Image Details

Erich Lessing

The Narmer Palette boasts one of the earliest depictions of a king smiting his enemies. In the second and first millennia B.C., this image symbolized royal power throughout the eastern Mediterranean. On a wall of a temple to Amun at Medinet Habu, in Thebes, Pharaoh Ramesses III (1184–1153 B.C.) pummels an enemy.