Battle of The Delta - The Battle

The Battle

After defeating the Sea Peoples on land in Syria, Ramesses rushed back to Egypt where preparations for the invaders assault had already been completed. According to the Medinet Habu inscriprions, Ramesses looked at the sea, he stared at a force of thousands of enemies, and possibly the end of the Egyptian empire. Ramesses lined the shores of the Nile Delta with ranks of archers who were ready to release volleys of arrows into the enemy ships if they attempted to land. Knowing that he would be defeated in the battle at sea, Ramesses enticed the Sea Peoples and their ships into the mouth of the Nile, where he had assembled a fleet in ambush. This Egyptian fleet worked the Sea Peoples' boats towards shore. Then archers both on land and on the ships devastated the enemy. The Sea People's ships were overturned, many were killed and captured and some even dragged to the shore where they were killed. In the inscriptions, Ramesses proclaims:

"Those who reached my boundary, their seed is not; their hearts and their souls are finished forever and ever. As for those who had assembled before them on the sea, the full flame was their front before the harbour mouths, and a wall of metal upon the shore surrounded them. They were dragged, overturned, and laid low upon the beach; slain and made heaps from stern to bow of their galleys, while all their things were cast upon the water."