Egyptian-Hittite Peace Treaty (1259 BC): The Treaty of Kadesh

The Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty was a formal agreement concluded around 1259 BC between Pharaoh Ramesses II of Egypt and King Hattusili III of the Hittites. Often called the Treaty of Kadesh, it ended decades of war between the two greatest powers of the Late Bronze Age for control of Syria. Both the Egyptian and the Hittite versions survive, making it one of the best-documented international agreements of the ancient world.

Background: a long war over Syria

For most of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC, Egypt and the Hittite kingdom of Anatolia competed for the cities of Syria and Lebanon. The Hittites had won control of northern Syria under Suppiluliuma I, and successive pharaohs tried to win it back.

The rivalry peaked at the Battle of Kadesh around 1274 BC, when Ramesses II narrowly escaped a Hittite ambush. The battle was inconclusive, and campaigns continued for years without a decisive result.

Why peace became possible

By the 1260s BC both sides had good reasons to stop fighting. Assyria, under kings such as Shalmaneser I, was expanding westwards and had taken the former kingdom of Mitanni, bringing a new threat to the Hittite eastern frontier.

The Hittite throne was also insecure. Hattusili III had seized power from his nephew Urhi-Teshub (Mursili III), who then fled and eventually found refuge in Egypt. Hattusili needed international recognition and wanted Egypt to stop supporting his rival. Ramesses, for his part, could secure Egypt’s position in Canaan and boast that the Hittites had come asking for peace.

Making the treaty

According to the Egyptian version, Hittite envoys arrived at Ramesses’ Delta capital, Pi-Ramesses, in year 21 of his reign, in the first month of the winter season, carrying the text of the treaty on a tablet of silver. The date corresponds to about November or December 1259 BC, although some scholars place it a year or two differently.

The text was not written in a single meeting. Envoys travelled back and forth between the courts, and each side drafted its own version of the agreed terms, which was then sent to the other king for approval. The Hittite version speaks in the voice of Hattusili, while the Egyptian one presents Ramesses as the ruler who accepted the request for peace.

The original silver tablets are lost. Each was inscribed in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the time, and bore the seals of the rulers and of the gods. The Egyptian account describes the seals of the Hittite storm god and of the sun goddess of Arinna, together with Hattusili and Queen Puduhepa.

Terms of the treaty

The two versions are very close in substance, though each presents its own king favourably. Their main provisions include:

• Eternal peace and brotherhood: the kings and their descendants were to remain at peace forever, as brothers.
• Non-aggression: neither king would invade the other’s land or take territory from it.
• Mutual defence: each would send troops if the other was attacked by a foreign enemy or faced a rebellion by his own subjects.
• Return of fugitives: people who fled from one land to the other, whether nobles or ordinary people, were to be sent back. Unusually, the returned fugitives were not to be punished, nor their families harmed.
• Succession: Egypt promised to support the Hittite king’s chosen heir, a clause reflecting Hattusili’s worry about Urhi-Teshub.

The treaty ends with lists of the “thousand gods” of Hatti and Egypt called as witnesses, with curses on anyone who broke it and blessings on those who kept it. The boundary between the two empires is not described, which suggests both sides accepted the existing frontier in Syria.

The surviving versions

The Egyptian version, in hieroglyphs, was carved on a wall of the great temple of Amun at Karnak and at the Ramesseum, Ramesses’ mortuary temple at Thebes. It was studied by Egyptologists from the nineteenth century onwards.

The Hittite version, in Akkadian cuneiform, was found on clay tablets at Boğazköy, the site of the Hittite capital Hattusa, in excavations led by Hugo Winckler from 1906. Scholars soon realised that these tablets matched the Egyptian text. The main fragments are held in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, with another fragment in Berlin.

Because the Egyptian text is a translation of the Hittite draft and the Hittite tablets copy the version sent from Egypt, comparing them shows how ancient scribes adapted diplomatic language for each court.

Key people

Ramesses II (reigned c. 1279-1213 BC) was the third king of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty. He had fought the Hittites as a young king, and in the treaty he appears as a generous ruler who grants peace to a former enemy.

Hattusili III (reigned c. 1267-1237 BC) was a younger son of the Hittite king Mursili II. He had served as a general and governor in the north of the kingdom before taking the throne from his nephew. A long text known as his Apology justifies this seizure of power, and the treaty helped to confirm his legitimacy abroad.

Puduhepa was Hattusili’s queen, originally a priestess from Kizzuwatna in south-eastern Anatolia. She played an unusually active role in government and diplomacy, used her own seal on state documents and wrote directly to Ramesses, especially during the negotiations over her daughter’s marriage.

Urhi-Teshub (Mursili III), the deposed Hittite king, was the political problem behind several clauses. His flight to Egypt made the return of fugitives and the succession guarantee matters of real importance to Hattusili.

Consequences

The peace held for the rest of the two empires’ existence. Ramesses, Hattusili and Queen Puduhepa exchanged many letters, preserved in the Hittite archives, discussing gifts, health, and the arrangement of a royal marriage.

In about year 34 of his reign, around 1245 BC, Ramesses married Hattusili’s eldest daughter, who took the Egyptian name Maathorneferure. A second Hittite princess may later have joined his household. Trade and the exchange of doctors and craftsmen also continued. When famine struck Hatti in the late thirteenth century BC, Ramesses’ son Merneptah sent grain to the Hittites.

The peace lasted until the end of the Hittite kingdom, which collapsed in the early twelfth century BC during the Late Bronze Age collapse.

Myths and facts

Myth: it is the world’s first peace treaty. Older treaties are known, such as agreements between Ebla and other Syrian cities in the third millennium BC. What makes the Egyptian-Hittite treaty unique is that both sides’ versions survive.

Myth: it was signed after the Battle of Kadesh. The treaty came about 15 years after the battle, after a change of ruler in Hatti and a shift in the balance of power.

Timeline

• c. 1274 BC: Battle of Kadesh between Ramesses II and Muwatalli II.
• c. 1272 BC: Muwatalli II dies; Urhi-Teshub becomes king.
• c. 1267 BC: Hattusili III deposes Urhi-Teshub.
• c. 1259 BC: Hittite envoys bring the silver treaty tablet to Pi-Ramesses in year 21 of Ramesses II.
• c. 1245 BC: Ramesses II marries a daughter of Hattusili III.
• 1906: Hugo Winckler begins excavations at Boğazköy and finds the Hittite version.
• 1970: Turkey presents an enlarged replica of a treaty tablet to the United Nations.

Why it matters

The treaty shows that Bronze Age states practised sophisticated diplomacy, with formal terms on defence, refugees and succession. It turned bitter enemies into allies for the rest of their history, and it remains a touchstone for the long history of international law and peace-making.