Ramesses II fights to a draw, then signs history's oldest peace treaty
What happened
In 1274 BCE, Ramesses II led roughly 20,000 men against the Hittite king Muwatalli II to seize the strategic city of Kadesh, confident of an easy win. Hittite spies fed him false intelligence, separating him from most of his own army before the real Hittite force struck, and only reinforcements arriving in time saved him from disaster. Ramesses claimed victory afterward, but he never took Kadesh and Muwatalli never destroyed the Egyptian army, a real draw dressed up as a triumph. Sixteen years later, under Muwatalli's successor Hattusili III, the two empires signed a lasting settlement, stating in its own words that Ramesses, king of Egypt, would never attack the land of Hatti to seize any part of it.
Why it matters
Historians reject an older claimed treaty from 2550 BCE as an actual peace agreement between rulers, rather than a boundary settlement between gods, which leaves the Treaty of Kadesh, in 1258 BCE, as the oldest surviving peace treaty between two sovereign powers in the historical record. Every modern diplomatic treaty stands in a tradition this one began.
How we know
Both sides of the story survive independently: Ramesses had his account of Kadesh carved into multiple Egyptian temple walls, and the Hittite version of the treaty itself was found inscribed on a clay tablet in the Hittite capital, Hattusa, now in modern Turkey, letting historians compare the Egyptian and Hittite records of the same events against each other directly.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. The Battle of Kadesh & the First Peace Treaty · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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