Part of the clay tablet of the Kadesh Treaty, circa 1269 BCE.
Winckler immediately grasped the significance of the discovery.
He wrote:
…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.
It is also the only Ancient Near Eastern treaty for which the versions of both sides have survived.
The conflict continued inconclusively for about fifteen more years before the treaty was signed.
There is also evidence that Ramesses tried to establish stronger familial bonds with Hatti by marrying a Hittite princess.
A clay tablet where the Treaty of Kadesh is inscribed at the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.
The scribes at Hatti then prepared copies written on clay tablets for preservation in the royal archives.
It was these copies that Hugo Winckler disovered.
The original silver tablets have been lost, most likely looted and melted a long time ago.
