The Logic Off Topic list

Hi WIlson,

Thanks for your post. I had originally decided to say nothing further on 
this matter ... but ...

Regarding Hatshepshut -- what Bob Brier had to say is still regarded as 
unsettled and is still being debated by Egyptologists. Therefore, and in 
order to keep an already long post shorter, I decided to omit discussion of 
her 'true' role.

On a personal level, though, I must say that I side with the more feminist 
interpretations of history which basically make the point that if both a 
man and a woman do something and the man can avoid giving the woman proper 
credit then that is what he will do! I therefore belong to the group of 
those who say that Hatshepshut, along with many other powerful women in 
history, has been given the short end of the stick by the men who 
accompanied and followed her!! As you say, however, Hetshepshut's 'real' 
role can be nothing but speculation at this point ... although people are 
digging away hard to get more information.


Regarding Kadesh and Megiddo -- you point about Kadesh is well taken. 
However ... the page you gave a link to, when discussing Kadesh itself 
admits the following:

"The battle of Kadesh was not a battle in the strict sense of the word, but 
only the preparation for the decisive battle which never took place".

It also further says:
"...  Nevertheless, Muwatalli was able to rob his opponent (Rameses) of the 
initiative and to eliminate about a third of his troops".
"The failure of Rameses' campaign was a result of his tactical mistakes ... 
Still, the king blamed his troops"
"Rameses described the campaign as a splendid victory, while in reality 
Kadesh remained in Hittite hands, Amurru fell to the Hittites and the 
Egyptian losses were substantial."

In the first place, therefore, even though it was far from being a victory, 
Rameses (and his immediate successors) talked Kadesh up to be something far 
bigger and far more glorious to them than it actually was.

But ... the central issue here is not so much about who won, but about 
whether or not it really was a 'battle'. This boils down to what one 
considers a 'battle', in the strict military sense, to be.

>Just a nit-pick - the numbers of soldiers is often debated because we only
>know that the historians of those times exaggerated, for political as well
>as story-telling reasons.  But as I recall there's pretty good evidence that
>it was qtuie a sizable army from surviving records of what it took to feed
>them and such.

Yes ... human beings did fight each other long before Megiddo ... and also 
long before Kadesh. The problem here is that if Kadesh is to be included in 
the definition of 'battle', then there are in fact several other ... 
'confrontations?' .. for which strong arguments could be made. It is not 
really anything to do with the size of the army for it takes a bit more 
than lots of people to make something a 'battle'. This requires a far more 
tactical and strategic perspective upon what is happening. Once again ... 
since I did not want to debate those kinds of issues in an already lengthy 
post, I again felt it best to stick to the stricter, more military, and 
also more accepted interpretation of the word 'battle' ... and this, by 
common consensus amongst military historians has Megiddo as the first 
'real' battle in history.

Thank you very much for the link, though, and for the site, which I did not 
know about.

Kool Musick
Keep Musick Kool


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