d other explanatory inscriptions.
Kadesh, however, was not captured, and after further contests, in his
twenty-first year Rameses and the Hittite king Khattusil (Kheta-sar)
made peace, with a defensive alliance against foreign aggression and
internal revolt (see HITTITES). Thanks to Winckler's discoveries, the
cuneiform text of this treaty from Boghaz Keui can now be compared with
the hieroglyphic text at Karnak. In the thirty-fourth year, c. 1250
B.C., Khattusil with his friend or subject the king of Kode came from
his distant capital to see the wonders of Egypt in person, bringing one
of his daughters to be wife of the splendid Pharaoh. Rameses II. paid
much attention to the Delta, which had been neglected until the days of
Seti I., and resided there constantly; the temple of Tanis must have
been greatly enlarged and adorned by him; a colossus of the king placed
here was over 90 ft. in height, exceeding in scale even the greatest of
the Theban colossi which he had erected in his mortuary temple of the
Ramesseum. Towards the end of the long reign the vigilance and energy of
the old king diminished. The military spirit awakened in the struggle
with the Hyksos had again departed from the Egyptian nation; mercenaries
from the Sudan, from Libya and from the northern nations supplied the
armies, while foreigners settled in the rich lands of the Delta and
harried the coasts. It was a time too when the movements of the nations
that so frequently occurred in the ancient world were about to be
particularly active. Mineptah, c. 1225 B.C., succeeding his father
Rameses II., had to fight many battles for the preservation of his
kingdom and empire. Apparently most of the fighting was finished by the
fifth year of his reign; in his mortuary temple at Thebes he set up a
stela of that date recording a great victory over the Libyan immigrants
and invaders, which rendered the much harried land of Egypt safe. The
last lines picture this condition with the crushing of the surrounding
tribes. Libya was wasted, the Hittites pacified, Canaan, Ashkelon
(Ascalon), Gezer, Yenoam sacked and plundered: "Israel is desolated, his
seed is not, Khor (Palestine) has become a widow (without protector) for
Egypt." The Libyans are accompanied by allies whose names, Sherden,
Shekelesh, Ekwesh, Lukku, Teresh, suggest identifications with
Sardinians, Sicels, Achaeans, Lycians and Tyrseni or Etruscans. The
Sherden had been in the armies of Rameses II., and are