Earlier relationship with Hittites

Hittite-Egyptian relations officially began once Hatti took over Mitanni's role as the ruling power in central Syria and from there tensions would continue to be high until the conclusion of the treaty nearly 100 years later.^[9] During the invasion and the eventual defeat of Mitanni, the Hittite armies poured into Syria and began to exert their rule over the Egyptian vassals of Kadesh and Amurru. The loss of these lands in northern Syria would never be forgotten by the Egyptian pharaohs, and their later actions demonstrated that they never would fully concede that loss at the hands of the Hittite Empire.^[10] Egypt's attempts to regain the territory lost during the rule of Akhenaten continued to be futile until under the leadership of Seti I, the father of Ramesses II, significant gains started to be made. In his own Kadesh-Amurru campaign against the Hittite armies, Seti I vanquished his foes at a battle near Kadesh, but the gains proved short-lived since Kadesh was eventually given up by Seti in a later treaty.^[11]

The short gain by the Egyptians was the "opening salvo" of a conflict between the two empires, which would drag on over the next two decades.^[12]

Battle of Kadesh

The accounts of this battle mainly are derived from Egyptian literary accounts known as the Bulletin (also known as the Record) and the Poem as well as pictorial Reliefs.^[13] Unfortunately for scholars and individuals interested in the Battle of Kadesh, the details that those sources provide are heavily biased interpretations of the events. Since Ramesses II had complete control over the building projects, the resources were used for propagandist purposes by the pharaoh, who used them to brag about his victory at Kadesh.^[12] It is still known that Ramesses marched through Syria with four divisions of troops in the hopes of destroying the Hittite presence there and restoring Egypt to the "preeminent position it had enjoyed under Tuthmosis III".^[14] The Hittite king, Muwatalli II, gathered together an army of his allies to prevent the invasion of his territory. At the site of Kadesh, Ramesses foolishly outdistanced the remainder of his forces and, after hearing unreliable intelligence regarding the Hittite position from a pair of captured prisoners, the pharaoh pitched camp across from the town.^[15] The Hittite armies, hidden behind the town, launched a surprise attack against the Amun division and quickly sent the division scattering. Although Ramesses tried to rally his troops against the onslaught of the Hittite chariots, it was only after the arrival of relief forces from Amurru that the Hittite attack was thrown back.^[12]

Although the Egyptians were able to survive a terrible predicament in Kadesh, it was not the splendid victory that Ramesses sought to portray but a stalemate in which both sides had sustained heavy losses.^[16] After an unsuccessful attempt to gain further ground the following day, Ramesses headed back south to Egypt bragging about his individual achievements during Kadesh. Even though Ramesses claimed to have won the battle, Muwatalli and his army retook Amurru and extended the buffer zone with Egypt further southward.^[17]

Subsequent campaigns into Syria

Despite suffering the later losses during his invasion of Syria, Ramesses II launched another campaign in his eighth year of rule, which proved largely successful. Instead of launching an attack against the heavily fortified position of Kadesh or going through Amurru, Ramesses conquered the city of Dapur in the hope of using the city as a bridgehead for future campaigns.^[18] After the successful capture of Dapur, the army returned to Egypt, and so the recently acquired territory reverted to Hittite control. In the tenth year of his rule, he launched another attack on the Hittite holdings in central Syria, and yet again, all areas of conquest eventually returned to Hittite hands. The pharaoh now recognized the impossible task of holding Syria in such a fashion and so ended the northern campaign.^[19]

The period is notable in the relationship between the Hittites and the Egyptians because despite the hostilities between the two nations and military conquests in Syria, Kadesh had been the last direct, official military confrontation fought among the Hittites and Egyptians. In some regards, as historians including German assyriologist Horst Klengel [de] have noted, the period could be considered a "cold war" between Hatti and Egypt.^[1]

Egyptian text

The Egyptian treaty was found in two originals:^[C] one with 30 lines at the Temple of Karnak on the wall extending south of the Great Hypostyle Hall, and the second showing 10 lines, at the Ramesseum.^[20] Jean-François Champollion copied a portion of the accords in 1828 and his findings were published posthumously in 1844.^[C][21] The Egyptian account described a great battle against the "Great King of Khatti".

Hittite text

In 1906–1908, the German archaeologist Hugo Winckler excavated the site of the Hittite capital, Hattusa (now Boğazkale in Turkey) in conjunction with Theodore Makridi, the second director of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The joint Turkish-German team found the remains of the royal archives, where they discovered 10,000 clay tablets written with cuneiform documenting many of the Hittites' diplomatic activities.^[22] The haul included three tablets on which the text of the treaty was inscribed in the Akkadian language, a lingua franca of the time. Winckler immediately grasped the significance of the discovery:

...a marvelously preserved tablet which immediately promised to be significant. One glance at it and all the achievement of my life faded into insignificance. Here it was – something I might have jokingly called a gift from the fairies. Here it was: Ramses writing to Hattusilis about their joint treaty ... confirmation that the famous treaty which we knew from the version carved on the temple walls at Karnak might also be illuminated from the otherwise. Ramses is identified by his royal titles and pedigree exactly as in the Karnak text of the treaty; Hattusilis is described in the same way – the content is identical, word for word with parts of the Egyptian version [and] written in beautiful cuneiform and excellent Babylonian ... As with the history of the people of Hatti, the name of this place was completely forgotten. But the people of Hatti evidently played an important role in the evolution of the ancient Western world, and though the name of this city and the name of the people were totally lost for so long, their rediscovery now opens up possibilities we cannot yet begin to think of.^[23]

The Hittite treaty was discovered by Hugo Winckler in 1906 at Boğazkale in Turkey.^[24][25] In 1921, Daniel David Luckenbill, crediting Bruno Meissner for the original observation, noted that "this badly broken text is evidently the Hittite version of the famous battle of Kadesh, described in prose and verse by the scribes of Ramses II".^[26]

Egypt

Considering his relatively stronger position over Hattušiliš, it is unknown what Ramesses hoped to achieve by an alliance with his hated Hittite enemies. After 15 years of futile attempts at regaining his lost territory in Syria, scholars argue that Ramesses now realised that his opportunities to match the military achievements of Tuthmosis III were unrealizable. In that light, it became increasingly important for Ramesses to obtain an international victory through diplomacy to bolster his deeds as pharaoh.^[38] The attempts at regaining the lands that the Hittites had taken ultimately failed to break the hold of the Hittites over the region. Instead, Ramesses would take his losses as long as the Hittites would recognise the current division of Syria, give Egypt access to ports in the Hittite territory to boost commerce and grant trading access as far north as Ugarit.^[39] His ability to advance Egypt's financial and security interests by means other than war led to Ramesses's willingness to pursue friendlier relations with the Hittites.

Maintaining the status quo in the region became a priority for Ramesses because of the emergence of Assyria's military power, whose might was a force to be reckoned with. Thus, Ramesses would have found it desirable to ensure that Assyria would not have a presence in Syria. If the Assyrians were allowed to enter Syria, they would be an arm's length from Egypt itself and pose a threat to Egypt proper.^[40] By accepting the Hittite overture of alliance, Ramesses would count on the fact that the newly-made allies would help to safeguard their mutual holdings in Syria against the upstart power of Assyria.^[41]

Besides the added incentive of no longer depleting Egypt's finances with expensive wars against Hatti and increasing the security of Egypt's claims in Syria, signing the treaty with Hatti also provided Ramesses the opportunity to brag about his "defeat" of the Hittites. Since Hattušiliš had been the one to approach Ramesses, the pharaoh, in his depictions at the Ramesseum, represents the settlement as one that the Hittite king had asked for in a position of submission.^[42] Considering the official language of the treaties then to be completely independent of each other, Ramesses was able to present the terms of the treaty from his perspective. That free control over the depictions of his role by the language of the treaty gave the pharaoh opportunity to present a greatly-idealized point of view.^[29] His ability to assert a sense of supremacy as ruler of Egypt and his attempts to portray that strategic alliance as a victory over the Hittites demonstrate the reasons for Ramesses' to be so willing to choose such a mutually-beneficial peace. The conclusion of open hostilities between the regional powers was a personal triumph for the aging pharaoh and, as his monument at Abu Simbel shows, the pharaoh made his subjects well aware of the fact that Ramesses had conquered the Hittites.^[43]

Hittite Empire

In opposition to Ramesses's strength in international affairs, Hattušiliš III was disadvantaged by questions of legitimacy that raised doubts about his position as king of the Hittites. Hattušiliš had defeated his nephew, Urhi-Tesub, for the throne in all regards but continued to be seen as a usurper of the kingship. Urhi-Tesub's determination to regain the throne from his uncle caused the Hittite Empire to enter a period of instability both at home and abroad.^[44] The nephew had been banished after an unsuccessful coup and ended up in Egypt. Ramesses II thereby posed a direct threat to Hattušiliš's reign by harboring Urhi-Tesub within Egypt's borders.^[45] Hattušiliš realised that only an alliance with Ramesses could prevent the monarch from unleashing his nephew back into contention with him for the throne. By concluding a treaty with Egypt, Hattušiliš also hoped that garnering the endorsement of Ramesses of his position as the true king of Hatti would effectively reconcile the disaffected elements in his kingdom that backed Urhi-Tesub as the rightful possessor of the kingship.^[46]

In the Near Eastern world, Ramesses wielded great power among the rulers of the day, and formal recognition from him would give Hattušiliš credibility on the international stage.

The threat of his nephew staging another coup against him greatly worried Hattušiliš while he faced a considerable threat from the Assyrians in the east. Hattušiliš's predecessor, the Assyrian king, had taken Hanigalbat, which had been a vassal territory under Hittite control.^[47] That aggression strained relations between the two countries, but even more importantly, the Assyrians appeared to put themselves in the position to launch further attacks across the Euphrates River. The perceived threat of Assyrian invasion proved a strong motivator for the Hittites to open up negotiations with Egypt. It was that sense of the Assyrian danger that pushed Hatti into a relationship with Egypt.^[48]

Under the terms of the treaty, the Egyptians had to join with their Hatti allies if Assyria invaded Hittite territory. Besides that threat from the east, Hattušiliš recognised the need to strengthen his relationship with his Egyptian neighbours. The competition that had existed between Hatti and Egypt over the Syrian lands no longer served the interests of Hattušiliš. In fact, Trevor Bryce argues that Hattušiliš was satisfied with his current holdings in Syria and that any further expansion of Hittite territory southward was both unjustifiable and undesirable.^[42]