What is the earliest-referred to event?
- Thread starter RedRalph
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From my own sphere, the Battle and subsequent Siege of Megiddo (Thutmosis III and a bunch of lolgyptians rape a coalition of Canaanite hill warlords up the ass) is generally regarded as the first event in recorded military history to have been recorded in sufficient detail to provide a narrative. That was sometime between the 1480s and the 1450s BC.
RedRalph
Deity
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Is this literally what happened? Please tell me the first recorded event in history is not the mass-anal gangrape of some warlords...
No, the rape was a metaphor. The Egyptians basically outmaneuvered multiple armies in the king of Qadesh's coalition, then met the final army - of basically equal size - in front of Megiddo and drove it into the fortifications of the city. It's not clear whether the Egyptians won because they outflanked the Canaanites with a concave formation or simply outmassed their enemy at the critical points. At any rate, the coalition army was quickly driven into the fortress of Megiddo, which was besieged and captured. Apparently this more or less crushed the king of Qadesh's little group and reestablished Egyptian suzerainty in the region.
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
Because they were lolling their way to victory? *shrugs*
@Dachs: I can't name any specifics, but I thought that a number of other earlier Egyptian monuments also depicted/discussed other events such as military campaigns in detail, at least going all the way back to pretty much the first pharaohs?
I'm sure there are, but - and keep in mind that I have approximately zero experience on Egypt before Herodotos, and only slightly more before Ptolemaios Soter - it was only with the inscriptions detailing the battle of Megiddo that we actually get a narrative of something instead of bombastic, meaningless rhetoric and a contextless list of trophies.
General Pilates
Warlord
The Garden of Eden could be a memory of the transition into agriculture 
More seriously, I think the stele of the vultures provides enough of a narrative to be known as an event. However, there are earlier events referred to, I'm sure, I just can't think of many at the moment..
I would mention Menes/Narmer, but I think that there was no real lightning unification, and that the whole process was a longer transition into a single unified kingdom than claimed, and the whole Egyptian tendency of Egyptian tradition makes me think of it to be taken with a few hundred grains of salt.
More seriously, I think the stele of the vultures provides enough of a narrative to be known as an event. However, there are earlier events referred to, I'm sure, I just can't think of many at the moment..
I would mention Menes/Narmer, but I think that there was no real lightning unification, and that the whole process was a longer transition into a single unified kingdom than claimed, and the whole Egyptian tendency of Egyptian tradition makes me think of it to be taken with a few hundred grains of salt.
Regarding the original topic. I would say that the following events are the first true recorded events.
1) The unification of Egypt by king Narmer- although this event is still half mythological.
2) The first significant non-mythological event is probably the creation on the first empire in the world, the Akkadian empire of Sargon the great in 2334BC. The empire included Iraq, Syria, parts of Iran and Lebanon. That empire existed for about a century before disintegrating (it disintegrated because imperial administration didn't exist and it was a coalition of tributary city states held by a small centralized army). True empire building began with the Egypt new kingdom and matured during Neo-Assyrian empire when an Imperial administration based on governorates instead of tribute city states was set up.
3) The first battle described in detail (beyond the "great king X met the army of Y and put them to flight at Z") is probably the first battle of Megiddo at ~1457BC involving Egypt against a Mitanni led Canaanite coalition. The description is detailed enough that one can see the strategy employed and actually can try reconstructing the battle. In the battle the Egyptian king used the strategy of sudden approach through an unlikely road while the other army was divided and then destroyed it in parts.
1) The unification of Egypt by king Narmer- although this event is still half mythological.
2) The first significant non-mythological event is probably the creation on the first empire in the world, the Akkadian empire of Sargon the great in 2334BC. The empire included Iraq, Syria, parts of Iran and Lebanon. That empire existed for about a century before disintegrating (it disintegrated because imperial administration didn't exist and it was a coalition of tributary city states held by a small centralized army). True empire building began with the Egypt new kingdom and matured during Neo-Assyrian empire when an Imperial administration based on governorates instead of tribute city states was set up.
3) The first battle described in detail (beyond the "great king X met the army of Y and put them to flight at Z") is probably the first battle of Megiddo at ~1457BC involving Egypt against a Mitanni led Canaanite coalition. The description is detailed enough that one can see the strategy employed and actually can try reconstructing the battle. In the battle the Egyptian king used the strategy of sudden approach through an unlikely road while the other army was divided and then destroyed it in parts.
sydhe
King of Kongs
We know bits and pieces of the campaigns of Tao, Kamose and Ahmose I against the Hyksos, including Kamose's siege and Ahmose's capture of Avaris. Nothing like the detail of the Megiddo campaign.
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