As the Libu war wound down, Merneptah’s troops took captives and plundered the bodies of fallen warriors. Along the way, we also hear of “foreign peoples of the Sea,” who were involved in these events. Merneptah mentions Sherden, Lukka, Tursha, Ekwesh, and Shekelesh. Who were these “Sea Peoples” and why were they coming to Egypt?
Music: Keith Zizza, Luke Chaos.
The Libyan Settlement
In 1221 BCE, the banks of the Nile were stained with blood. Corpses floated in waterways; weapons, splattered with gore, lay amid reeds and rushes. Across a battlefield in the western Delta, Egyptian soldiers gathered corpses of their enemies. They hacked off limbs, stripped armour, and collected valuables. Nearby, piles of ash marked the smoking remains of a vast encampment. Tents burned to the ground, trampled underfoot, and buried in the dust. Pharaoh’s “Victorious Arm” (nxt-a) had smote their foe, a vast coalition of tribes from the western highlands. The leaders were dead, many of them pierced on stakes lining the western roads. Now, other soldiers gathered captives. They bound the arms of men, women, and children, and wrangled thousands of animals (goats, cattle, donkeys).
Merneptah tells us the fate of these people: “The enemy whom I (the King) force to know me is in my hand/possession… (I make) the survivor(s) fill the temples; great is the slaughter made among their leaders… It goes well with Kemet.”[1]
It seems that Merneptah took the Libu as slaves. Thousands of prisoners would go to work, sowing and harvesting crops, manufacturing items, and serving the needs of the royal and divine economy. In time, these Libu would intermarry and integrate with the wider society, becoming “Egyptians” in every legal sense. Ironically, that was kind of their intention. From Merneptah’s texts the Libu “invasion” really sounds more like a migration.[2] Armed, to be sure, but coming with families and animals, intending to settle rather than conquer. So, why would the Egyptians defeat such a movement, then turn around and give them a form of that settlement?
Well, as with most matters related to migration, the real question was control.[3] Control of the borders, settlement zones, and (most importantly) the farmland. The Libu had come in force, many thousands strong, with warlords and allies to help. Such an influx of people, thousands strong, might devastate the northern farmlands and consume resources. Merneptah alluded to that in his account of the war, saying the enemy “Spend their day wandering… to fill their bellies daily… To seek the necessities of their mouths do they come to the land of Kemet…”[4] In other words, the Egyptians were worried that the Libu would take their stuff, consuming the things they were producing, in a densely populated area.
By contrast, we do have records about other groups migrating to Egypt. A few years after this battle, scribes recorded a Shasu (Bedouin) tribe moving towards the eastern Delta. Royal officials reported, “We have finished letting the Shasu tribes… pass the fortress of Merneptah… in order to sustain them and… their flocks through the good pleasure of pharaoh (LPH)…”[5] We can safely assume that this tribe was much smaller than the Libu host (and probably not armed). They had apparently sought permission to graze their herds in the eastern Delta. Pharaoh (or his representatives) gave it, and the tribe moved in unmolested. In short, the Egyptians had no problem with migration as a concept.[6] But they wanted to control it.[7] The Libu had come in force. Now, Merneptah broke their confederation and scattered them among his farms.
Peoples of the Sea
Finally, there was one last group to deal with. Throughout his war narratives, Merneptah mentions another enemy. They were associated with the Libu tribes (perhaps allied to them), but not themselves “Libyans.” These five groups are named as Sherden (SArdnA), Shekelesh (SkrS), Ekwesh / Akawasha (IqAwSA), Turshu (TrS), Lukka (Rkw).[8] Merneptah described the first four as coming nA xAswt n pA ym, or “from the foreign lands of the Sea.”[9] That is, groups commonly known as “Sea Peoples.”
Who were they?
“Sea Peoples” is an umbrella term, describing several tribes that moved through the Eastern Mediterranean during the 13th and 12th Centuries.[10] They were not a single migrating horde, but the Egyptians occasionally battled one or multiple groups in their northern territories. We’ve encountered two of these previously, in the Amarna Period and the early reign of Ramesses II. Now, it was Merneptah’s turn.
According to his grand war narratives, King Merneptah defeated these people “from the Sea” in regnal Year 5. At least one of them, the Shekelesh, are described as allies of the Libu tribes, invading from the west.[11] The other four, though, are slightly vague. The hieroglyph texts are damaged, with lengthy gaps in the record. At Karnak, for example, we’re missing about 1/3 of the lines.[12] Unfortunately, a lot of that 1/3 is the introduction, setting the scene and giving context; and because irony is a jerk, many of the “Sea Peoples” references likely appeared in those opening lines. As a result, scholars are slightly divided on how many of these folks were involved in the war, and what they actually did. The traditional view is to see the Libu and Sea Peoples as one united force.[13] More recently, scholars like Sameh Iskander (who produced a PhD Thesis on Merneptah’s reign) suggest that the Sea Peoples were already present in the Delta when the war began, and Merneptah simply “conflated” all of it to make a tidy narrative.[14] Unfortunately, the texts are too damaged to say confidently one way or the other. But while their role may be slightly uncertain, their presence in Egypt is beyond doubt.
So, let’s meet these outsiders.
Sherden
First up, we have the Sherden. They are the best-known of all the Sea Peoples groups, and they’re also the oldest. The Sherden had been present (and recorded) in the eastern Mediterranean for more than a hundred years, before Merneptah’s reign. During the Amarna Period (around 1370) they had been active in Canaan and Syria; mostly individuals, mentioned by local kings.[15] More recently, Ramesses II had battled the “Sherden of rebellious hearts… (who) came boldly… in their ships-of-fighting (aHA aHAw)…”[16] Ramesses proclaimed that he “plundered them… they being carried off to Kemet…”[17] And as a result, the Sherden entered service in Egypt’s royal army. They fought alongside Ramesses at the Battle of Kadesh, and they turn up in his art and texts as a kind of bodyguard.[18] Now, Merneptah also defeated such raiders. It’s unclear how many of them had come; the hieroglyphs here are damaged. There were at least 10, but that could be 110, 1010, and so forth. We can’t be certain.
Like his father, Merneptah may have recruited these Sherden after their defeat. Another text from his reign references “Sherden that you carried off through your strong arm, who have plundered the foreign hill countries…”[19] That might be rhetoric, or a callback to his father, but it’s plausible that Merneptah recruited the Sherden to join his royal army.
Lukka
Second, we have the Lukka. Merneptah doesn’t include them in the groups “from the sea,” suggesting that they were land-based in some form. That would make sense, because the Lukka are well-documented in the eastern Mediterranean. Hittite records mention these people frequently, and they seemed to have lived in the southwest of Anatolia (modern Turkiye).[20] They didn’t have a kingdom, or centralised state, but they were a menace. The Hittites waged war against them, repeatedly, but the Lukka always broke away and needed a new campaign.[21]
At some point, the Lukka turned to piracy, going forth on ships and attacking vulnerable coasts. Our best record of this comes from the days of Akhenaten (about 140 years before Merneptah). Back then, the King of Cyprus wrote a letter to pharaoh, telling of “Lukki” raiders. He complained, “every year, year after year, men of the Lukki seize villages in my country…”[22] The problem persisted for decades. Hittite Kings (and local rulers in Syria) talk about the Lukka repeatedly, always as a nuisance or a threat.[23]
Now, at last, the Lukka were reaching Egypt.
Merneptah’s texts are damaged and we don’t know how many Lukka came to the Nile. In one part, the tribal name is lost, but the number is “2,362 men.”[24] If that was the Lukka, they may have been a sizable force indeed.
On this occasion, the Lukka were defeated. But they’d be back, before too long. And later, these Anatolian peoples entered myth as the Lycians.[25] They show up in the epic poems, particularly those of the Trojan War, where they fought alongside the Trojans, against the Greeks.[26] If that has any historical basis, it’s quite intriguing. You see, according to Merneptah’s records, the Lukka attacking Egypt were actually allied with a group who might be “Greeks.”
Let’s meet the Ekwesh.
First up, we have the Sherden. They are the best-known of all the Sea Peoples groups, and they’re also the oldest. The Sherden had been present (and recorded) in the eastern Mediterranean for more than a hundred years, before Merneptah’s reign. During the Amarna Period (around 1370) they had been active in Canaan and Syria; mostly individuals, mentioned by local kings.[27] More recently, Ramesses II had battled the “Sherden of rebellious hearts… (who) came boldly… in their ships-of-fighting (aHA aHAw)…”[28] Ramesses proclaimed that he “plundered them… they being carried off to Kemet…”[29] And as a result, the Sherden entered service in Egypt’s royal army. They fought alongside Ramesses at the Battle of Kadesh, and they turn up in his art and texts as a kind of bodyguard.[30] Now, Merneptah also defeated such raiders. It’s unclear how many of them had come; the hieroglyphs here are damaged. There were at least 10, but that could be 110, 1010, and so forth. We can’t be certain.
Like his father, Merneptah may have recruited these Sherden after their defeat. Another text from his reign references “Sherden that you carried off through your strong arm, who have plundered the foreign hill countries…”[31] That might be rhetoric, or a callback to his father, but it’s plausible that Merneptah recruited the Sherden to join his royal army.
Ekwesh
After the Lukka and Sherden, well-known to Egypt, Merneptah speaks of Ekwesh (or Aqawasha). They’re an intriguing bunch. Scholars seem to agree that “Ekwesh” is the Egyptian version of Achaeans (that is, Greeks).[32] In the Iliad and Odyssey, the poet Homer uses the term Achaean as one of the (many) synonyms for the Greek peoples.[33] Today, scholars use the broader culture term Mycenaeans. They probably originated on the mainland, maybe the Peloponnesian peninsula. Eventually, these Achaeans spread east, across the Aegean, and established communities in western Anatolia.[34] Again, the Hittites had business with this group, whom they called Aḫḫiyawa (𒄴𒄭𒅀𒉿).[35] Hittite records speak of local conflict across the region, allegedly sparked by a “King” of Aḫḫiyawa.[36] Whether that was an Achaean kingdom in Anatolia, or expeditions coming across the sea, remains a matter of debate. Point is, these Achaeans were well-established in the Aegean, by the time Merneptah came to power.
Which begs the question, if they were doing so well overseas, why come to Egypt? Here, we have two possible explanations. Achaean warriors may have joined the Libu invasion because raiding was their game. We get hints of this in the epic poems. In the Odyssey, for example, Homer describes Achaeans sailing the seas as raiders.[37] Odysseus himself claims to have led nine raids, even before the Trojan War (more on that later). But that’s legend, how about history? Well, archaeology may give some answers. The late 13th Century was a difficult time in Greece (LHIII B1—LHIII B2).[38] Between 1250 and 1200 (around the time of Merneptah), multiple sites suffered waves of destruction. The great palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, and even Thebes (the Greek Thebes, not the Egyptian) fell in fire and wreckage.[39] The destruction wasn’t total, life still continued, but damage like that might prompt some groups to go forth on the sea. Perhaps they went to raid, seeking new wealth, or to find comfortable new homes. That is speculative (there are still a ton of questions about this phase of Aegean history). But the mid-13th Century was an unsettled time in that region. Perhaps some warriors were drawn to the sea, and ultimately to Egypt, in search of opportunity.
Teresh/Tursha
Next, we have the Tursha (Teresh). Of the five groups, these were the second smallest in number. Merneptah (or his warriors) claimed 790 Teresh hands, cut from dead bodies. It’s unclear how many went into captivity; but the group seems to have been relatively small.
The Teresh origins are perhaps the most uncertain. Possibly Anatolian, they might come from the region around Troy; another area later known as Lydia; or the city of Tarsus on the south coast, not far from Syria.[40] It’s terribly uncertain, unfortunately; of all the peoples Merneptah mentions, the “Teresh” are the most poorly documented, and the most mysterious. That’s all we can say, for today.
Shekelesh
Plunder list: 222 men, making 250 hands (Athribis: 200 men).
Finally, we have the Shekelesh. Now these were “Sea Peoples” in the most literal sense. Like the others, they’d been kicking around the eastern Mediterranean for a few decades, before showing up in Egyptian records. The best reference comes from the city of Ugarit (in Syria). A Hittite letter describes the Shekelesh (Ši-qi-la-a) as “those who live on ships.”[41] Apparently, this group were seaborne much of the time, and the landlubbers found it worthy of comment.
Alas, their origins remain unclear. Scholars have proposed areas like Anatolia (a region called Sagalassos), or perhaps Sicily, but these are mostly based on the name.[42] To date, archaeological evidence for the Shekelesh is practically non-existent.
Following their defeat in the Delta, Merneptah claimed 250 “Shekelesh hands.” Again, a remarkably small number. Either most of them were taken prisoner, or this was just a tiny group, travelling with the larger coalition.
Sea Peoples Summary
As you can see, the evidence for these “Sea Peoples” varies wildly.[43] Some groups are well-documented across multiple regions and decades. Others, barely a blip in the historical record. For scholars, some questions remain unanswerable on current evidence. Origins for different groups often focus on Anatolia and the Aegean, with a few outliers in the Mesopotamian region. Another alternative is the west, around Sardinia, perhaps even Italy.[44] Alas, Merneptah does not leave enough information to say anything with confidence. For now, the best we can say is: in 1221 BCE, five groups from “across the sea” came to Egypt, in conjunction with the Libu tribes. They were defeated, many of them killed, and the rest taken into captivity (or perhaps recruited as soldiers).
If that were the end of their story, that would be terribly unsatisfactory. Fortunately, it’s not. Just a few decades after Merneptah, other “Sea Peoples” would be back, and in greater numbers. In fact, they were going to appear on Egypt’s shores in one of the greatest battles in Bronze Age history. Along the way, the Egyptians would produce some of the first imagery of these groups, and their ships, and their weapons, allowing greater and more detailed study. But that’s a story for the near future.
The Odyssey
I have a bit more to say about the Aegean, Anatolia, and the larger context of this conflict. Before that, though, let’s circle back to an epic question. How the Ekwesh line up with Achaean “raiders” found in Homer’s poems, specifically The Odyssey.
Odyssey, Book XIV.[45]
To set the scene, Odysseus has returned to his kingdom of Ithaka. He hasn’t revealed himself yet or slaughtered the obnoxious suitors. First, he stops at the house of Eumaeus, the blind swineherd, and receives hospitality. Eumaeus does not recognise his King (yet) and enquires his origins. To conceal his identity a bit longer, Odysseus fabricates a tale. It begins:
“Odysseus said cunningly… ‘I come from spacious Crete… I have the gift / of courage from Athena and from Ares… I did not like farmwork or housekeeping, / or raising children. I liked sailing better, / and war with spears and arrows, deadly weapons. / Others may shudder at such things, but gods / made my heart love them. People’s preferences / are different. Before the Greeks went off / to march on Troy, I led my troops and fleet / on nine forays, with great success. I had / my pick of all the spoils… Soon my house / grew rich; I was a fine, important man / among the Cretans.
Odysseus paints a picture of Achaean (Greek) raiders, sailing forth repeatedly to plunder distant lands. Even before the war at Troy, the King of Ithaka was a successful pirate, and built the wealth of his house upon such efforts. He carries on, describing the war at Troy (which he laments as an “expedition of disaster, / which made so many men collapse and fall.” In the aftermath, Odysseus claims to have returned to Crete, his fictional home. But he found domesticity unsatisfactory. Soon, he yearned to go forth once more. Here, we get to the crux of it:
“Some impulse made me want to sail to Egypt, / with nine ships and a godlike crew. I rushed / to get the fleet prepared and gather up / the men… We feasted / six days, then on the seventh we embarked / and sailed from Crete. A fair north wind was blowing / so we could drift on easily, like floating / downstream… In five days we had reached the river valley / of Egypt; my fleet docked inside the Nile. /
I told the loyal men to wait and guard / the ships while I sent scouts to check around / from points of higher ground. But they indulged / their own aggressive impulses, and started / wilfully doing damage to the fields / of Egypt and enslaved the little children / and women, and they killed the men. The news / soon reached the city; people heard the screaming, / and right away at dawn, they all arrived. / The plain was filled with warriors on foot, / and chariots and gleaming bronze, and Zeus, / the Lord of Lightning, caused my men to panic. / They dared not keep on fighting; danger lurked / on every side.
Then many of my men / were killed with sharp bronze spears; the rest were taken / as slaves to work for them. I wish I too / had died in Egypt! But more pain remained. / Zeus put another plan into my mind. / I took my helmet off my head and dropped / my shield and sword, and unarmed I approached / the king. Beside his chariot I grasped / his knees and kissed them. He was merciful; / he kept me safe, and took me home with him, / riding his chariot. My eyes were wet. / Many Egyptians were enraged with me, / and tried to kill me with their spears; the king / protected me – he feared the wrath of Zeus, / the god of strangers, who hates wickedness. / I stayed there seven years and gained great wealth; / all the Egyptian people gave me gifts.
Odysseus’ attack (though fictional) contains story elements that seem remarkably familiar. Homer’s Achaeans turned to raiding and piracy as a regular feature of life, enough that Odysseus could go forth multiple times even before the great Trojan War. Subsequently, his claim of an attack on Egypt’s Delta bears more than a passing resemblance to the events described by Merneptah (and even more by one of his successors). It seems plausible, at least, that some vague “cultural memory” persisted in later Greek society, perhaps inspired by real Bronze Age events.[46]
Similarly, the story itself in the Odyssey must haven “believable” to the characters, which suggests that Achaean raiding and piracy were a known feature of that society. The idea has kicked around for a while, that such tales may have their genesis in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Today, scholars like Jeffrey Emanuel are the most active proponents of such interpretations, suggesting that Odysseus’ “Cretan Lie” is a distant descendant of the 13th and 12th Century phenomena.[47] That is slightly outside the scope of Egyptian history, but it’s fun to see the parallels between events in Merneptah’s reign (and others a bit later) and stories told by the bards of a later age. Maybe Greeks of Homer’s time had some memory of ancient events.
Enough mythology, for today, let’s wrap up our story with one last bit of history.
Hittites & Sea Peoples
Back in the reign of Ramesses II, the old pharaoh announced “He (the King) has destroyed the warriors of the Great Green (Mediterranean); the Delta-land slumbers and can rest.”[48] Now, seven decades later, violence had returned to Egypt’s northern realm. Merneptah raged against the Sherden, Lukka, Ekwesh, Shekelesh, and Tursha. Alongside the Libu tribes, warriors (and maybe families?) of the north fell to Egyptian blades, and many more disappeared into captivity.
Okay, that’s all well and good. But why was this happening? What brought these groups to Egypt in the days of Merneptah?
Individual groups may have gone to the sea because of hardship at home. Outside mainland Greece, possible home of the Ekwesh, other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean were experiencing hard times. Archaeologists have determined that a drought had begun around 1250 BCE and lasted approximately 100 years.[49] Written evidence for that appears in Syria and, most notably, Hatti. Throughout this era, the Hittites suffered food shortages, eventually turning to Egypt for imports.[50] So, there was some terrible climate disruption sweeping this region. Perhaps folks like the Shekelsh and Ekwesh went in search of more fertile lands.
On the human level, there’s also abundant evidence for conflict. In Anatolia, for example, the Hittites regularly waged war against rebels and enemy kingdoms.[51] In the late 13th Century (around the time of Merneptah), the Great King Tudhliya IV campaigned against the Lukka people of the southwest, subjugating the region. That might have driven some groups to flight, escaping destruction at home.[52]
Further north, Tudhaliya warred with Aḫḫiyawa (the Achaeans) in western Anatolia.[53] Scholars can reconstruct that conflict from fragmentary texts and annals. Apparently, Tudhaliya attacked the Ahhiyawans near Miletus (ancient Milawata) on the west coast. He subjugated the city and may have outright destroyed parts of it; the archaeological site of Miletus has a destruction layer dating to the late 13th Century.[54] Perhaps the Hittite attack drove the local Achaeans (or Ekwesh) from their homes, and they took to the sea. Subsequently, Tudhaliya forced this region into vassalage.[55] What’s more, he used this victory to symbolically “demote” his rival, the King of Aḫḫiyawa, from the status of “Great King” to merely “King.”[56] He no longer recognised him as a rival. Unfortunately, the identity of that Aḫḫiyawan king remains uncertain; it’s also unknown if this ruler lived in Anatolia or was based in mainland Greece.[57]
Thirdly, Tudhaliya had business in the northern part of Anatolia, when he intervened in the politics of Troy (or Wilusa). The Trojan king, named Walmu, had been deposed and needed Hittite help.[58] Subsequently, the Hittites were able to restore him to his throne. This era of disruption and conflict might correlate with archaeological evidence at Troy itself. One layer of the city was destroyed violently in the late 13th Century, apparently with remains of “arrowheads embedded in the walls,” and “skeletons; we found, for example, a girl, …sixteen, seventeen years old, half buried, the feet were burned by fire. . . . It was a city which was besieged.”[59] I mentioned earlier how the Tursha (Teresh) of Merneptah’s record might, tentatively, be a version of “Trojans.” It’s not hard to imagine refugees, fleeing a burning kingdom, winding up on the sea, and ultimately in Egypt.
Finally, Tudhaliya’s forces themselves crossed the sea, with warships of their own. In a daring escapade, the Hittites attacked the island of Cyprus, sometime in this reign.[60] Gathering a fleet, they sailed against the Cypriote kingdom (called Alashiya) and devastated it. A description of the event comes from the Tudhaliya’s annals:
“I seized the king of Alashiya with his wives, and his children… All the goods, including silver and gold, and all the captured people I removed and brought home to Hattusa. I enslaved the country of Alashiya and made it tributary on the spot…”[61]
Ironically, it may have been the Egyptians who gave the Hittites their tools. Back in the days of Ramesses II (episode 233), the Egyptians had given the King of Hatti ships. Not just ships, but ship-builders, blueprints for new vessels in the Egyptian style.[62] The intention was to allow Hatti to build transport vessels, for grain shipments (that now flowed between the Nile and Anatolia). I’m guessing Ramesses did not anticipate them using these vessels for war. But perhaps he should have. Like Aesop’s eagle, the Egyptians had given their allies new tools of destruction, tools that ultimately brought enemies to their own shores.
The Hittite assault may have been quite damaging. Coastal sites in Cyprus show evidence for destruction in the late 13th Century (and after).[63] Simultaneously, new centres emerge on higher ground, as if locals were moving to more defensible positions.[64] As usual, the extent of the damage varies by site, and the causes range from violent attack to more natural phenomena.[65] Cyprus has its own thing going on archaeologically, and to some extent they survived the Late Bronze Age Collapse better than others.[66] But even if the Hittites did not fully occupy or destroy these communities, their raids would have been quite disruptive to trade and travel in the region. Again, perhaps folks of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean would take to ships, heading offshore, to escape a rampaging Hittite.
All this is to say that, if scholars are correct in identifying an Aegean or Anatolian origin for the various “Sea Peoples,” then the Hittites loom large in that scenario. The fact that Tudhaliya IV, contemporary of Merneptah, was active in both western Anatolia and Cyprus… might give some geopolitical context to these “Sea Peoples” movements. Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for their raids, the pressures of conflict may have disrupted regional economies and communities. Like an international butterfly effect,[67] damage in one centre might push people out of another, and so forth, until groups packed up and headed overseas. If warrior elites were forced from settled bases, they might turn to piracy (as the Lukka had done before). If they made a living travelling the sea lanes (like the Shekelesh), then attacks on Cyprus and western Anatolia might have destroyed safe havens or pushed more folks into travel. Ultimately, they took to the seas and wound up on the shores of Egypt. Small groups, compared to the Libu, and easily defeated by pharaoh’s warriors. But perhaps that was the point. Maybe, as Dr. Sameh Iskander puts it, Merneptah’s “Sea Peoples” were less heavily armed invaders, and more like “fugitives.”[68]
Conclusion
In 1221 BCE, a great battle took place in the western Delta. Egyptians faced Libu (or Libyans) in large numbers, in a bloody conflict. Simultaneously, Merneptah gives vague references to five more groups: Sherden, Lukka, Ekwesh, Tursha, and Shekelesh, who are traditionally referenced under the umbrella term “Sea Peoples.” Their role in this particular conflict is vague, thanks to damage on the hieroglyph texts. But enough details survive to give hints of their numbers, and scholars can speculate (tentatively) on their origins. That these foreigners came from the Aegean or Anatolia, at least in some cases, fairly secure. If so, they may have come to Egypt as raiders (immortalised in myth) or, perhaps, as a result of upheavals in their homelands. Today, the picture of the Sea Peoples is ever-evolving, as historians reexamine narratives, archaeologists uncover new material, and scholars generally reassess evidence from new angles. In the big picture, Merneptah’s engagement with the Sea Peoples was the third significant occurrence in Egyptian history. It was the largest so far, and perhaps the bloodiest, but remarkably, the worst was yet to come.
Sea Peoples Debunked?
POST-SCRIPT, EPISODE 240B.
Bing bong, Dominic from the future here. As some of you may know, 2026 saw the release of Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey. A loose adaptation of Homer’s epic, the film played (lightly) with the idea of the “Sea Peoples,” and their role in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Now, in a review of that film, Prof. Emily Wilson (of the University of Pennsylvania) had some sharp critiques of Nolan’s story points. One passage jumped out, and I’d like to discuss it briefly. Speaking on the Sea Peoples plot point, Wilson notes:
“Nolan’s other major addition to Homer’s narrative is the repeated reference to threats to ‘our civilisation’ from ‘the sea peoples’ – a now debunked 19th-century theory about maritime tribes who were thought to have attacked Egypt around 1200 BCE and to have also been responsible for the roughly coeval collapse of Mycenaean Greek culture… The current consensus, as Nolan clearly knows, is that there was no such thing as the sea peoples, and that the Greek-speaking world’s shift away from the more centralised, literate palace culture … was caused by a range of factors, including climate change, earthquakes and internal unrest.”[69]
Wilson’s claim that the Sea Peoples are “debunked” or that there was “no such thing” as the Sea Peoples (emphasis on the) has caused some confusion online. Superficially, it suggests that the “Sea Peoples” are a myth, and that their supposed wanderings or attacks never happened. I’m not sure if that’s what Prof. Wilson intended, but I’ve seen folks taking that message away from her review. So, to clear the air: the term “Sea Peoples” was coined in the late 1800s, based on Egyptian references (like Merneptah’s) to “peoples from the Sea.”[70] And for several decades, some scholars subscribed to the idea that these folks had moved, in one massive migration or invasion, through the Eastern Mediterranean, plundering and destroying as they went.[71] That model is no longer current among historians or archaeologists. As scholarship proceeds (and excavations uncover more sites), the picture has become more nuanced than it was 150 years ago. The “Sea Peoples” are no longer the “rampaging hordes” of yesteryear, and while they may have destroyed some communities, few scholars still view them as the apocalyptic bogeyman.
Nevertheless, the existence of groups whom the Egyptians called “Peoples from the Sea” is beyond dispute. Individual tribes (like the Sherden or Lukka) are exceptionally well-documented, in many different communities; and as we move from the 13th Century to the 12th, we will see far more evidence for them on the ground. The archaeological picture of different “Sea Peoples” advances rapidly, year by year. Their story is yet to be told.
[1] Manassa, C. (2003). The Great Karnak Inscription of Merneptah: Grand Strategy in the 13th Century BC, 61—71. See also KRI IV (Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions); RITA IV (Ramesside Inscriptions: Translations) and RITANC IV (Ramesside Inscriptions: Notes & Comments), below.
[2] Moreno García, J. C. (2014). Invaders or just herders? Libyans in Egypt in the third and second millennia BCE. World Archaeology, 46(4), 610—623. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2014.931820
[3] Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?” 619.
[4] Manassa, Great Karnak Inscription, 27—34, 34—37.
[5] Caminos, LEM, 293—296; Gardiner, LEM, xvi-xvii; Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 203.
[6] For recent summaries, see Saretta, P. (2016). Asiatics in Middle Kingdom Egypt: Perceptions and Reality; Candelora, D. (2026). Immigration and Borders in Ancient Egypt.
[7] Moreno García, “Invaders or just herders?” 619.
[8] Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions (KRI) IV, 4:1—5; Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Translations (RITA) IV, 4; Davies, B. G. (1997). Egyptian Historical Inscriptions of the Nineteenth Dynasty, 154, 155; Manassa, Great Karnak Inscription, 156, 157.
[9] KRI IV, 8:9; RITA, 7, 8; Manassa, Great Karnak Inscription, 55, 163.
[10] For a recent summary of the tribes and their respective sources see Adams, M. J., & Cohen, M. E. (2013). The “Sea Peoples” in Primary Sources. In A. E. Killebrew & G. Lehmann (Eds.), The Philistines and other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology (pp. 645–664).
[11] Iskander, S. (2002). The Reign of Merneptah [Unpublished PhD. Thesis], 263—264.
[12] Manassa, Great Karnak Inscription, 4.
[13] Grimal, N. (1992). A History of Ancient Egypt (I. Shaw, Trans.), 268—269; Dijk, J. van. (2000). The Amarna Period and the later New Kingdom (c. 1352-1069 BC). In I. Shaw (Ed.), The Oxford history of ancient Egypt (pp. 272–313); Wilkinson, T. (2010). The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: The History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra, Ch. 16.
[14] Iskander, “Merenptah’s Confrontations in the Western Desert,” 190; Iskander, S. (2002). The Reign of Merneptah [Unpublished PhD. Thesis],
[15] Moran, Amarna Letters, 150—151; Rainey, el-Amarna Correspondence, 483—485. They appear in Amarna Letters (EA) 81, 122, 123.
[16] RITA, II, 181—183; Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 101—103.
[17] Tanis Stela: KRI, II, 289:1—291:10; RITA, II, 118—122; RITANC, II, 173—175.
[18] See Abbas, M. R. (2017). A Survey of the Military Role of the Sherden Warriors in the Egyptian Army During the Ramesside Period. Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne, 10, 7–23 online.
[19] P. Anastasi II: Gardiner, Late Egyptian Miscellanies, 5:1—5:4; Caminos, Late Egyptian Miscellanies, 44—46; Spalinger, War in Ancient Egypt, 248 n. 32.
[20] D’Amato & Salimbeti Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, 27—28.
[21] Beckman, G. (1999). Hittite Diplomatic Texts (2nd ed.), text #13 §11.
[22] Moran, Amarna Letters, 111; Rainey, el-Amarna Correspondence, 350—353.
[23] Adams & Cohen, “The “Sea Peoples” in Primary Sources,” 647 with references.
[24] RITA, 7—8; Manassa, Great Karnak Inscription, 55—61.
[25] Bryce, T. (2005). The Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd edn), 54—55.
[26] They appear frequently in the Iliad, led by their commander Sarpedon.
[27] Moran, Amarna Letters, 150—151; Rainey, el-Amarna Correspondence, 483—485. They appear in Amarna Letters (EA) 81, 122, 123.
[28] RITA, II, 181—183; Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 101—103.
[29] Tanis Stela: KRI, II, 289:1—291:10; RITA, II, 118—122; RITANC, II, 173—175.
[30] See Abbas, M. R. (2017). A Survey of the Military Role of the Sherden Warriors in the Egyptian Army During the Ramesside Period. Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne, 10, 7–23 online.
[31] P. Anastasi II: Gardiner, Late Egyptian Miscellanies, 5:1—5:4; Caminos, Late Egyptian Miscellanies, 44—46; Spalinger, War in Ancient Egypt, 248 n. 32.
[32] Woudhuizen, Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples, 35—42; D’Amato & Salimbeti, Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, 23—26.
[33] Bryce, T. R. (2010). The Trojan War. In E. H. Cline (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3000-1000 BC) (pp. 475–482).
[34] Kelder, J. M. (2006). Mycenaeans in Western Anatolia. In J. P. Stronk & M. D. de Weerd (Eds.), Talanta, Proceedings of the Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society Volumes XXXVI – XXXVII (2004—2005) (pp. 49–86). https://www.academia.edu/219026/Mycenaeans_in_Western_Anatolia; Vagnetti, L. (1998). The Mycenaeans in Western Anatolia and the Problem of the Origins of the Sea Peoples. In S. Gitin, A. Mazar, & E. Stern (Eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE (pp. 17–65).
[35] Güterbock, H. G. (1983). The Hittites and the Aegean World: Part 1. The Ahhiyawa Problem Reconsidered. American Journal of Archaeology, 87(2), 133–138. https://doi.org/10.2307/504928
[36] Blackwell, N. G. (2021). Ahhiyawa, Hatti, and Diplomacy: Implications of Hittite Misperceptions of the Mycenaean World. Hesperia, 90, 191–231. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/55/article/819860
[37] See below section “The Odyssey.”
[38] Maran, J., & Wright, J. C. (2020). The Rise of the Mycenaean Culture, Palatial Administration and Its Collapse. In I. S. Lemos & A. Kotsonas (Eds.), A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean (pp. 99–132); Cline, E. H. (2021). 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed (Revised edn), 124, 126—127;
[39] Middleton, G. D. (2010). The Collapse of Palatial Society in LBA Greece and the Postpalatial Period, 14, 97—101; French, E. B. (1998). The Ups and Downs of Mycenae: 1250-1150 BCE. In S. Gitin, A. Mazar, & E. Stern (Eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE (pp. 2–5).
[40] D’Amato & Salimbeti Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, 26—27.
[41] Adams & Cohen, “The “Sea Peoples” in Primary Sources,” 656 with references.
[42] For an overview of “ethnicity” and the Sea Peoples including Shekelesh, see Woudhuizen, F. C. (2006). The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples. https://repub.eur.nl/pub/7686/Woudhuizen%20bw.pdf
[43] Artzy, M. (2013). On the Other “Sea Peoples.” In A. E. Killebrew & G. Lehmann (Eds.), The Philistines and other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology (pp. 329–344).
[44] Jung, R. (2017). The Sea Peoples after Three Millennia: Possibilities and Limitations of Historical Reconstruction. In “Sea Peoples” Up-to-Date. New Research on Transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th–11th Centuries BCE, 31—33, online.
[45] Emily Wilson (trans.), 340—341.
[46] D’Amato & Salimbeti Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, 24, 26.
[47] Emanuel, Black Ships and Sea Raiders,
[48] RITA, II, 181—183; Brand, Ultimate Pharaoh, 101—103.
[49] Kaniewski, D., Campo, E. V., Guiot, J., Burel, S. L., Otto, T., & Baeteman, C. (2013). Environmental Roots of the Late Bronze Age Crisis. PLOS ONE, 8(8), e71004 online; Jung, R. (2018). Push and Pull Factors of the Sea Peoples between Italy and the Levant. In J. Driessen (Ed.), An Archaeology of Forced Migration. Crisis-induced Mobility and the Collapse of the 13th c. BCE Eastern Mediterranean (pp. 273–306).
[50] Cohen, Y. (2021). The “Hunger Years” and the “Sea Peoples”: Preliminary Observations on the Recently Published Letters from the “House of Urtenu” Archive at Ugarit. In P. Machinist, R. A. Harris, J. A. Berman, N. Samet, & N. Ayali-Darshan (Eds.), Essays in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Edward L. Greenstein (pp. 47–61) online.
Klengel, H. (1974). “Hungerjahre” in Hatti. Altorientalische Forschungen, 1, 165–174.
[51] Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd edn), 224—225, 289—293,
[52] Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd edn), 304 notes 47, 48.
[53] Güterbock, H. G. (1997). A New Look at One Ahhiyawa Text. In H. A. Hoffner Jr. (Ed.), Perspectives on Hittite Civilization: Selected Writings of Hans Gustav Güterbock (pp. 217–222), reprinted from Hittite and Other Anatolian and Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Sedat Alp (1992), 235—243.
[54] The city of Miletus was fortified in the 13th Century BCE and subsequently destroyed sometime during the LBA Collapse. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age, 10 n. 5; Desborough, Vincent (1966). The Last Mycenaeans and Their Successors: An Archaeological Survey, c.1200—C.1000 B.C., 161—163 http://archive.org/details/lastmycenaeansth0000vinc.
[55] Beckman, G., Bryce, T., & Cline, E. (2011). The Ahhiyawa Texts, 123—133.
[56] Cline, E. H. (2021). 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed (Revised edn), 93—94.
[57] For a survey of the evidence, see Kelder, J. M. (2010). The Kingdom of Mycenae: A Great Kingdom in the Late Bronze Age Aegean.
[58] Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd edn), 306—308.
[59] Cline, 1177 B.C. (Revised edn), 122—123 cf. Mountjoy, P. A. (1999). The Destruction of Troia VIh. Studia Troica, 9, 253—293; Drews, The End of the Bronze Age, 10 n. 6.
[60] Güterbock, H. G. (1967). The Hittite Conquest of Cyprus Reconsidered. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 26, 73–81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/543703; Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd edn), 321—323. NOTE: In my chronology, Tudhaliya IV reigned c. 1247—1219 BCE.
[61] Güterbock, “Hittite Conquest of Cyprus Reconsidered,” 77—78, with commentary.
[62] Emanuel, J. P. (2017). Black Ships and Sea Raiders: The Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Context of Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie, Ch. 6.
[63] For an overview of Cyprus in the LBA, see Nakassis, D. (2022). The Aegean in the Context of the Eastern Mediterranean World. In K. Radner, N. Moeller, & D. T. Potts (Eds.), The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, III (pp. 623–706).
[64] Cline, 1177 B.C. (Revised edn), 127—130, with references.
[65] Voskos, I., & Knapp, A. B. (2008). Cyprus at the End of the Late Bronze Age: Crisis and Colonization or Continuity and Hybridization? American Journal of Archaeology, 112, 659—684.
[66] Vagnetti, L. (1998). The Thirteenth-Century Changes in Cyprus in Their East Mediterranean Context. In S. Gitin, A. Mazar, & E. Stern (Eds.), Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE, 7—8, 11—13.
[67] Cline, 1177 B.C. (Revised edn), 167.
[68] Iskander, “Merenptah’s Confrontations in the Western Desert,” 193.
[69] Wilson, E. (2026, July 27). An Uncomplicated Man [Review of The Odyssey, by C. Nolan]. London Review of Books, 48(14). https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man
[70] Killebrew, A. E., & Lehmann, G. (2013). The World of the Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples.” In The Philistines and other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology (pp. 1–18).
[71] Drews, R. (2000). Medinet Habu: Oxcarts, Ships, and Migration Theories. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 59(3), 161–190. https://www.jstor.org/stable/546252
