Battle of Kadesh: Largest chariot battle ever!

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Somewhere in the chaos to your left, a chariot has lost a wheel and is cartwheeling apart in a spray of wood [music] and screaming horse and dying man. You do not look. You do not slow.

[00:00:11]The moment you [music] slow, you die.

[00:00:13]You are a soldier of Pharaoh Ramesses II, greater victories, [music] beloved of Amun, son of Ra. You are one of perhaps 20,000 men converging on a bend in the Orontes River in the land of Syria.

[00:00:27]The year is 1274 BC.

[00:00:31]The day is the 9th [music] of Epiphi in the fifth year of the reign of the greatest Pharaoh Egypt has ever known.

[00:00:39]Or so the monuments will one day [music] claim.

[00:00:42]The enemy ahead of you is the Hittite Empire.

[00:00:45]And they have an army twice the size of yours hiding behind that hill.

[00:00:49]And nobody told [music] Ramesses. This is the Battle of Kadesh, and it is about to become the most dramatic near catastrophe [music] in the history of ancient warfare.