Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / The Libyans: Ramses II's Other War and the Rise of the Meshwesh
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've spent a lot of time on Ramses the Great's eastern frontier — the Hittites, Kadesh, all that drama. But there was another front that kept the king busy, one that would eventually have even bigger consequences for Egypt: the west. Luna: The west — you mean the Libyan tribes? Lucas: Exactly. The Libyans — specifically groups like the Meshwesh and the Libu — had been a nuisance on Egypt's border for centuries. But under Ramses II, the raids became something more organised. By his second decade on the throne, around the 1260s BCE, the attacks had escalated into full-scale invasions of the Nile Delta. Lucas: Now, Ramses wasn't about to let that slide. He launched three major campaigns into Libya, and we have the records — both from inscriptions at Karnak and from his new capital, Per-Ramesses — that detail the fighting. The Libyans weren't just nomadic herders; they had war chariots and bronze weapons, and they were coming in force. Luna: Wait — war chariots? I thought chariots were an Egyptian and Hittite thing. Lucas: It's a good catch. The Libyans had adopted chariot technology, likely through contact with Egypt's own armies or through the Sea Peoples' networks. In fact, one of the interesting details is that Ramses's own army included Sherden mercenaries — those Sea Peoples we've mentioned before — fighting alongside Egyptians against the Libyans. So the battlefield was a real mix of cultures. Lucas: The main confrontation is sometimes called the Battle of Per-Ramesses, because the Libyans got as far as the outskirts of the capital itself. Ramses led his troops out in person, and the reliefs at Karnak show him smiting Libyan chiefs. But the real story is in what happened afterward. Luna: What did he do — deport them? Lucas: Not exactly. Ramses took a pragmatic approach. He defeated the invading armies, killed their leaders, and marched into their territory to secure the borders. But instead of just killing or expelling the survivors, he brought many of them back to Egypt as prisoners — and then settled them in military colonies, especially in the Delta. These were not slaves; they were given land and integrated into the Egyptian army as auxiliaries. Lucas: It seemed like a smart policy at the time. The Libyans were tough fighters, and having them as mercenaries bolstered Egypt's defenses. But over the next couple of centuries, that policy backfired spectacularly. The Libyan population in the Delta grew, they maintained their own tribal structures, and eventually they became powerful enough to challenge the pharaohs. Luna: So Ramses's solution ended up creating the problem? Lucas: In a way, yes. By the end of the 20th Dynasty, about a hundred and fifty years after Ramses II, Libyan chiefs effectively controlled much of the Delta. And by the 22nd Dynasty, around 950 BCE, a Libyan king named Shoshenq I actually became pharaoh — founding a whole dynasty of Libyan rulers. Ramses's pragmatic settlement of the Meshwesh and Libu planted the seeds for that shift. Lucas: But let's not jump too far ahead. During Ramses's own reign, these campaigns were a clear success. He built fortresses along the western border, established a line of watchtowers, and the Libyan incursions stopped for a generation. The inscriptions boast of taking thousands of prisoners and vast herds of cattle and sheep. Luna: Did the Libyans have any gods that the Egyptians encountered? Lucas: Yes, actually. The Libyans worshipped a god named Ash, who appears in Egyptian texts as a deity of the western desert — often depicted as a human-headed figure or a lion. The Egyptians sometimes identified him with Seth, the god of chaos and foreigners. There was also a goddess associated with the Libyans, sometimes called 'the Libyan goddess,' but she's not well documented. In the Egyptian reliefs, you see the Libyans wearing distinctive feathered headdresses and carrying long spears and curved daggers. Lucas: One more thing: the Karnak reliefs of the Libyan war are fascinating because they show Ramses not just as a warrior but as a priest. In one scene, he's presenting Libyan captives to the god Amun-Re, dedicating them as offerings. It's a very deliberate message: the pharaoh is both the defender of Egypt and the intermediary with the gods. Luna: So he's using the war to reinforce his divine role. Lucas: Exactly. And the inscriptions make a point of saying that the Libyans were 'ignorant of Egypt' and that Ramses 'gave them the breath of life' by allowing them to settle — a kind of benevolent conquest narrative. In reality, he was solving a demographic problem: the Delta needed settlers and soldiers, and the Libyans provided both. Lucas: There's also a curious detail about Ramses's personal involvement. One text records that the king himself shot arrows into the Libyan leader during the battle — a claim that echoes the Kadesh narrative. Whether it's literally true or a trope, it shows how Ramses wanted to be seen as the hands-on warrior pharaoh, not just a distant administrator. Luna: What happened to the Libyan leaders who were captured? Lucas: Some were executed, but the ones who surrendered were likely integrated. There's evidence that Libyan chiefs were given Egyptian names and positions in the army. One of them, a man named Meryre, appears in later records as a high-ranking official. So Ramses knew how to turn enemies into assets — it's the same diplomatic savvy he showed with the Hittites. Lucas: But unlike the Hittite peace treaty, the Libyan settlement wasn't a treaty between equals. It was a subjugation. The Libyans were absorbed into the Egyptian state, but they kept their tribal identity. And when central power weakened, those tribes became the power brokers. In a way, Ramses's western wars set the stage for the 'Libyan era' of Egyptian history. Luna: So the Libyans weren't just a footnote — they're a big part of the long-term story. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a story that starts with Ramses's campaigns in the Delta. We often focus on his monuments and his eastern diplomacy, but his handling of the Libyan threat was just as consequential. The next time you see a relief of Ramses smiting a Libyan chief, remember: those prisoners would become the future pharaohs of Egypt.