As an internationally renowned Egyptian cultural beacon that disseminates culture, intellect, and art throughout the entire world, the BA is going to celebrate its 15th anniversary on 16 October 2017. Within the framework of this celebration, the BA Antiquities Museum is hosting a celebration entitled “Panorama of Egypt’s Military History”; an event venerating said distinguished history and timed to coincide with the October War victory celebrations that commemorate the courage, valor, and martyrdom of the Egyptian soldier.
This event will begin with a documentary on the famous Battle of Kadesh that took place in Kadesh, Syria between the Egyptian army led by Ramses II and the Hittites and their allies. The Battle of Kadesh is considered the grandest, largest, and most famous battle in ancient history. It is documented in numerous historical accounts, and it resembled a world war in which Egypt faced an unprecedented challenge manifested in facing not only the Hittites but also their allies in northern Syria and Asia Minor. Ramses II considered the Battle of Kadesh as the peak of his political and military reign. He thus immortalized such a momentous event by recording its events on the walls of a number of his temples in Karnak, Luxor, Ramesseum, Abydos, and Abu Simbel.
The documentary will be followed by a lecture entitled “The Great Battle of Kadesh” to be delivered by Dr. Mohamed Raafat Abbas, Director General of the Scientific Research Department (Ministry of Antiquities, Alexandria). The researcher will discuss the historical and war events that led to the eruption of the Battle of Kadesh between the Egyptian and Hittite empires in Syria, starting with the outbreak of the political and military conflict between both powers in the ancient Near East. He will also talk about the battle’s events, the subsequent military clashes fought by Ramses II in Syria and Canaan (Palestine), and the battle’s significant political and historical consequences that led to the world’s first recorded peace treaty signed by the Egyptians and the Hittities during the 21st year of the reign of Ramses II.
The celebrations will then resume with the screening of a documentary on Fort Tjaru (or Tharo), which was unearthed at Tell-Habwa—a site that once held the same name as Fort Tjaru—located three kilometers to the east of Suez Canal and to the northeast of el Qantara. This region was the eastern gateway of Egypt during the Pharaonic Period and was the army’s point of departure toward Asia during military conquests. The documentary will be followed by a lecture entitled “Discovering Egypt’s Eastern Gateway: Fort Tjaru” to be delivered by Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Maksoud, former Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector and former Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). The lecturer will discuss the general importance of Tjaru by tackling the archeological findings of various Egyptian and foreign excavation expeditions, which unearthed several military forts that date back to the New Kingdom, royal palaces from the reigns of Thutmose II and Ramses II, central storage, granaries, administrative buildings, various royal reliefs depicting pharaohs of the New Kingdom, and other buildings and graves from the reign of the Hyksos.