The Shekelesh first appears in Egyptian records during accounts of the pharaoh Merneptah's military campaigns in modern Libya in the closing years of the 13th century BC, as recounted on the Great Karnak Inscription.
In the text, the Shekelesh, alongside other clans of the Sea Peoples, are described as auxiliary troops of the Libyan ruler Meryey, and Merneptah recounts he killed between 200 and 222 of them.
Ramesses, per his inscriptions, vanquished the coalition, and portrays himself leading a glorious procession of captured Sea Peoples as prisoners.
[3] In 1867, Egyptologist and philologist Emmanuel de Rougé identified the Shekelesh as coming from Sicily, given the phonetic similarities of the two names.
The following year, the identification was disputed by Gaston Maspero, who believed the Shekelesh were Anatolian in origin, instead opting to identify them with the ancient city of Sagalassos.