Battle of Kadesh The Battle of Kadesh ( also " Qadesh " ) took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River , in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic . The battle is generally dated to 1274 BC , and is the earliest battle in recorded history for which details of tactics and formations are known . It was probably the largest chariot battle ever fought , involving perhaps 5 , 000 – 6 , 000 chariots . Background . After expelling the Hyksos 15th dynasty , the native Egyptian New Kingdom rulers became more aggressive in reclaiming control of their state ' s borders . Thutmose I , Thutmose III and his son and coregent Amenhotep II fought battle s from Megiddo north to the Orontes River , including the conflict with Kadesh . Many of the Egyptian campaign accounts between c . 1400 and 1300 BC reflect the general destabilization of the region of the Djahi . The reigns of Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III were undistinguished , except that Egypt continued to lose territory to Mitanni in northern Syria . During the late Egyptian 18th dynasty , the Amarna Letters tell the story of the decline of Egyptian influence in the region . The Egyptians showed flagging interest here until almost the end of the dynasty . Horemheb , the last ruler of this dynasty , campaigned in this region , finally beginning to turn Egyptian interest back to this region . This process continued in the 19th Dynasty . Like his father Ramesses I , Seti I was a military commander and set out to restore Egypt ' s empire to the days of the Tuthmosis kings almost a century before . Inscriptions on Karnak temple walls record the details of his campaigns into Canaan and Syria . He took 20 , 000 men and reoccupied abandoned Egyptian posts and garrisoned cities . He made an informal peace with the Hittites , took control of coastal areas along the Mediterranean , and continued to campaign in Canaan . A second campaign led him to capture Kadesh ( where a stela commemorated his victory ) and Amurru . His son and heir Ramesses II campaigned with him . Historical records exist which record a large weapons order by Ramesses II the year prior to the expedition he led to Kadesh in his fifth regnal year . However , at some point , both regions may have lapsed back into Hittite control . What exactly happened to Amurru is disputed . The Hittitologist Trevor Bryce suggests that , although it may have fallen once again under Hittite control , it is more likely Amurru remained a Hittite vassal state . The immediate antecedents to the Battle of Kadesh were the early campaigns of Ramesses II into Canaan . In the fourth year of his reign , he marched north into Syria , either to recapture Amurru or , as a probing effort , to confirm his vassals ' loyalty and explore the terrain of possible battles . The recovery of Amurru was Muwatalli ' s stated motivation for marching south to confront the Egyptians . Ramesses marched north in the fifth year of his reign and encountered the Hittites at Kadesh . Kadesh campaign . Ramesses ' army crossed the Egyptian border in the spring of year five of his reign and , after a month ' s march , reached the area of Kadesh from the South . The Hittite king Muwatalli , who had mustered several of his allies ( among them Rimisharrinaa , the king of Aleppo ) , had positioned his troops behind " Old Kadesh " , but Ramesses , misled by two spies whom the Egyptians had captured , thought the Hittite forces were still far off , at Aleppo , and ordered his forces to set up camp . The contending forces . In the spring of the fifth year of his reign , in May 1274 BC , Ramesses II launched his campaign from his capital Pi - Ramesses ( modern Qantir ) . Ramesses led an army of four divisions : Amun , Re ( P ' re ) , Seth ( Suteh ) and the apparently newly formed Ptah division . There was also a poorly documented troop called the " nrrn " ( Ne ' arin or Nearin ) , possibly Canaan ite military mercenaries with Egyptian allegiance or even Egyptians , which Ramesses II had left in Amurru , apparently in order to secure the port of Sumur . This division would come to play a critical role in the battle . Also significant was the presence of Sherden troops among the Egyptian army . This is the first time they appear as Egyptian mercenaries , and they would play an increasingly significant role in Late Bronze Age history , ultimately appearing among the Sea Peoples that ravaged the east Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age . Healy in " Armies of the Pharaohs " observes : On the Hittite side , Ramesses II recorded a long list of nineteen Hittite allies brought to Kadesh by Muwatalli . This list has excited considerable interest over the years because it has been a challenge to identify all of the locations , as it represents such a broad swath of the Hittite subject lands , and because of the appearance of several west Anatolian lands , apparently including the Dardanians mentioned by Homer . ( For the complete list , see Appendix A . ) Battle . Ramesses II describes his arrival on the battlefield in the two principal inscriptions he wrote concerning the battle , the so - called " Poem " and the " Bulletin " : As Ramesses and the Egyptian advance guard were about 11 kilometers from Kadesh , south of Shabtuna , he met two Shasu ( nomads ) who told him that the Hittites were " in the land of Aleppo , on the north of Tunip " 200 kilometers away , where , the Shasu said , they were " ( too much ) afraid of Pharaoh , L . P . H . , to come south . " This was , state the Egyptian texts , a false report ordered by the Hittites " with the aim of preventing the army of His Majesty from drawing up to combat with the foe of Hatti . " Egyptian scouts then returned to his camp bringing two new Hittite prisoners . Ramesses II only learned of the true nature of his dire predicament when these spies were captured , beaten and forced to reveal the truth before him . Under torture , the second group of spies revealed that the entire Hittite army and the Hittite king were actually close at hand : In his haste to capture Kadesh , Ramesses II committed a major tactical error . He increased the distance between his Amun Division and the remaining Re , Ptah and Seth divisions , thereby splitting up his combined forces . When they were attacked by the Hittites , Ramesses II complained of the failure of his officials to dispatch scouts to discover the true location of the Hittites and report their location to him . The pharaoh quickly sent urgent messengers to hasten the arrival of the Ptah and Seth divisions of his army , which were still some distance away on the far side of the River Orontes . Before Ramesses could organize his troops , however , Muwatalli ' s chariots attacked the Re division , which was caught in the open and almost destroyed . Some of its survivors fled to the safety of the Amun camp , but they were pursued by the Hittite forces . The Hittite chariotry crashed through the Amun camp ' s shield wall and began their assault . This created panic among the Amun troops as well . However , the momentum of the Hittite attack was already starting to wane , as the impending obstacles of such a large camp forced many Hittite charioteers to slow their attack ; some were killed in chariot crashes . In the Egyptian account of the battle , Ramesses describes himself as being deserted and surrounded by enemies : " " . . . No officer was with me , no charioteer , no soldier of the army , no shield - bearer . . . " " Only with help from the gods did Ramesses II personally defeat his attackers and return to the Egyptian lines : " " . . . I was before them like Seth in his monument . I found the mass of chariots in whose midst I was , scattering them before my horses . . . " " The pharaoh , now facing a desperate fight for his life , summoned up his courage , called upon his god Amun , and fought valiantly to save himself . Ramesses personally led several charges into the Hittite ranks together with his personal guard , some of the chariots from his Amun division and survivors from the routed division of Re , and using the superior maneuverability of their chariots and the power and range of Egyptian composite bow s , deployed and attacked the overextended and tired Hittite chariotry . The Hittites , meanwhile , who understandably believed their enemies to be totally routed , had stopped to loot the Egyptian camp and , in doing so , became easy targets for Ramesses ' counterattack . Ramesses ' action was successful in driving the Hittites back towards the Orontes and away from the Egyptian camp , while in the ensuing pursuit , the heavier Hittite chariots were easily overtaken and dispatched by the lighter , faster , Egyptian chariots . Although he had suffered a significant reversal , Muwatalli still commanded a large force of reserve chariotry and infantry plus the walls of the town . As the retreat reached the river , he ordered another thousand chariots to attack the Egyptians , the stiffening element consisting of the high nobles who surrounded the king . As the Hittite forces approached the Egyptian camp again , the Ne ' arin troop contingent from Amurru suddenly arrived , this time surprising the Hittites . Ramesses had also reorganized his forces and , expecting the help , also attacked from the camp . After six charges , the Hittite forces were almost surrounded , and the survivors were faced with the humiliation of having to swim back across the Orontes River to rejoin their infantry . Pinned against the Orontes , the elements remaining of the Hittites not overtaken in the withdrawal were forced to abandon their chariots and attempt to swim the Orontes ( This flight is depicted in Egyptian inscriptions as " hurried " to say the least — " as fast as Crocodiles swimming " ) , where many of them drowned . The next morning , a second , inconclusive battle was fought . Muwatalli is reported by Ramesses to have called for a truce , but this may be propaganda since Hittite records note no such arrangement . Neither side gained total victory . Both the Egyptians and the Hittites had suffered heavy casualties ; the Egyptian army failed to break Kadesh ' s defenses , while the Hittite army had failed to gain a victory in the face of what earlier must have seemed certain success . Disputes over the outcome . There is no consensus about the outcome or what took place , with views ranging from an Egyptian victory , a draw , and , according to the view of Iranian Egyptologist Mehdi Yarahmadi , an Egyptian defeat ( with the Egyptian accounts simply propaganda ) . Aftermath . Logistically unable to support a long siege of the walled city of Kadesh , 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 since he was unable to capture Kadesh . In a personal sense , however , the Battle of Kadesh was a triumph for Ramesses since , after blundering into a devastating Hittite chariot ambush , the young king had courageously rallied his scattered troops to fight on the battlefield while escaping death or capture . The new lighter , faster , two - man Egyptian chariots were able to pursue and take down the slower three - man Hittite chariots from behind as they overtook them . The leading elements of Hittites ' retreating chariots were thus pinned against the river and in several hieroglyphic inscriptions related to Ramesses II , said to flee across the river , abandoning their chariots , " swimming as fast as any crocodile " in their flight . Hittite records from Boghazkoy , however , tell a very different conclusion to the greater campaign , where a chastened Ramesses was forced to depart from Kadesh in defeat . Modern historians essentially conclude the battle was a draw , a great moral victory for the Egyptians , who had developed new technologies and rearmed before pushing back against the years - long steady incursions by the Hittites , and the strategic win to Muwatalli II , since he lost a large portion of his chariot forces but sustained Kadesh through the brief siege . The Hittite king , Muwatalli II , continued to campaign as far south as the Egyptian province of Upi ( Apa ) , which he captured and placed under the control of his brother Hattusili , the future Hattusili III . Egypt ' s sphere of influence in Asia was now restricted to Canaan . Even this was threatened for a time by revolts among Egypt ' s vassal states in the Levant , 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 the eighth and ninth years of his reign , Ramesses extended his military successes ; this time , he proved more successful against his Hittite foes when he successfully captured the cities of Dapur and Tunip , where no Egyptian soldier had been seen since the time of Thutmose III almost 120 years previously . His victory proved to be ephemeral , however . The thin strip of territory pinched between Amurru and Kadesh did not make for a stable possession . Within a year , they had returned to the Hittite fold , which meant that Ramesses had to march against Dapur once more in his tenth year . His second success here was equally as meaningless as his first , since neither Egypt nor Hatti could decisively defeat the other in battle . The running borderlands conflicts were finally concluded some fifteen years after the Battle of Kadesh by an official peace treaty in 1258 BC , in the 21st year of Ramesses II ' s reign , with Hattusili III , the new king of the Hittites . 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 the earliest international peace treaty known to historians . Its text , in the Hittite version , appears in the links below . An Egyptian version survives on a papyrus . Documentation and disagreements . Although there is more evidence in the form of texts and wall reliefs for this battle than for any other battle in the Ancient Near East , almost all of it is from an Egyptian perspective , and indeed the first scholarly report on the battle , by James Henry Breasted in 1903 , took the Egyptian evidence literally and assumed a great Egyptian victory . He was convinced that these sources allowed us to reconstruct the battle " with certainty " . This has been replaced by a situation in which there are varying opinions on almost every aspect of the battle . Some historians regard Ramesses ' claims of a great victory with some skepticism and argue that the battle was a draw at best . His later campaigns in Syria - Palestine only reached points farther south , and Egyptian influence over Amurru and Qadesh seems to have been lost forever . Recording the battle . The main source of information is in the Egyptian record of the battle , for which a general level of accuracy is assumed despite factual errors and propaganda . The bombastic nature of Ramesses ' version has long been recognized . The Egyptian version of the battle of Kadesh is recorded in two primary forms , known as the " Poem " and the " Bulletin " . The " Poem " has been questioned as actual verse , as opposed to a prose account similar to what other pharaohs had recorded . Similarly , the " Bulletin " is itself simply a lengthy caption accompanying the reliefs . These inscriptions are repeated multiple times ( seven for the " Bulletin " and eight for the " Poem " , in temples in Abydos , Temple of Luxor , Karnak , Abu Simbel and the Ramesseum . ) In addition to these lengthy presentations , there are also numerous small captions used to point out various elements of the battle . Outside of the inscriptions , there are textual occurrences preserved in " Papyrus Raifet " and " Papyrus Sallier III " , and a rendering of these same events in a letter from Ramesses to Hattusili III written in response to a scoffing complaint by Hattusili about the pharaoh ' s victorious depiction of the battle . Hittite references to the battle , including the above letter , have been found at Hattusa , although no annals have been discovered that might describe it as part of a campaign . Instead , there are various references made to it in the context of other events . This is especially true of Hattusili III , for whom the battle marked an important milestone in his career . Archaeologists have been unable to verify independently any of the events recounted in the Egyptian and Hittite records of the Battle of Kadesh . Knowledge of the battle is derived entirely from the accounts of Hittite and Egyptian records , which disagree with each other ( each side claiming victory ) . Details of the battle are reconstructed with reasonable certainty by reconciling the conflicting accounts through harmonizing these contradictions . Generally speaking , the nature of the available evidence makes it possible to reconstruct the outcome as portrayed by the Hittites , while gleaning believable details from Ramesses ' account wherever possible . Appendix A - The Hittite allies . Sources : Goetze , A . , " The Hittites and Syria ( 1300 - 1200 B . C . ) " , in " Cambridge Ancient History " ( 1975 ) p . 253 ; Gardiner , Alan , " The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II " ( 1975 ) pp . 57ff . ; Breasted , James Henry , " Ancient Records of Egypt ; Historical Records " ( 1906 ) pp . 125ff . ; Lichtheim , Mirian , " Ancient Egyptian Literature , Vol . 2 : The New Kingdom " ( 1978 ) pp . 57ff . In addition to these allies , the Hittite king also hired the services of some of the local Shasu tribes . Appendix B - The Hittite fallen . Source : Gardiner , Alan , " The Kadesh Inscriptions of Ramesses II " ( 1975 ) pp . 39 – 41 .