Kadesh and the first peace treaty
Two empires fight to a draw, then sign the earliest surviving international treaty.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 16 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Ramesses II and the Hittite king Muwatalli II fight at Kadesh on the Orontes in 1274 BCE, in what may be the largest chariot battle ever — perhaps 5,000 chariots. Ramesses walks into an ambush and extracts himself. Sixteen years later Egypt and Hatti conclude a formal treaty of peace, mutual defence and extradition, and both copies survive, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs and one in Akkadian cuneiform. A replica hangs at the United Nations.