Sea Peoples
The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age.
[2] The hypothesis was first proposed by the 19th century Egyptologists Emmanuel de Rougé and Gaston Maspero, on the basis of primary sources such as the reliefs on the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.
Subsequent research developed the hypothesis further, attempting to link these sources to other Late Bronze Age evidence of migration, piracy, and destruction.
[9] In 1867, de Rougé published his Excerpts of a dissertation on the attacks directed against Egypt by the peoples of the Mediterranean in the 14th century BC, which focused primarily on the battles of Ramesses II and Merneptah and which proposed translations for many of the geographic names included in the hieroglyphic inscriptions.
[19][20] The Medinet Habu inscriptions from which the Sea Peoples concept was first described remain the primary source and "the basis of virtually all significant discussions of them".
[30] The poem relates that the previously captured Sherden were not only working for the Pharaoh but were also formulating a plan of battle for him; i.e. it was their idea to divide Egyptian forces into four columns.
The most detailed source describing the battle is the Great Karnak Inscription; two shorter versions of the same narrative are found in the "Athribis Stele" and the "Cairo Column".
[37] The Nine Bows were acting under the leadership of the king of Libya and an associated near-concurrent revolt in Canaan involving Gaza, Ascalon, Yenoam and the Israelites.
In addition to them, the first lines of the Karnak inscription include some sea peoples,[38] which must have arrived in the Western Delta or from Cyrene by ship: [Beginning of the victory that his majesty achieved in the land of Libya] -i, Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Northerners coming from all lands.Later in the inscription Merneptah receives news of the attack: ... the third season, saying: "The wretched, fallen chief of Libya, Meryey, son of Ded, has fallen upon the country of Tehenu with his bowmen – Sherden, Shekelesh, Ekwesh, Lukka, Teresh, Taking the best of every warrior and every man of war of his country.
He has brought his wife and his children – leaders of the camp, and he has reached the western boundary in the fields of Perire""His majesty was enraged at their report, like a lion", assembled his court and gave a rousing speech.
The fact that several civilizations collapsed around 1175 BC has led to the suggestion that the Sea Peoples may have been involved at the end of the Hittite, Mycenaean and Mitanni kingdoms.
The American Hittitologist Gary Beckman writes, on page 23 of Akkadica 120 (2000):[41] A terminus ante quem for the destruction of the Hittite empire has been recognized in an inscription carved at Medinet Habu in Egypt in the eighth year of Ramesses III (1175 BC).
This text narrates a contemporary great movement of peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, as a result of which "the lands were removed and scattered to the fray.
[ie: cut down]"Ramesses' comments about the scale of the Sea Peoples' onslaught in the eastern Mediterranean are confirmed by the destruction of the states of Hatti, Ugarit, Ascalon and Hazor around this time.
This time, they are revealed unquestionably as Sea Peoples: the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, which are classified as "foreign countries" in the inscription.
[citation needed] Papyrus Harris I of the period, found behind the temple, suggests a wider campaign against the Sea Peoples but does not mention the date.
As he is called the "Ruler of Nine Bows" in the relief of the east side, these events probably happened in Year 8; i.e. the Pharaoh would have used the victorious fleet for some punitive expeditions elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
[46] The Onomasticon of Amenope, or Amenemipit (amen-em-apt), gives slight credence to the idea that the Ramesside kings settled the Sea Peoples in Canaan.
The fact that the Biblical maritime Tribe of Dan was initially located between the Philistines and the Tjekker, has prompted some to suggest that they may have originally been Denyen.
[69] The Peleset are generally regarded as originating somewhere within the Aegean cultural area;[70] evidence for this identification comes from Genesis 10:14, which associates the Philistines with Caphtor and Casluhim, and Deuteronomy 2:23, which mentions the Caphtorim settling in Gaza.
Aegean-style material remains such as Philistine Bichrome ware, as well as genetic evidence suggesting that immigrants from Europe settled in sites such as Ashkalon at the beginning of the Iron Age.
[citation needed] The Sherden are previously mentioned in the records of Ramesses II, who claimed to have defeated them in his second year (1278 BC) when they attempted to raid Egypt's coast.
[91][92][93] The Ekwesh and the Denyen have been tentatively identified with the Ancient Greek ethnonyms Ἀχαι(ϝ)οί, (Achai(w)oí) and Δαναοί, (Danaoí), which are attested in the Homeric epics.
He copied the first line of the large inscription of the pylon, with a date he specified in the ninth year of the reign, and he noted the importance of this text, which contains several names of people. ...
It recommends to all his subjects to pay attention to his words, and shows their feelings that must lead them in life; then he boasts of his exploits, he brings glory to his father, the god Ammon, who gave him all the conquests.
In the next column, we find a second group formed of people considered by Champollion to have played an important role in the campaign with the naval combat ships; it is the Poursata, the Takkara, the Shakarsha, the Taamou, and Ouaschascha.
We see that the only missing Sharetana to this list.In fact, this migration of the Sea Peoples is not to be found in Egyptian inscriptions, but was launched by Gaston Maspero in 1873 [footnote: In the Revue Critique d'Histoire et de Littérature 1873, pp.
Adopted by Eduard Meyer for the second edition of his Geschichted es Altertums, the theory won general acceptance among Egyptologists and orientalists.As E. S. Sherratt has pointed out in an enlightening study of the interplay of ideology and literary strata in the formation of the Homeric epics (1990), phases of active narrative or descriptive invention closely correspond to periods of rapid social and political change.
Sherratt notes that one of the characteristic manifestations of this process – in which emerging elites seek to legitimate their power – is 'the transformation of an existing oral epic tradition in order to dress it in more recognizably modern garb' (1990: 821).
To generalize beyond specific, highly localized data, archaeologists must utilize familiar conceptual frameworks and it is from the political and social ideologies of every generation that larger speculations about the historical role of the Sea Peoples have always been drawn.
