Who Were The Mysterious “Sea Peoples”, Destroyers Of The Ancient Empires?

The sea has fascinated and terrified humankind since time immemorial thanks to its ability to fetch onward all manner of strange entities and forces – whethergood , bad , orugly . Never was this more true than during the Late Bronze Age , when the piss of the Eastern Mediterranean spawned a floating army of marauders known as the Sea Peoples , who attacked and destroyed a number of peachy empires let in the Mycenaeans , the Hittites , and even the Egyptians .

At least , that ’s what some historian conceive . Frustratingly , the Sea Peoples left behind no material culture or written reservoir , which means we have no idea who they were , where they fall from , or if they even existed at all .

What we do know is that during the late 13th and former twelfth centuries BCE , all of the major Bronze Age civilizations suddenly fell into downfall – a phenomenon bang as theLate Bronze Age Collapse . A number of factors have been hypothesized to have catalyzed this catastrophe , including clime change , disease , and a declare oneself struggle known asWorld War Zero .

However , a relief on the mortuary temple of the Egyptian pharaohRamesses IIIprovides evidence for an alternative explanation . limn a disorderly struggle between an army of Egyptian archers and a shaft - wielding navy , the scene may recount an seek invasion by the Sea Peoples in 1175 BCE .

An concomitant inscription explains that the cryptical seaborne foeman consists of an bond of tribes known as Peleset , Thekel , Shekelesh , Denyen , and Weshesh , who hail from places including Sicily , Sardinia , Cyprus , and Anatolia . Referencing the empires that the Sea People lay barren to before reaching Egypt , the text posit that “ no land could stand before their arms : from Hatti , Qode , Carchemish , Arzawa , and Alashiya on , being cut off [ destroyed ] at one meter . ”

Elsewhere , acuneiformtablet from Syria key out how the Sea Peoples raided and demolish the once mighty Ugarit kingdom . carbon 14 dating of a series of artefact link up to a Bronze Age battle in the neighborhood has hint that the attack may have occurred around 1190 BCE , which correlate with the story that theSea Peoples rack up a string of victoriesbefore pickings on the forces of Ramesses III .

Yet it was in Egypt that their advance was halted , and some author claim that the Sea Peoples later settled in Philistia , becoming the Philistines . Despite their licking , though , the damage the Sea Peoples did to Egypt may have contributed to the prostration of the New Kingdom around a one C by and by .

However , with little evidence other than a temple built by a self - glorify pharaoh , it ’s fairish to say that our knowledge of the Sea Peoples and their history is pretty sketchy , and there are more than a few scholars who doubt whether they really had anything to do with the fall of the greatBronze Ageempires .