The Battle of Megiddo
The first battle in history recorded in reliable detail, down to the plunder.
- When
- Known to
- ± 10 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Thutmose III defeats a coalition of Canaanite states at Megiddo around 1457 BCE, and his scribe Tjaneni records the campaign on the walls of Karnak — the march, the choice of a dangerous narrow route through the hills against his officers' advice, the deployment, the rout, and a seven-month siege caused by his troops stopping to loot. It is the earliest battle for which the tactics, numbers and outcome are known from a contemporary account.