The Hittite-Egyptian relations before the Amarna Age. Notes on KBo 31.40 and related texts

This contribution tackles two crucial points of the long-standing diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Egypt and the Kingdom of the Hittites. On the one hand, it touches on the much-disputed assessment of the comparative chronology between pharaohs’ reigns and kings of the ancient Near East. On the other, it briefly explores the relations between Egyptians and Hittites during the reign of the pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty before Amenhotep III, one of the less surveyed periods from a Hittite perspective. The combined analysis of the Egyptian material is balanced against the scanty evidence from the tablets collection of Ḫattuša. The goal of this contribution is to evaluate the study material in a critical way to reconstruct the origin of the diplomatic relations between two superregional powers of the ancient Near Eastern world that led to the most striking international conflict of the time.