2482 AM · 1279 BCE · world history
Ramesses II and the Egyptian New Kingdom
Egypt at its peak: the colossi of Abu Simbel and the first recorded peace treaty.
Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and builds more than any pharaoh before him: the rock-cut temples of Abu Simbel, a new capital, endless colossi of himself. After the bloody battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, both sides sign a treaty preserved in Egyptian and Hittite—the oldest known peace treaty.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Egyptian royal inscriptions and king lists — the inscriptions of Ramesses II: Abu Simbel, Pi-Ramesses, the Kadesh reports
Scholarship
- archaeology of the Nile valley — the temples of Abu Simbel themselves and the excavations of Pi-Ramesses
Basis: documents and evidence.