Puduhepa's clearest appearance in the historical record beyond religious ritual comes through her direct correspondence with the Egyptian court following the peace treaty concluded between Hattusili III and Ramesses II in 1259 BCE, one of the earliest peace treaties to survive in written form on both sides of the agreement.
Letters exchanged between Puduhepa and Ramesses II, and separately between Puduhepa and Egyptian queen Nefertari, address matters of state directly in Puduhepa's own name and seal, evidence that she was treated by the Egyptian court as a genuine diplomatic counterpart rather than a purely symbolic figure attached to her husband's rule. She played a central role in the extended negotiations that followed the treaty over the marriage of a Hittite princess, her own daughter, to Ramesses II, a match intended to cement the peace between the two former rival empires, and surviving correspondence shows Puduhepa negotiating practical details of the marriage, including the size of the dowry, with evident authority to commit Hittite resources on her own judgment. The volume and directness of her surviving correspondence and prayers, unusual for any royal woman of the Bronze Age Near East, has made her one of the most thoroughly documented individuals, of either sex, in Hittite history, and Itamar Singer's edition of Hittite prayers treats her surviving petitions as among the most personally revealing religious texts to survive from the Hittite royal court.