The King of Kadesh knew that he had gambled both his position and his life. Not only had he instigated a revolt against the Egyptian pharaoh, Thutmosis III, but he had also allied with Egypt’s enemy, the kingdom of Mitanni. More perilous still, he had left the safety of his own T stronghold in Syria.
In the spring of 1457 BC, the king had led an army south to the fortress city of Megiddo on the outskirts of the Jezreel Valley in what is now northern Israel. And there he formed an alliance with the prince of Megiddo, another disgruntled vassal of the Egyptian empire. Their combined Canaanite army numbered perhaps 20,000 soldiers.
The rebel commanders were confident in victory. Their scouts had informed them that Thutmosis had left Egypt at the head of an army not much larger than their own. And they had a trump card: the city of Megiddo itself. This heavily defended settlement at the foot of Mount Carmel controlled the vital trade route that ran from Egypt along the Mediterranean coast towards the cities of Tyre and Byblos.
The rebels knew that Thutmosis, desperate to put down their uprising before it gathered an unstoppable momentum, would launch an
