Changes

The battle scene accurately depicted the use of chariot corps by both the Hittite and Egyptian armies, but erroneously depicted cavalry attacks. Cavalry was not fully developed until the Iron Age by the Assyrians for a number of reasons, the most important being that horses were too small in the Bronze Age. Horses were sometimes ridden for reconnaissance or to deliver messages, but they were only utilized with chariots in battle during the Bronze Age. <ref> Drews, Robert. <i>The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 120 BC.</i> (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1993), p. 251</ref>

The film’s depiction of slavery in New Kingdom Egypt is also somewhat complex and problematic. There were a number of “Asiatics” as the Egyptians called them (people from the Levant, such as the Hebrews) living in Egypt during the New Kingdom, especially in the Delta, but it is difficult to call all of them slaves. Many were prisoners of war, some were dissidents and refugees, while others were merchants, and some were in fact slaves. <ref> Redford, Donald B. <i>Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times.</i> (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 221</ref> With that said, the form of slavery as it was depicted in the movie was more like “chattel” slavery that was common in the early modern Atlantic world. The Egyptians never practiced chattel slavery and Egyptians could be slaves as well as other non-Egyptian ethnicities. <ref> Shaw and Nicholson, p. 272</ref>