BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Fragment of World’s Oldest Peace Treaty Found

Bringing people—and tablet pieces—together

Fragment from the Akkadian version of the Egyptian–Hittite Peace Treaty, found at ancient Hattusa. Courtesy Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

On World Peace Day, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced a spectacular find from the world’s oldest surviving peace treaty. A portion of a tablet was discovered near the E building on Büyükkale, the site of the royal palace at the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern-day central Turkey). After a year of study, scholars identified it as part of a copy of the mid-13th century BCE treaty between the famed pharaoh Ramesses II and Hittite king Hattusili III. The fragment joins pieces of the Hittite version (written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time) already discovered at Hattusa, some of them during the earliest excavations of the site between 1906 and 1912.

The Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty was recorded in more than one place. Apparently originally cast in silver, versions of the treaty survive today from both parties on tablets in Hatti and in two temple inscriptions in Thebes (modern-day Luxor).

The agreement between Egypt and Hatti followed a long period of competition over Syria and the Levant. The Egyptian Empire and the Hittite Empire were two of the great powers of the Late Bronze Age and local rulers in the intervening territories were often caught in between. By the reign of Ramesses II, Egypt was attempting to reassert influence in Syria, while the Hittites were determined to maintain the position they had been establishing there for decades.

Jubilee Relief of Ramesses II commemorating a ritual understood to rejuvenate the pharaoh’s power. Courtesy The Met, public domain.

The best-known flare-up between the two occurred around 1275 BCE at the Battle of Kadesh (near Homs in modern-day Syria). Acting on false intelligence from Hittite spies, Ramesses II marched north with only part of his army to reconquer Kadesh. Muwatalli II had assembled a large coalition to meet Ramesses II and surprised him with a chariot attack. Egyptian accounts present the battle as a dramatic triumph for Ramesses II, who—with the gods on his side—saved his army from total destruction. The Hittites, for their part, maintained control over Kadesh and were able to replenish their food supply with goods looted from the Egyptians. The Hittites were also able to claim victory.

After Kadesh, the Egyptian–Hittite rivalry continued, until Ramesses II and the later Hittite king Hattusili III finally negotiated an agreement in the mid-13th century. The treaty did not feature the peace of a conqueror imposed upon the conquered, but emerged from the exasperated recognition—after generations of fighting—that military force had failed.

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The portion of the treaty just identified in Turkey records non-aggression from both sides and reciprocal commitments to peace. According to the ministry, the surviving text corresponds to sections 12 to 20 of the treaty, which addresses people who had fled from one country to the other during the war. It stipulates that refugees had to be extradited and includes a provision for the protection of their homes. In other words, the fragment preserves some of the practical terms by which former enemies could return home after the war and live alongside each other in peace. It was a tall order.

By that point, Egyptians and Hittites had inherited grievances and stories about conflicts that began long before they were born. Those stories colored what they believed was possible in the present. Neither side necessarily became peaceful because the treaty suddenly made them peaceful; rather, they became peaceful because they recognized at long last that coexistence served their interests better than war. Both sides also had new threats rising: Assyria for Hatti and the Sea Peoples for Egypt.

At the same time, peace is more than the absence of the next battle. War depends upon narrowing the human field of vision until another person becomes only an enemy, a category, and a threat. The humanitarian concerns expressed in the discovery from Hattusa show that these Bronze Age societies were able to broaden their views and see themselves reflected in the other, requiring the same terms and provisions. The treaty pledges eternal friendship, respect for boundaries (and the treatment of people who cross them), nonaggression, and mutual assistance—nothing original, and yet, even after thousands of years of human experience, can feel remarkably difficult to achieve.

Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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