Global InformationSea Peoples information
The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean before and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BC).[2][3] Following the creation of the concept in the 19th century, the Sea Peoples' incursions became one of the most famous chapters of Egyptian history, given its connection with, in the words of Wilhelm Max Müller, "the most important questions of ethnography and the primitive history of classic nations".[4][5]
The Sea People included well-attested groups such as the Lukka, as well as others such as the Weshesh whose origins are unknown. Hypotheses regarding the origin of the various groups are the source of much speculation. Several of them appear to have been Aegean tribes, while others may have originated in Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Western Anatolia.
French Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé first used the term peuples de la mer (literally "peoples of the sea") in 1855 in a description of reliefs on the Second Pylon at Medinet Habu, documenting Year 8 of Ramesses III.[6][7] In the late 19th century, Gaston Maspero, de Rougé's successor at the Collège de France, subsequently popularized the term "Sea Peoples" and an associated migration theory.[8] Since the early 1990s, his migration theory has been brought into question by a number of scholars; it has been described as a "deeply problematic theory and one that has been largely dismissed".[2][3][9][10][11]
- ^ Paine, Lincoln (27 October 2015). The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-101-97035-5.
- ^ a b Killebrew 2013, p. 2. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term 'Sea Peoples' encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). [Footnote: The modern term 'Sea Peoples' refers to people that appear in several New Kingdom Egyptian texts as originating from 'islands' (tables 1–2; Adams and Cohen, this volume; see, e.g., Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term 'Sea Peoples' in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. The designation 'of the sea' appears only in relation to the Sherden, Shekelesh and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Henceforth the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]"
- ^ a b Drews 1995, pp. 48–61: "The thesis that a great 'migration of the Sea Peoples' occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves, such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, 'eins ist aber sicher: Nach den ägyptischen Texten haben wir es nicht mit einer "Völkerwanderung" zu tun' ['One thing is however certain: according to the Egyptian texts we are not dealing with a "migration"'] Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but on their interpretation".
- ^ Müller 1888, p. 147: "In Egyptian history, there is hardly any incident of so great an interest as the invasion of Egypt by the Mediterranean peoples, the facts of which are connected with the most important questions of ethnography and the primitive history of classic nations."
- ^ Hall 1922.
- ^ Silberman 1998, p. 269.
- ^ de Rougé 1855, p. 14: [Translation from the French]: "For a long time Kefa has been identified, with verisimilitude, with Caphthorim of the Bible, to whom Gesenius, along with most interpreters, assigns as a residence the islands of Crete or Cyprus. The people of Cyprus had certainly to take sides in this war; perhaps they were then the allies of Egypt. In any case, our entry does not detail the names of these people, from the islands of the Mediterranean. Champollion noted that T'akkari [which he names Fekkaros; see appendix at the following entry] and Schartana, were recognizable, in enemy ships, with unique hairstyles. In addition, in the crests of the conquered peoples, the Schartana and the Touirasch bear the designation of the peoples of the sea. It is therefore likely that they belong to these nations from islands or coasts of the archipelago. The Rabou are still recognizable among the prisoners."
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Vandersleyenwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Yoo, J.; Zerbini, A.; Barron, C. (2018). Migration and Migrant Identities in the Near East from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Taylor & Francis. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-351-25475-5. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
The earliest scholarly thesis to deal with migration in the ancient Near East emerged in the work of Gaston Maspero; his Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'orient classique blamed a vast migration for the ruin of Bronze Age civilisation, attributing its fall to a migrating confederation of 'Sea Peoples' that attacked Egypt and other areas of Asia Minor. Although now widely considered a deeply problematic theory and one that has been largely dismissed, it was not until the early 1990s that it received proper, rigorous questioning in the scholarship of Claude Vandersleyen, Robert Drews and Neil Silberman, amongst others.