A fragment of the oldest peace treaty has been identified in Turkey

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey announced the recent identification of a fragment of a cuneiform text corresponding to Articles 12–20 of one of the first peace treaties in history. It concerns the Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty, also known as the Treaty of Kadesh. Popular Science reports, as cited by UNN.

Details

Around 1259 BCE, after two centuries of intermittent fighting over Kadesh, Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II and the Hittite king Hattusili III concluded an agreement that became the oldest known proclamation of peace in human history.

The treaty was signed approximately 15 years after the Battle of Kadesh.

Archaeologists have carefully documented fragments of the treaty preserved on Akkadian cuneiform tablets and in hieroglyphs on the walls of Egyptian temples, but the recently discovered section, found in what is now Turkey, carries a significant message even 3,200 years after it was written

The publication also recalled that the first fragments of the Treaty of Kadesh were discovered during excavations in the early 20th century, and that copies of the document were even included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2001.

This heritage, preserved from millennia ago to the present day, reminds us of our responsibility to protect human life and dignity. We wish you a future in which all people, especially our Palestinian brothers, will live in safety, peace, and tranquility

We remind you

In Egypt, archaeologists discovered the intact tomb of an official named Sekhentiu-Ptah containing ritual objects.