Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
Archaeologists find a small piece of a very old clay tablet in Turkey. They find it in a place called Hattusa.
Long ago, Hattusa was the capital city of the Hittite people. The Hittites lived over 3,000 years ago.
The small piece is part of a peace treaty. A peace treaty is an agreement to stop fighting. This is the oldest peace treaty ever found.
The treaty was between the Hittites and Egypt. It talks about how to treat people who run away from war. Turkey's government announces the discovery on a special day for peace.
- archaeologist
- A scientist who studies old objects and places to learn about the past.
- clay tablet
- A flat piece of dried clay that ancient people wrote on.
- capital
- The main city of a country, often where the government is.
- peace treaty
- A formal agreement between two groups to stop fighting.
- ancient
- Very old, from a long time ago.
- agreement
- A decision that two or more people or groups make together.
- discovery
- Something new that is found.
- government
- The group of people who lead and make decisions for a country.
Level 2 — Elementary
Archaeologists working at Hattusa, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire in modern day Turkey, have identified a newly studied clay tablet fragment as part of the Kadesh Peace Treaty, the oldest known surviving peace treaty in the world.
The fragment was found near an area called Building E, inside the Buyukkale section of Hattusa, in the Corum province. Researchers spent about a year carefully analyzing it before confirming what it was.
The Kadesh Treaty was signed around 1259 BCE between the Hittite king Hattusili III and the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. It ended a long conflict between their two empires. This new fragment preserves parts of the treaty dealing with refugees, people who fled from one kingdom to the other. It says their homes and families must be protected, and that they must not be harmed.
Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced the discovery on September 21, which is also the International Day of Peace. The find adds another piece to the puzzle of understanding one of history's most important diplomatic documents.
- empire
- A large group of countries or territories ruled by a single leader or government.
- fragment
- A small piece broken off from something larger.
- analyze
- To examine something carefully in order to understand it.
- pharaoh
- A king or ruler of ancient Egypt.
- refugee
- A person forced to leave their home, often because of war or danger.
- protect
- To keep someone or something safe from harm.
- diplomatic
- Relating to managing relationships and agreements between countries.
- confirm
- To state officially that something is true or correct.
Level 3 — Intermediate
Archaeologists excavating at Hattusa, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire in what is now Turkey's Corum Province, have confirmed that a cuneiform tablet fragment recovered near Building E, in the site's Buyukkale district, belongs to a copy of the Kadesh Peace Treaty, widely regarded as the oldest known surviving peace treaty in the world.
The fragment underwent approximately a year of scientific analysis before researchers could definitively link it to the treaty concluded around 1259 BCE between Hittite king Hattusili III and Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, an agreement that formally ended decades of intermittent warfare between the two Bronze Age superpowers, including the famous Battle of Kadesh.
What distinguishes this particular fragment is its content: it preserves sections corresponding to articles 12 through 20 of the treaty, which address the treatment of people who fled from one kingdom to the other. The surviving text stipulates that such refugees' homes and families must not be destroyed and specifies protections against mutilation, provisions that read as strikingly humane for a document more than three millennia old.
Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced the find on September 21, deliberately timed to coincide with the International Day of Peace. Because the Kadesh Treaty survives in both Hittite cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic versions, each new fragment recovered at Hattusa offers scholars a fresh opportunity to cross reference the two traditions and refine their understanding of the earliest recorded international diplomacy.
- excavate
- To dig up and carefully remove buried objects or remains for study.
- cuneiform
- An ancient writing system made of wedge shaped marks pressed into clay.
- intermittent
- Occurring at irregular intervals; not continuous.
- superpower
- A state with great influence or power, especially in international affairs.
- stipulate
- To state a requirement or condition as part of an agreement.
- mutilation
- The act of causing severe, often permanent damage to a body.
- hieroglyphic
- Relating to a system of writing using pictures or symbols, as in ancient Egypt.
- cross reference
- To compare information from different sources to check or expand understanding.
Level 4 — Advanced
Archaeologists at Hattusa, the former Hittite capital in Turkey's Corum Province, have confirmed that a cuneiform fragment recovered near Building E, within the site's Buyukkale citadel, belongs to a manuscript copy of the Kadesh Peace Treaty, the earliest surviving international peace agreement known to historians.
Roughly a year of philological and material analysis preceded the fragment's definitive attribution to the accord concluded around 1259 BCE between Hittite king Hattusili III and Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, a settlement that formally terminated decades of intermittent conflict between the two Late Bronze Age superpowers, most famously crystallized in the inconclusive Battle of Kadesh roughly sixteen years earlier.
The fragment's significance lies less in its physical rarity than in its textual content: it preserves the treaty's articles 12 through 20, clauses governing the treatment of refugees who crossed between the two realms. The surviving provisions explicitly prohibit mutilation and guarantee that a refugee's home and family remain undisturbed, stipulations that anticipate, in striking miniature, principles later formalized in modern international humanitarian law by more than three thousand years.
Turkey's Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, timed the public announcement to September 21, the International Day of Peace, a scheduling choice that underscores how thoroughly the Kadesh Treaty has been absorbed into contemporary diplomatic symbolism, reinforced by the fact that a replica of its Egyptian hieroglyphic counterpart hangs at United Nations headquarters. Because the treaty survives bilingually, in Hittite cuneiform at Hattusa and in hieroglyphic inscriptions at Karnak and the Ramesseum, each newly recovered fragment functions as a check against the other tradition, allowing philologists to refine translations, resolve textual ambiguities, and deepen understanding of a diplomatic instrument that predates the modern nation state system by well over three millennia.
- citadel
- A fortress that protects or commands a city, often on high ground.
- philological
- Relating to the study of language and its historical development, especially in texts.
- attribution
- The act of identifying the source, origin, or creator of something.
- crystallize
- Here, to become clear, definite, or concrete after a period of vagueness.
- humanitarian
- Concerned with promoting human welfare and reducing suffering.
- symbolism
- The use of objects or events to represent ideas or qualities.
- bilingually
- In two languages.
- ambiguity
- The quality of having more than one possible meaning or interpretation.
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