A quick look at: smiting scenes in ancient Egyptian art. Why are they significant?
Both of the shown examples above are of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. The first shows Ramesses smiting the enemies of Egypt before Amon-Re, who hands him a curved sword; the second image shows him smiting Canaanite enemies.
The smiting scene is a traditional symbol of kingship in ancient Egypt, which is datable back to the Predynastic period, and is symbolic of a victorious king. These scenes include the king raising a weapon over the head of an enemy (or a large groups of them as shown in the first photo), ready to smite them. Their hair is often grabbed from above to hold them in place for their execution. These representations grew to also include lists of the conquered enemies, and reached their peak in the New Kingdom, where the inclusion of an anthropomorphic deity became standard (photo one).
These scenes reinforced the king’s control over chaos, symbolically representing the bringing of justice (maat) to the defeated, chaotic enemy.
A few other examples:
- One of the earliest examples, the ivory label of King Den, which was found in his tomb in Abydos, and dates to 3000 BCE. Den is shown to be striking down an Asiatic tribesman, with an inscription reading: ”The first occasion of smiting the East”. This artifact is currently at the British Museum.
- Thutmose III at Karnak, presenting the Battle of Megiddo of the 15th century BCE. Here Thutmose III is shown to be smiting Canaanite enemies.
The first photo is courtesy of Kenzyb, and the second, arancidamoeba. S. Bar, D. Kahn & J.J. Shirley’s publication Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature: Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa (2011) was of use when writing up this post.
