Beyond Letters: Royal Visits between Great Kings?

Great Kings Keep in Touch in Akkadian

Fortunately for me as a writer of fiction set in the court of one of the great Bronze Age rulers, many ancient letters survive between the sovereigns of the great empires of the Hittites, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. In the Late Bronze Age, c. 1650-1200, royal scribes composed letters addressed to foreign realms in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the time. Like Latin in the medieval period, a common diplomatic language made contact between rulers possible. They may or may not have made actual royal visits to each other. However, the flow of information via letters helped keep the peace. Among other things, the delineation of the realities of power via letters helped limit unwise territorial seizures and other incursions.

These rulers addressed each other as “Great King” and “Brother.” If they wrote to a lesser kingdom, the “Great” didn’t appear in the form of address and a paternal relationship was sometimes referred to rather than fraternal. The subordination was clear. Who qualified as “Great” and who didn’t wasn’t always a clearly agreed upon club membership, and we have letters in which the Hittite Great King expresses disdain at another ruler calling himself “Great King” when the Hittites didn’t feel it was merited. On the flip side, referring to a secondary status ruler as “Great King” even when he wasn’t, was a good diplomatic way of buttering said ruler up. That made asking for a big favor go more smoothly.

Nothing Like Real Royal Visits

So, we have plenty of written interaction between the powerful in the Bronze Age. The related interesting question is, did they ever meet face to face? The travel alone would have been difficult, but I suspect the biggest hurdle would have been upholding the equal “greatness” of both rulers during a physical encounter.

After a battle, two or more rulers might already be in the same place, so no travel complications. Furthermore, the issue of who is more powerful than the other has been temporarily settled by the results on the field. In this context, it’s conceivable that such meetings could have occurred. Indeed, we find evidence of a few such wartime encounters.

But what about a meeting more like the “summits” of our contemporary times? Or the celebration of a wedding when the bride and groom are both from the royal families of Great rulers? Did this kind of gathering happen?

Royal Confrontations

In the extant letters, we find some invitations for royal visits. Pharaoh Ramses II invited the Hittite Great King Hattusili III and Queen Puduhepa (my Tesha) to visit in Egypt. Ramses took as one of his wives a daughter of theirs. (Actually he did that twice.) So, is there evidence that I should write a face-to-face scene between these rulers?

I do put Hattu in a direct confrontation against Pharaoh in a battle. A good deal of ongoing animosity arises when Hattu gets in a good spear throw and Pharaoh is forced to retreat. It most likely did not happen as I wrote it, but we know they both fought on the same field that day in the historic battle at Kadesh.

Royal Visits, Yes or No

But how about a “friendly” visit to Egypt? There’s some fragmentary evidence that hints at it happening. However, I’m with the scholars that discount this possibility. If the Hittite Great King went to the immense inconvenience of traveling to Egypt, by its very nature such a visit would imply that the Hittite Great King was subordinate to Egypt’s Pharaoh.

In the Bronze Age, vassal kings show up regularly in the Hittite court to swear their loyalty and prove their trustworthiness—and assert their safe subordination. Much as my Hattu and Tesha might have enjoyed seeing the sights of a land very different to theirs, I cannot imagine them agreeing to such a bad deal. They could, perhaps, have come up with a neutral location, an ancient Geneva, but, if so, we don’t hear of it.

Do Weddings Count?

We have letters from the queen scolding Ramses for complaining about the dowry and how long it’s taking for his bride to arrive. Mama did not go with her daughter on what must have been a highly intimidating journey. I hope the queen had prepared her daughter sufficiently for this singularly significant royal duty of a princess. I believe the princess had to face it without her parents, although she would have been amply accompanied by familiar servants and companions.

For More about Bronze Age Royal Visits

For an engaging discussion of the evidence of face-to-face meetings between rulers of the Bronze Age empires, read this article in The Ancient Near East Today, “Did Kings Meet Each Other Face-to-Face During the Late Bronze Age?” It’s a fascinating topic to explore during a historical period of highly centralized, authoritarian rulers.

Here for more about letters in the Bronze Age. Here for more about Queen Puduhepa’s wedding arrangements with Ramses II.