"Even before the invention of writing, ancient Egyptian rulers were keen to record their military victories for posterity. An incised tableau, carved into a rock alongside a desert route behind Thebes, seems to record the earliest known historical event: a battle between two competing rulers in the second half of the fourth millennium BC, part of the long process of political and territorial consolidation that led to the foundation of the Egyptian state. The monument that signals the moment of foundation , the Narmer Palette, likewise shows a scene of military victory, this time with the addition of brief hieroglyphic labels to identify the main actors. Egyptian kings were quick to realize the value of writing for propaganda purposes, so the battle narrative--whether long or short, whether recording a civil war...or a foreign campaign...--became firmly established as a major genre of Egyptian writing from the earliest times."
P.45, "Battle Narratives," WRITINGS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT (2016) translation by Toby Wilkinson
