Treaty of Kadesh

The Treaty of Kadesh is a peace agreement concluded between the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II and the Hittite King Hattusili III, typically dated to 1259 BC, in the twenty-first year of Ramesses' reign. It is one of the earliest peace treaties whose text survives, and is also known as the Egyptian-Hittite Peace Treaty or the Silver Treaty, because the original was inscribed on silver tablets.

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Historical Context

The Treaty of Kadesh followed the Battle of Kadesh of around 1274 BC, one of the largest chariot battles recorded in the ancient world, fought near Kadesh, a city on the Orontes River in Syria. Both the Egyptian and Hittite empires sought control over Syria, a region of significant strategic and economic value. Despite claims of victory by both sides, the battle ended in a stalemate, and some fifteen years of continued rivalry passed before the formal peace agreement.

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Content and Structure

The treaty is notable for its detailed clauses, which are considered a landmark in diplomatic history. Its main provisions include:

• Peace and brotherhood: The two kings declared lasting peace and "brotherhood" between their royal houses.

• Non-aggression: Each party renounced further military aggression against the other.

• Mutual defence: Each king undertook to assist the other against an external enemy or a rebellion by his own subjects.

• Extradition: Fugitives crossing from one land to the other were to be returned, with the provision that those returned were not to be punished.

• Divine witnesses: The gods of Hatti and of Egypt were invoked as witnesses, with curses pronounced on whoever broke the treaty and blessings on whoever kept it.

The treaty was drafted in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the time, and the Egyptian temple copies render its text in hieroglyphs.

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Archaeological Significance

The Treaty of Kadesh is an essential document for understanding ancient diplomacy and international relations. It survives in two independent forms:

• Egyptian Version: Inscribed in hieroglyphs on temple walls, at the temple of Amun in the Karnak Temple Complex and at the Ramesseum, Ramesses II's mortuary temple at Thebes.

• Hittite Version: Clay tablets inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform, recovered at the Hittite capital Hattusa (modern Boğazkale in Turkey) in the excavations Hugo Winckler began in 1906.

Confidence: Established. The treaty's existence and terms are attested independently by both parties' copies, which agree on its substance.

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Relevance to the Old Testament

The treaty is not mentioned in Scripture. On the early Exodus chronology it was concluded during the period of the judges, and it records the political order of the great powers to Israel's north and south in that era.

Its main interest for Old Testament study is its form. It belongs to the international treaty tradition of the Late Bronze Age that George Mendenhall (1954), Meredith Kline and Kenneth Kitchen compared with the covenant structure of Exodus 20-24 and Deuteronomy, a comparison set out on the Hittite Suzerainty Treaties entry. The Treaty of Kadesh is a parity treaty between two equal kings, whereas the comparison with Israel's covenant rests chiefly on the suzerain-vassal treaties of the same period. It nonetheless shares their stipulations, divine witnesses, and curses and blessings, and it shows the conventions of that treaty tradition in use between the great powers of the Late Bronze Age.