Thursday, November 25, 2010

Pharaonic Propaganda

Propagandistic pictures of Ramesses fighting his opponents abound throughout his temples in Egypt. They adorn the walls inside the temple of Abu Simbel, and at the far end are statues of the gods Ptah, Khnum, Isis and...yes, Ramesses. You'd think four 50-foot-tall statues would have been enough, but no. Picturing yourself alongside the gods was also supposed to ensure your favor with them in the afterlife, since the Pharaoh was the earthly deputy of the gods, tasked with keeping order ("Ma'at", similar to Rta in the Vedas)on Earth and beating back the forces of chaos.

Chaos takes one of several forms:
1) Famine: the Nile doesn't flood at the right time or there are no rains, so farmers' crops are ruined and everyone starves
2) Sandstorms: generally not good
3) Enemies of Egypt: basically everyone who didn't conform to the Pharaoh's rule outside Egypt or believe in Egyptian gods (Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Libyan invaders, etc), therefore being a force of instability if an invasion took place. It was the Pharaoh's job to restore order in a war by prevailing against this force of chaos. If he didn't do this, he was a bad Pharaoh.

Here are a few examples of Pharaoh pleasing the gods by keeping Ma'at.






(Unfortunate victims)








You'll notice they're all in the same pose. This is an awesome pose.
Whether or not the king actually did this to his enemies rather than sitting around on his throne all day and eating falafel doesn't matter--it showed continuity between kings, and ensured their legitimacy.

Abu Simbel and other sites built by Ramesses generally include the story of the Battle of Kadesh, where Ramesses' expanding empire came into conflict with another expanding empire from Turkey, the Hittites. They met at the Orontes River in what is now Syria. There was a lot at stake in this battle; whoever won would basically win control of the entire east coast of the Mediterranean.
There are a lot of reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh at Abu Simbel, where Ramesses is depicted...


...on his chariot sharply shooting his Hittite enemies full of arrows...


...brilliantly braining them with his mace...


...or triumphantly trampling them underneath his feet, winning a decisive victory for Egypt and mercifully allowing the Hittites (what was left of them) to stay around.

If you're an Egyptian, this is all well and good--until you read any decent history book.

...Because the Egyptians didn't actually win.

Instead, the Battle of Kadesh ended in a stalemate where both sides signed a peace treaty.

So are Ramesses and all those other kings smashing, slashing and trampling their way to victory propagandistic liars? Yes, but for good reason. If you want to keep control of your population and minimize earthly chaos, you have to portray yourself as a winner all the time.

It's nice to know that in Egypt things haven't changed much since then.

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