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Extracts from the Sallier Papyrus

THE prince of Kheta came with his archers and his horsemen well armed; every chariot bore three men. They had gathered together the swiftest warriors of those base Khetas, carefully armed and had placed themselves in ambush to • * See the Vicomte Em. de Rouge's Memoir on the Campaigns of Sesostris, Revue Contemporaine, August, 1856. † The reader will recognize these fragments by the mark which we have placed before and after them. • the northwest of the city of Atesh. They attacked the soldiers of the king when the sun, god of the two horizons, was at the middle of his course: the latter were on the march, and were not expecting an attack. The archers and the horsemen of his Majesty fell back before the enemy, who was master of Atesh on the left bank of the Aranta.

Then his Majesty, strong and sound in constitution, rising like the god Month, put on the panoply of battle: arrayed in his weapons he was like unto Baal in his hour. The mighty coursers of his Majesty (strength in Thebais was their name) came forth from the grand stables of the Sun, the lord of justice, Rameses Mei Amoun.* The king, rushing forth in his chariot, plunged into the ranks of the despicable Kheta: he was alone, no other near him. This onset his Majesty made in sight of his whole retinue. He found himself surrounded on all sides by two thousand five hundred swift chariots, manned by the bravest warriors of the pitiful Kheta and his numerous allies: Aradus, Masu, Patasa, Kashkash, Elon, Gazwatan, Khirab, Aktar, Atesh and Raka. Each of * The Louvre Museum (Historical Hall, case G) possesses a golden ring of singular shape, representing, on its collet, two tiny horses in relief. It may be that in them we behold a souvenir of the two steeds of Rameses II., who consecrated them to the Sun on his first return from Egypt, their chariots bore three men and the king had with him neither his princes, nor his generals, nor the captains of the archers or of the chariots.