Tell Nebi Mend (Kadesh)

South-west of Homs a mound rises beside the Orontes. Nothing stands on it and at first sight it reads as a swell in the fields. Its importance lies in the layers beneath: this is Kadesh, where the Egyptian and Hittite empires met in the 13th century BC, and that meeting ended in the earliest written peace treaty known to history.

Getting there

24 kilometres south-west of Homs, beside the village of Tell Nebi Mend, half an hour by car. The mound is within walking distance of the village and its rise can be picked out from far off.

What is there

The mound itself, and the cuts through it. People first settled here in the seventh millennium BC, the site emptied for a time, and it was founded again in the third millennium. The name Kadesh first appears in the archive of Mari in the 18th century BC; after that it passed between Mitanni, Egyptian and Hittite overlordship. Among the Amarna letters is one written to the pharaoh Akhenaten by Aitakkama, king of Kadesh. Excavation trenches and terrace sections lie open here and there.

How long it takes

An hour. That is what it takes to walk around the mound and climb to the top; from up there the Orontes and the plain open out.

What most people miss

The finds are not on the mound but in the Homs Museum, where the Kadesh section is one of the fullest cases. Check first that the museum is open; each of the two is half a visit without the other.