Indecisive Battles of History

Ramesses prudently gathered his troops and retreated south towards Damascus, and ultimately back to Egypt. Once back in Egypt, Ramesses proclaimed that he had won a great victory but in reality all he had managed to do was to rescue his army.^[13] In a sense, however, the Battle of Kadesh was a personal triumph for Ramesses since after blundering into a devastating Hittite ambush, the young king had courageously rallied his scattered troops to fight on the battlefield while escaping death or capture.^{[citation needed]}

Hittite records from Boghazkoy tell of a very different conclusion to the battle where a humiliated Ramesses was forced to depart from Kadesh in defeat. The Hittite king, Muwatalli II, continued to successfully campaign as far south as the Egyptian province of Upi (Apa), which he placed under the control of his brother Hattusili III.^[14] Egypt's sphere of influence in Asia was now restricted to Canaan.^[15] Even this was threatened for a time and Ramesses was compelled to embark on a series of campaigns in Canaan in order to uphold his authority there before he could initiate further assaults against the Hittite Empire in his Years 8 and 9 when he successfully captured the cities of Dapur and Tunip.^[16]

The conflicts were finally concluded by a peace treaty in 1258 BC, in the 21st year of Ramesses II's reign, with Hattusili III, the new king of the Hittites.^[17] The treaty that was established was inscribed on a silver tablet, of which a clay copy survived in the Hittite capital of Hattusa, in modern Turkey, and is on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. An enlarged replica of the Kadesh agreement hangs on a wall at the headquarters of the United Nations, as one of the earliest international peace treaties. Its text, in the Hittite version, appears in the links below. An Egyptian version survives in a papyrus.