Egyptian–Hittite Wars

c. 1350 – 1259 BC

Overview

In the fourteenth century BC the two great powers of the Near East met in Syria. Egypt's New Kingdom pharaohs had built an empire in Canaan and Syria; the Hittites, ruling central Anatolia from their capital at Hattusa, pushed south under their king Suppiluliuma I and took over much of the region while Egypt was absorbed in the religious upheaval of Akhenaten's reign. When Egypt recovered, Seti I and then his son Ramesses II campaigned to win Syria back. The contest came to a head at the Battle of Kadesh in about 1274 BC, where Ramesses II's army was surprised by the Hittite king Muwatalli II and saved only by the pharaoh's counterattack and the arrival of reinforcements. Neither side won the war. After years of further campaigning, Ramesses II and the Hittite king Hattusili III made peace in about 1259 BC.

Weapons and Chariots

This was the age of the war chariot. Egyptian chariots were light two-man vehicles carrying a driver and an archer armed with the composite bow; Hittite chariots were heavier and carried a third man, a spear-armed warrior, for shock action. Infantry fought with spears, axes and the curved Egyptian Khopesh, with scale armor for the elite. The chariot battle at Kadesh, with thousands of vehicles on each side, is the best documented of the Bronze Age.

The Peace Treaty

The treaty between Ramesses II and Hattusili III survives in two versions: an Egyptian one carved on temple walls at Karnak and the Ramesseum, and a Hittite one in Akkadian on clay tablets found at Hattusa. It provides for peace, mutual defense and the return of fugitives, and it is the earliest peace treaty whose text survives. A copy hangs at the United Nations in New York.

Legacy

The two empires stayed at peace until both were overwhelmed in the collapse of the Bronze Age world around 1200 BC. Ramesses II had his version of Kadesh carved across Egypt as a great victory, and it is one of the most famous battle records of the ancient world.

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