The Battle of Megiddo, fought around 1457 BC, is the first battle in history recorded in detail. The pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a coalition of Canaanite rulers led by the king of Kadesh, and the victory made Egypt the dominant power in the Levant for generations.
The bold route
The enemy army waited near the city of Megiddo, in today’s northern Israel. Three roads led there. Thutmose’s generals urged him to take one of the wider, safer routes, but he chose the narrow Aruna pass, where his army had to march in single file. The gamble worked: the Egyptians came out of the pass unopposed and took the enemy by surprise.
The siege
The coalition broke and fled into Megiddo, but the Egyptian soldiers stopped to loot the enemy camp, which gave the defenders time to close the gates. Thutmose had to besiege the city for seven months before it surrendered.
How we know
The king’s scribe kept a daily journal of the campaign, and a summary was carved on the walls of Karnak Temple in Luxor, where you can still read it. The name Megiddo also gave rise, through Hebrew, to the word Armageddon. See Karnak on our Luxor tours.
