Essay On The Treaty Of Kadesh

The Treaty of Kadesh was a peace treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites. The treaty was created in 1269 BCE by Ramesses II and the king of the Hittites, Hattusilis. The whole entire treaty was not found but 2 parts of it. The tablet was written in The Akkadian language which was spoken in Ancient Mesopotamia. It was found in the capital of Hittite in Turkey in 1906. At the moment the tablet is in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum in Turkey. The Egyptian-Hittite Treaty was a solution to a problem that had been going on for quite some time.
According to Joshua mark in his article “The Battle of Kadesh and the First Peace Treaty”, “Ramesses II was traveling to Syria to secure the border city of Kadesh”. He wanted to secure the border
because the Hittite king, Muwatalli II who had been coming into the Egyptian territory without permission. The Hittites were very strong and were growing rapidly over the years. They wanted to see how strong they were and wanted to attack Egypt. Egypt knew they were going to attack and they sent for help but no one replied. Since no one took a stand to secure the Egyptians border the Hittites had gotten stronger and could take over any place they wanted. When Horemheb became Pharaoh he strictly secured the border but the Hittites were still coming inside. Now since no Pharaoh in the past had taken care of the problem Ramesses has to take care of the problem. The problem wasn’t going to be fixed by just talking to the Hittites and talking it through. The Hittites had been growing stronger every day and ready to fight and Ramesses was ready to fight with his forces as well. The Hittites wanted to win this battle and learn weaknesses of Ramesses II so Muwatalli II sent two spies to go and join their camp and get information. The spies then found out where the Egyptians would be and Muwatalli II took this advantage and was going to trap them. As Ramesses went into war leading his troops they fell right into the trap. He had to fight his way out of the trap while all his troops were getting killed so he called his protector god, Amun and he brought calmness to his troops. With only a few troops left Ramesses got on his chariot and escaped the trap and started fighting back. The Egyptians had now taken over the battle and are winning the war after they had been trapped. The Egyptians drove the Hittites into the river and most of the Hittites had drowned in the river.
Muwatalli II had reserves in the city of Kadesh but he never sent for them and refused to let his troops keep fighting. Ramesses finally drove them away and declared victory for the Egyptian army. Muwatalli did not agree and claimed that they had won. The poem that describes the victory of Ramesses over Muwatalli II is called the poem of Pentaur. The poem states that the Egyptians and Hittites had tied in the war and both Ramesses and Muwatalli had declared victory. Ramesses II still had failed to capturing the city but he had killed most of Hittites men. Muwatalli II then regained control of Kadesh even though he was still upset that the Egyptians had killed most of his
troops. Muwatalli II later died in 1272 BCE and then Hattusilis III became the king of the Hittite empire. This officially led to the first peace treaty ever officially documented and established by Hattusilis III and Ramesses II. The actual first treaty was in Mesopotamia which was named the Treaty of Meslim in 2550 BCE. The Treaty of Meslim was not officially the first peace treaty because it had been to make boundaries around their land. The Kadesh treaty was that after the war they decided to make peace with the Hittites. The Hittite empire ended up falling to the ground later after the war in 1200 BCE. The Hittite- Egyptian Treaty is now found at the Archaeological Istanbul Museum in Turkey. The people who discovered it had noticed that many pieces were missing but then they discovered four more pieces of it later. It was written in their language which was Akkadian. The tablet was claimed to be made out of clay because that’s all they had back then. It is said that Hattusilis made the same treaty but wrote it on a silver plate and sent it to Egypt but it still has not been found by any archaeologists. The tablet was very old and it had been shaped as a rectangle in the first place but got destroyed.
It had a goldish brownish finish because of the type of clay they used back then. The archaeologists could read what some of the treaty said which was “If people flee from Hittite to Egypt or from Egypt to Hittite they will be sent back. However, they will not get punished severely”. It also said that if any of the two countries needed help with military assistance when other countries attack they would ask for help to each other. The treaty was carved onto the wall in the Egyptian temple. The people of Hittite and Egypt were happy with this solution because they didn’t have to fight against both of their strong armies anymore. They would know have help against any other country which is better because they would be better as combine forces. That was the only two statements that they could see because most of it was gone and hard to read. Since it was the first ever treaty in existence, they decided to build a two-meter-long copper treaty that is exactly like the original treaty. It is now hanging on the wall in front of the United Nations Building in New York. They want modern people to feel that there are there have been international treaties going on ever since 1269 BCE and that it is a traditional thing to do in
America.