Given the situation after the battle of Kadesh, ‘Hattusilis evaluated the condition of his empire and… he became increasingly friendly with Egypt. In the twenty-first year of Ramesses’ reign, ca. 1259, Hattusilis and Ramesses created a diplomatic treaty, the first document of its kind. Hattusilis sealed this deal by marrying his daughter to Ramesses’ (http://www.allaboutturkey.com/kades.htm).
This diplomatic treaty between Hattusilis III, of Hittites, and Ramesses II, of Egypt, is known as the Treaty of Kadesh. It is argued that its contents can be roughly summarised in a couple of following points:
a) Mutual military assistance: ‘If domestic or foreign enemies marches against one of these two countries and if they ask help from each other, both parties will send their troops and chariots in order to help. If a nobleman flees from Hatti and seeks refuge in Egypt, the king of Egypt will catch him and send back to his country’ (http://www.istanbularkeoloji.gov.tr/web/30-125-1-1/muze_-_en/collections/ancient_orient_museum_artifacts/treaty_of_kadesh).b) Mutual extradition: ‘If people flee from Egypt to Hatti or from Hatti to Egypt, those will be sent back. However, they will not be punished severely, they will not shed tears and their wives and children will not be punished in revenge (ibid).
In addition, due to the troublesome situation of the Hittite empire, the treaty also made sure of Egypt’s support for the ‘Security in the problem of Hattusilis’ succession’ (http://www.allaboutturkey.com/kades.htm).
The contents of the Treaty had been known through a text ‘carved on a stele in the Egyptian Tempel of Karnak in Egyptian hieroglyphs’ (http://www.istanbularkeoloji.gov.tr/web/30-125-1-1/muze_-_en/collections/ancient_orient_museum_artifacts/treaty_of_kadesh) until the discovery of a clay tablet at Boğazköy in 1906. The tablet was written ‘in Akkadian, then the language of diplomacy’ (ibid) and it ‘had many missing pieces and contained only about half of the text. During later excavations, four pieces belonging to the main text were found and the missing parts were completed’ (ibid).
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| The Treaty of Kadesh |
Due to the fact that ‘it is the first written peace treaty in the history, a 2-meter long copper copy of the original tablet’ (ibid) is hanged on a wall of ‘the United Nations building in New York, demonstrating to modern statesmen that international treaties are a tradition going back to the earliest civilizations’ (http://www.allaboutturkey.com/kades.htm).
For reading the full text: http://wrex2009.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/the-battle-and-the-treaty-of-kadesh/
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