should be seen not simply as a symbol of occupation, but as an instrument through which Egyptian power could be projected, sustained, and activated. The real structure of the empire lay in the interaction between military installations, local political authorities, communication routes, economic resources, and the continuing ability of the Egyptian state to mobilize force.
To what extent should Ramesses II’s military achievements be reassessed in light of the archaeological evidence? Is the traditional image of one of Egypt’s greatest conquerors still defensible, or does the evidence suggest a more complex picture in which military stalemate, strategic containment, diplomacy, and ideological representation were at least as important as territorial conquest?
I believe Ramesses II’s military achievements should be reassessed, but not by simply replacing the traditional image of the “great conqueror” with an equally simplistic image of a king whose victories were merely propaganda. The evidence points to something much more interesting.
Ramesses II was unquestionably a formidable military ruler. His reign witnessed repeated campaigns in the Levant, and after the Battle of Kadesh he did not abandon Egypt’s ambitions in Syria. On the contrary, the campaigns that followed demonstrate a sustained effort to restore Egyptian influence, recover strategic positions, suppress rebellions, and re-establish Egypt’s military presence deep in the Levant.
What changed was not necessarily Ramesses’ determination to use military force, but the strategic reality in which he was operating. Kadesh had demonstrated the existence of a powerful Hittite rival capable of challenging Egypt in northern Syria. Ramesses therefore had to confront a fundamental problem: Egypt could project military power over considerable distances, but maintaining durable control over territories so far from the Egyptian heartland was much more difficult.
The later campaigns are particularly revealing in this respect. Ramesses was capable of advancing deep into northern Syria and attacking strategically important fortified positions such as Dapur and Tunip. These operations demonstrate the considerable reach of the Egyptian army. Yet the subsequent recovery of some of these positions by the Hittites after the withdrawal of the Egyptian army also reveals the limits of military occupation. Capturing a strategic position was one thing; transforming that victory into durable imperial control was another.
This distinction is essential. I would therefore not describe Ramesses II simply as a conqueror seeking unlimited territorial expansion. He was a ruler attempting to restore and secure Egypt’s strategic position in a highly competitive international environment. Military campaigns, the control of strategic corridors, the recovery of rebellious centres, and the projection of Egyptian power were all components of this strategy.
Diplomacy consequently became no less important than warfare. The eventual peace between Egypt and the Hittite Empire should not be interpreted simply as the abandonment of Egyptian ambitions. Rather, it represented a recognition that neither side could easily achieve decisive and permanent domination over the other. In this sense, military stalemate could become the basis for a new form of strategic equilibrium.
This also changes how we should understand Ramesses’ celebrated military image. His royal inscriptions understandably emphasize battlefield heroism and divine victory, but the historical Ramesses was more than the warrior king represented on temple walls. He was a ruler who had to adapt military ambitions to geography, logistics, political realities, and the strength of a rival empire.
So, is Ramesses II still defensible as one of Egypt’s greatest military kings? Absolutely—but I would define “greatness” differently. His achievement was not simply the number of cities he claimed to have conquered. It lay in his ability to mobilize Egypt’s military resources, project power across enormous distances, repeatedly challenge a major imperial rival, recover strategic ground after setbacks, and ultimately combine warfare with diplomacy and strategic containment.
The archaeological and textual evidence therefore gives us a more complex picture: Ramesses II was neither the invincible conqueror of royal propaganda nor merely the propagandistic king of modern skepticism. He was a highly capable imperial ruler operating within the real strategic limits of Late Bronze Age power.
How should Ramesses II’s campaign against the Libyans be reassessed in light of the available textual and archaeological evidence?
Ramesses II’s war against the Libyans deserves a more substantial reassessment than it has sometimes received. I have addressed this question specifically in my study, “The Libyan War of Ramesses II”, published in 2023 in Perspectives on the Ramesside Military System volume, and I have further developed and contextualized the evidence in my forthcoming book, War in the Age of Ramesses.
One of the main conclusions emerging from this research is that the Libyan conflict should not be understood simply as a series of punitive expeditions against foreign tribes. Rather, it formed part of a broader Egyptian strategy for securing and managing the western frontier.
The archaeological evidence is particularly important in this respect. Ramesses II established a chain of military forts or staging posts along the western coastal route extending from the western edge of the Delta toward Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham, near the modern Libyan frontier. Evidence from sites such as El-Gharbaniyat, El-Alamein, and Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham suggests that these installations were elements of a much wider military network.
Their strategic function appears to have extended beyond direct combat. They could monitor movements along the frontier, communicate information rapidly to the Egyptian administration, and facilitate the rapid deployment of troops if a serious threat emerged. In this sense, Egypt was not simply reacting to Libyan attacks; it was attempting to create a permanent system of surveillance, communication, and military response.
Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham was not merely a fortress. Its enclosure wall, temple, magazines, and domestic areas show that it functioned as a settlement as well as a military installation. Its archaeological remains also suggest that Egyptian frontier control depended, at least to some extent, on interaction and cooperation with local communities and on local production of food and other necessities.
The textual evidence reinforces this archaeological picture. References to Ramesses II’s Libyan war occur in his Nubian temples of Abu Simbel and Beit el-Wali, as well as in the Tanis Stela, the Aswan Stela of Year 2, and Papyrus Anastasi II. The reality of the Libyan war of Ramesses II is confirmed archaeologically in his forts at the Libyan frontier, based upon the inscriptions and reliefs which recorded his victory over the Libyans on a doorjamb, and some royal and private stelae discovered in the forts at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham and El-Alamein. The owner of one of these private stelae from Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham was a military officer; this could indicate that he may have participated personally in this war. This convergence between the textual record and the archaeological landscape provides an important basis for treating the Libyan war as a historical event rather than simply as a conventional royal representation of victory.
There is another aspect that I consider particularly significant: the treatment of Libyan prisoners after the conflict. Evidence from Ramesses II’s reign indicates that Libyan captives could be incorporated into Egyptian military service. This should be considered within the broader Ramesside practice of incorporating defeated foreign warriors into the Egyptian army, as occurred, for example, with the Sherden.
This suggests that the outcome of warfare could extend beyond the defeat of an enemy. Military victory could also create new forms of imperial integration, in which foreign populations or warriors were transformed from enemies into resources of the Egyptian state.
The Libyan frontier therefore provides an important case study for understanding Ramesside imperial power. Egypt’s objective was not simply to conquer territory in the modern sense. It was to monitor a dynamic frontier, contain potential threats, secure the approaches to the Delta, maintain military mobility, and, when possible, incorporate defeated populations into the imperial system.
This perspective also helps us place the Libyan war of Ramesses II within the longer development of Ramesside military history. The increasingly serious Libyan confrontations under Merenptah and Ramesses III did not emerge in isolation; they developed against the background of a western frontier that had already become an important component of Egyptian military strategy.
My research therefore suggests that the Libyan war reveals a dimension of Ramesside imperialism that deserves greater attention. Egypt was not merely an empire projecting military power outward. It was also a state that had to defend, organize, and continually manage the frontiers upon which its imperial security depended.
Finally, Dr Rafaat Abbas, could you give us a preview of your forthcoming book War in the Age of Ramesses: Campaigns, Strategy, and Empire in Late Bronze Age Egypt? Without revealing anything you would prefer to keep for the publication, are there any new archaeological discoveries, unpublished evidence, reinterpretations, or conclusions in the book that you think could significantly change how we understand Late Bronze Age Egypt?
War in the Age of Ramesses: Campaigns, Strategy, and Empire in Late Bronze Age Egypt is, above all, an attempt to reconsider Ramesside military history as a coherent historical system rather than simply as a succession of royal campaigns and victories.
The Ramesside Period was one of the most powerful phases of Egyptian imperial expansion. From Nubia to Canaan and southern Syria, Egypt projected military power over an enormous geographical area, confronting major rivals such as the Hittites, as well as Libyan groups and, later, the Sea Peoples. These conflicts were not isolated episodes. They were part of a broader process through which Egypt sought to maintain imperial authority, secure its frontiers, control strategic territories and routes, and respond to a rapidly changing international environment. The conflicts with the Hittites, Libyans, and the Sea Peoples not only defined Egypt’s political trajectory but also reshaped the geopolitical landscape of the Late Bronze Age Near East.
One of the main aims of the book is therefore to move beyond the traditional focus on royal victories and to examine the operational reality of warfare. I look not only at the campaigns of Sety I, Ramesses II, Merenptah, and Ramesses III, but also at how the Egyptian army was organized, how it moved, how it was supplied, and how military operations were sustained over great distances. Logistics, military infrastructure, strategic geography, and the organization of forces are consequently treated as essential components of the history of Ramesside warfare rather than as secondary details.
Another important aspect of the book is its attempt to reassess Ramesside military strategy. The great campaigns of the period cannot be properly understood simply by asking who won or lost individual battles. We also need to examine why particular targets were chosen, how Egyptian armies moved through different geographical environments, how strategic corridors were secured, and how battlefield success was translated—or sometimes failed to be translated—into durable imperial control.
This is particularly important in the case of Ramesses II and his confrontation with the Hittite Empire. Kadesh was not an isolated military episode; it was part of a much larger struggle over the political and strategic balance of the Late Bronze Age Near East. Similarly, the campaigns of Merenptah and Ramesses III demonstrate that Egyptian military strategy evolved in response to changing threats, from traditional frontier warfare to the large-scale movements and invasions associated with the Libyans and the Sea Peoples.
I would therefore hesitate to claim that the book presents a single spectacular “new discovery” that overturns everything we previously knew. Its contribution is more fundamental. It lies in bringing different categories of evidence together and using them to reinterpret the organization, strategy, logistics, and imperial consequences of Ramesside warfare. In several cases, this approach also leads to a reassessment of how particular campaigns and military developments have traditionally been understood.
One of the broader conclusions I hope to demonstrate is that Egyptian imperial power was not based on battlefield victories alone. It depended upon the ability to mobilize resources, sustain armies, control strategic routes, maintain military installations, manage frontiers, and combine military force with political and diplomatic strategies.
In this sense, the book is ultimately not only about wars. It is about how an ancient state transformed military capability into imperial power—and about the limits of that transformation.
I have also tried to make the geographical and operational dimensions of these conflicts accessible through detailed maps, figures, and diagrams, allowing readers to visualize troop movements, battlefields, strategic routes, and the wider geography in which these wars took place.
So, if there is one idea I would like readers to take from War in the Age of Ramesses, it is that Ramesside warfare should not be viewed simply through the heroic image of the warrior pharaoh. Behind that image stood a sophisticated military and administrative system involving organization, logistics, strategy, infrastructure, diplomacy, and imperial management. Understanding that system, I believe, gives us a much more complete picture of how Egypt functioned as a major imperial power in the Late Bronze Age.
Who is the interviewee
Dr Mohamed Raafat Abbas is an Egyptologist, archaeologist, and ancient historian specializing in the military and imperial history of ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom (c. 1550–1069 BC), with a particular focus on Ramesside imperialism, foreign relations, and Biblical archaeology. He has published numerous articles and monographs, most recently co-editing Perspectives on the Ramesside Military System: Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the Institute for Egyptology and Coptology of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 10–11 December 2021, Ägypten und Altes Testament 121 (eds., Mohamed Raafat Abbas and Friedhelm Hoffmann), Münster: Zaphon, 2023.
In recognition of his scholarly contributions, Dr. Abbas received the Best Book Prize in the humanities at the Cairo International Book Fair (2017) and the prestigious Award of Professor Gaballa Ali Gaballa from the General Union of Arab Archaeologists (GUAA) in 2024 for outstanding research on the archaeology and history of ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom.
Since 2003, he has participated in excavations and archaeological projects across Egypt as an inspector of Egyptian antiquities and, from 2014 onward, has collaborated with the French-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Temples of Karnak (CFEETK) on the Global Index Project of Karnak Temples Inscriptions. He currently serves as Director-General at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt.
Dr Abbas has co-organized two international conferences at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich—Perspectives on the Ramesside Military System (2021) and Aspects and Impacts of Ramesside Imperialism in the Levant and Nubia (2025)—bringing together leading Egyptologists, archaeologists, and historians to advance the study of Ramesside military history and imperialism.
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