Image Details
Hershel Shanks
The reliefs at Yazilikaya were carved shortly after the peace treaty with Egypt in 1259 B.C.E. The Hittite empire reached its zenith in the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E., extending as far south as modern-day Lebanon and Syria. Despite his failure to obtain a victory over the Hittites in the crucial battle with them at Kadesh on the Orontes River in 1275 B.C.E., Pharaoh Ramesses II told a story of a great Hittite defeat in which Hittite horses and chariots were drowned.