Episode Details

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In the late thirteenth century BCE, the Hittite Empire and Egypt's New Kingdom finally agreed to end decades of conflict. But treaties do not maintain themselves. They require patient correspondence, the careful exchange of gifts, the arrangement of dynastic marriages, and the constant management of perception. Much of this diplomatic work was carried out by a woman whose name survives in official records more than any other royal woman of the ancient Near East: Puduhepa, Queen of Hatti.

This episode examines how Puduhepa operated within the institutional structures of Hittite queenship to make the alliance function. Drawing on cuneiform archives from Hattusa, it explores her correspondence with Pharaoh Ramesses II and Queen Nefertari, her negotiation of a royal marriage, and her use of the tawananna office to preside over legal cases and reorganize state religious festivals. It also looks at the limits of the evidence, distinguishing between the official performance preserved on clay tablets and the private thoughts that remain lost to history.

I wanted to understand how an ancient peace treaty actually functioned on a practical level, and why a royal woman from a region in southeastern Anatolia appears so prominently in the diplomatic record. Exploring her story offers a clear picture of how institutional power worked in the Late Bronze Age, and how a queen used the structures of her era to stabilize an international order.