Puduhepa, daughter of a priest of the storm god of Kizzuwatna and wife of the Hittite king Hattusili III, was one of the most powerful and best documented women of the ancient Near East, functioning as high priestess of the Hittite state religion and as an active co-ruler and diplomat during and after her husband's reign in the thirteenth century BCE. She composed and issued formal prayers in her own name, most notably to the Sun Goddess of Arinna on behalf of her husband's health, corresponded directly and extensively with the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, and played a central role in the diplomacy surrounding the Egyptian Hittite peace treaty of 1259 BCE, later arranging her daughter's marriage to Ramesses to seal the alliance. Her own seals, correspondence and prayers survive in significant number, giving modern historians an unusually detailed and direct picture of a royal woman's religious and political authority in the Bronze Age Near East.
Facts
Open Questions
Lifespan or FloruitNo Hittite text records when Puduhepa was born. She appears in the documentary record as a priest's daughter married to the future king Hattusili III, then as high priestess and co-ruler through his reign and into that of her son Tudhaliya IV, but nothing fixes an actual birth year, only the span of her documented activity. The marker recorded here reflects only a conventional placement consistent with a marriage and active public role already underway by the early thirteenth century BCE, not a recorded birth. Lifespan or FloruitNo Hittite text records when Puduhepa died. Her seals and correspondence continue into the reign of her son Tudhaliya IV, giving her one of the longest documented careers of any Hittite queen, but no source marks its end with a death year. The marker recorded here reflects only a conventional placement after a documented public role that outlasted her husband Hattusili III, not a recorded death. Origins
Place of OriginLawazantiya in Kizzuwatna, where her father was a priest 1 Defining MomentShe sealed treaties and royal correspondence in her own name beside the king, and directed the ordering of the Hittite cult. 1 Life
Office HeldHittite queen, wife of Hattusili III, and priestess of the sun goddess of Arinna 1 Learn More
Priestess, Queen and Co-Ruler
Puduhepa was the daughter of a priest serving the storm god of Kizzuwatna, a kingdom in southeastern Anatolia later absorbed into Hittite territory, and her marriage to the future king Hattusili III is recorded, unusually for the period, in Hattusili's own account of his life, the so called Apology, which describes their meeting as arranged through a divine dream rather than ordinary political negotiation.
Once Hattusili took the Hittite throne, Puduhepa did not remain a purely ceremonial queen; surviving tablets show her acting as high priestess of the Hittite state cult, overseeing religious administration alongside her husband, and continuing to exercise substantial authority after his death, into the reign of their son Tudhaliya IV, longer than most Hittite queens are documented holding influence. Her own religious writings include prayers composed and issued in her name rather than her husband's, most significantly appeals to the Sun Goddess of Arinna, the chief goddess of the Hittite pantheon, asking for Hattusili's health and long life and offering vows of gifts to several deities in exchange, texts that give modern scholars a rare direct window into how a Hittite royal woman addressed the gods in her own voice rather than through a king's formal state ritual.
A Voice in the Peace With Egypt
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.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. Hittite Prayers
Itamar Singer; Harry A. Hoffner Jr. (ed.), Society of Biblical Literature, Writings from the Ancient World, 2002View the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
When was Puduhepa born, and when did she die?
Puduhepa appears in the documentary record as a priest's daughter married to the future king Hattusili III, then as high priestess and co-ruler through his reign and into that of her son Tudhaliya IV, one of the longest documented careers of any Hittite queen. Nothing fixes an actual birth or death year, only the span of her documented activity in seals and correspondence.
What would resolve this A Hittite dynastic text naming Puduhepa's age at marriage or at death, distinct from the sealed correspondence that fixes only the span of her public activity.
Hittite history, Late Bronze Age Anatolian chronologyItamar Singer; Harry A. Hoffner Jr. (ed.), Hittite Prayers
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