Battle of Megiddo (15th century BCE)

In the 15th century BC the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III marched into Canaan to crush a revolt of local rulers headed by the king of Kadesh, and routed their combined army outside the fortified city of Megiddo. It is the earliest battle known in reasonably trustworthy detail, thanks to an Egyptian record carved at Karnak. The victory, and the long siege that followed, reasserted Egyptian control of the Levant and opened the period in which the New Kingdom of Egypt reached its widest extent.

Thutmose III spent the early part of his reign under the regency of Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt as pharaoh. As soon as he governed alone, he faced a rising among Egypt's vassal cities in the Levant. The ringleader was the king of Kadesh, in what is now Syria, and he was joined by the ruler of Megiddo. The rebels are thought to have had backing from the kingdom of Mitanni and from the Amurru. Megiddo mattered because it overlooked the Jezreel Valley and the coastal trade road linking Egypt with Mesopotamia.

The Egyptian army gathered at the border fortress of Tjaru, reached the loyal city of Gaza ten days later and pushed north to Yehem. The Egyptian account puts the king's force at somewhere between ten and twenty thousand chariot troops and infantry; modern estimates suggest that each side had roughly 10,000 foot soldiers and perhaps 1,000 chariots, though all such figures are uncertain.

From Yehem, three routes crossed the Carmel ridge. Two were longer but safer; the third ran through the narrow Aruna pass, where the army would have to move in single file. According to the annals, the king's officers begged him to avoid it. Thutmose reasoned that his enemies would expect the cautious choice, led the column through the pass himself, and emerged into the valley without serious opposition, while the coalition's troops waited on the other roads.

After camping for the night, the Egyptians deployed close to the enemy and attacked at dawn, with the pharaoh in the centre and wings threatening both flanks. The coalition line gave way almost at once, and the survivors ran for Megiddo, whose defenders hauled them over the walls on knotted clothing. The Egyptians lost the chance of taking the city immediately because they stopped to loot the abandoned camp.

Thutmose then surrounded Megiddo with a ditch and a timber palisade. After about seven months the city surrendered, although the king of Kadesh got away. The annals list the plunder in detail, including hundreds of chariots, thousands of horses and cattle, and the king of Megiddo's own chariot and armour. The inhabitants were spared.

Everything known about the battle comes from the Egyptian side. During the campaign the scribe Tjaneni kept a daily journal, and about twenty years later the king had a version of it inscribed on the walls of the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, in Thebes. The date it gives, in the king's 23rd regnal year, is often converted to 16 April 1457 BC, but other chronologies place the battle in 1479 or 1482 BC.

Megiddo was only the first of many campaigns; Thutmose returned to the Levant almost every year to complete its pacification. Defeated rulers had to send their sons to be raised at the Egyptian court, so that they would return home loyal to Egypt. The annals also record gifts arriving from powers such as Babylonia and the Hittites, a sign of Egypt's new standing. The city's name survives in the word Armageddon.

Our 1500 BCE map shows the New Kingdom at about the time of Thutmose III's campaigns, with its northern rivals. For the land today, see Egypt.