The Seafaring Raiders / 1

The Iron Age

The Iron Age in the Ancient Near East is believed to have begun with the discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus in the late 2nd millennium BCE (circa 1300 BCE) [1] .

The use of iron weapons instead of bronze weapons spread rapidly throughout the Near East by the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. Anatolians had begun forging weapons out of iron, which was a superior metal to bronze by 1500 BCE at the latest.

The use of iron weapons by the Hittites was believed to have been a major factor in the rapid rise of the Hittite Empire. Because the area in which iron technology first developed was near the Aegean, the technology expanded into both Asia and Europe simultaneously[2] , aided by Hittite expansion. The Sea Peoples and the related Philistines are often associated with the introduction of iron technology into Asia, as are the Dorians with respect to Greece [3] .

The Sea Peoples are unappreciated. This is in part because the most famous of them, the Philistines, received such bad press in the Bible. But the other Sea Peoples—among them the Shardana, Sikila, Lukka and the Danuna—have also been treated poorly, even by scholars, who often blame them for causing the widespread disorder and destruction that occurred throughout the eastern Mediterranean world at the end of the Late Bronze Age (about 1250–1200 BCE)—for undermining the social, economic and military organization of Bronze Age civilization, and for bringing it to an end.

A famous Egyptian relief has, like the Bible, contributed to the unfavorable light in which the Sea Peoples are viewed—the well-known battle scene between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples depicted by Ramesses III  on the walls of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu (part of the Theban necropolis) in Upper Egypt.

New archaeological data, however, require us to reevaluate this unflattering portrait. Much recent data suggests that the Sea Peoples were a constructive element in the Levant. The fact is that the Sea Peoples brought exciting technological advances to the Canaanite world in which they settled.

The battle scene at Medinet Habu depicts a twin encounter—by land and by sea—dating to the 8th year of the reign of Ramesses III, that is, about 1175 BCE. Both battles occurred along the coast of Djaby, the ancient Egyptian name for Canaan. The battle, described in an accompanying hieroglyphic text, is also referred to in an important text found near Medinet Habu, known as Papyrus Harris I after its donor. It is now in the British Museum.

The Egyptians boasted of having defeated the Sea Peoples and said they allowed their vanquished foe to settle along the Mediterranean coast from Jaffa to Gaza. Most historians, including us, take this latter statement to be an indication that the battle was actually inconclusive. We part company with most historians, however, because we do not blame the Sea Peoples for the many upheavals that occurred in the ancient Near East at this time. Many other groups were also moving through the region, resulting in numerous conflicts.

Regardless of whether the Egyptians did or did not win the battle, the Sea Peoples vessel depicted at Medinet Habu served as a prototype for the well-known Phoenician ship called hippos by the Greeks. The hippos was a popular Iron Age II (1000–586 BCE) coastal and riverine vessel widely used in the Levant; clay models of this type have been found on the Phoenicia (The Canaanites on the Mediterranean coast became known as Phoenicians in about 1000 BCE).

The Sea peoples NDjKHT-WNPj-YM

The Sea Peoples is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BCE who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late XIXth dynasty, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the XXth Dynasty. The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term “the foreign-countries (or ‘peoples’) of the sea” (Egyptian ndjkht-wnpj-ym) in his Great Karnak Inscription. Although some scholars believe that they “invaded” Cyprus, Hatti and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.

Relentless attacks by groups known as the Sea Peoples around 1200 BCE virtually destroyed all the major powers of the Mediterranean, and cleared the way for the rise of the Greeks, Romans and Western civilization [4] . Surprisingly for such a pivotal moment in world history, the events which took place at that time are not well understood and are widely debated. Many theories have been advanced to explain these times, and their participants have been declared to come from Anatolia, or the Aegean, or even Atlantis. We will consider the various theories, as well as a new composite view which does not appear to have been considered previously.

An important element mentioned by many sources, and yet given consideration by virtually none, is the simple fact that—in the midst of a cataclysm which destroyed almost every city in the eastern Mediterranean area—the Phoenician cities remained untouched. This turns out to be one of the keys which help to unlock the mystery of the Sea Peoples—an event which changed the course of history.

Theories. The traditional major milestone events in the Sea Peoples invasion are [5] :

1. c. 1208 BCE  -  King Merneptah of Egypt turned back an incursion by the Sea Peoples and Libyans at the Nile Delta.
2. c. 1180 BCE  -  The Hittite empire fell.
3. c. 1180 to 1175 BCE  -  The Levant fell (eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean) except for the Phoenician cities.
4.  c. 1175 BCE  -  King Ramses III of Egypt stopped the Sea Peoples attacks by land and by sea, allowing them to keep the land they had taken.

The main current theory advanced to explain the origin and actions of the Sea Peoples has been described by Eliezer D. Oren [6]  as “the collapse of the two great empires of that day—the Hittite in Anatolia and the Mycenaean in Greece—brought about their (peoples’) mass migrations to the coastlands of the Levant and Cyprus.” The collapse of those two empires was basically laid to economic and environmental factors.

Shelley Wachsmann [7]  added a significant point which was missing from the above explanation, and that was the participation of people from Central Europe and the Black Sea region. This may have been a major factor in the events of this time.

Another theory which was previously prominent held that the Sea Peoples were almost entirely from western Anatolia. This view was championed by R. D. Barnett[8]  and by others such as Eberhard Zangger[9] . However recent scholarship has shown rather clearly that these peoples came from a wider area, indicating a wider range of causes for these events.

An examination of the Sea Peoples would be remiss if it did not also acknowledge another “popular (!?)” theory: that these people were from the lost city of Atlantis, as identified by Frank Joseph[10]  and others. It must be admitted that this theory had a promising historical genesis: a description by Plato, unknown peoples, and inscriptions on Egyptian temples. Now, however, some of those people listed by the Egyptians, such as the Lukka, have been identified and their homes in Anatolia are known. Also, Plato identified Atlantis as having perished long before the Sea Peoples. Until Joseph excavates his proposed site or someone else can show this legendary place still existed—and then perished—at the same time as the Sea Peoples (sending them out to conquer other lands), this possibility is not adequately supported.

In addition to considering the other theories mentioned above, a composite view is also considered—which brings together well-supported elements from the other theories. This approach may allow greater conformance with the array of facts discovered about the Sea Peoples and the events of this time.

Who were the Sea Peoples?

Perhaps the best and most unambiguous way to answer this question is to separate the winners from the losers in this epic series of battles. As we have seen, the major losers were (a) the city of Ugarit which was totally destroyed and never rebuilt, (b) the Hittite empire which was destroyed and left only a residual fragment on the Euphrates River, (c) the Mycenaeans who were fatally wounded and would disappear completely within a hundred years, and (d) Egypt which had won the battles but lost the Levant—it would waste away and become a shadow of its former self.

The winners, who constituted the Sea Peoples’ confederacy, were (a) the tribes of people who came from Anatolia—and the lands to its north and west—who migrated into the Levant and onto islands across the Mediterranean, (b) the Kshka (Ka?ka) who kept their original lands in the north of Anatolia on the Black Sea, and added the heart of the Hittite territories to their own, (c) the West Anatolian people who remained in their own lands, but added some of the Hittite lands, and gained influence in the Aegean, and (d) the Phoenicians who seem to have gained more than anyone else from the mass migration of the Land and Sea Peoples.
 
Aftermath. Under the destructive force of the Sea Peoples’ attacks, all of the Phoenicians’ powerful adversaries had been destroyed. The Phoenician cities were untouched by this devastation that happened around them, which left these people in an advantageous position. The historical record -[11-12] , shows their active cities quickly began to expand their domain by placing trading posts in Cyprus, the Aegean, Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Spain.

Among the cities they created were these in Morocco: Lixis (modern Larache), Sala (Rabat), Mogador (Essaouira) and Tingis (Tangier); in Spain: Gadir (Cadiz), Malaka (Malaga), Ibisa (Ibiza); in Algeria: Icosia (Algiers); in Tunisia: Utica and Carthage, both now gone; in Sardinia: Karalis (Cagliari); in Sicily: Panormus (Palermo); in Cyprus: Kition (Larnaca).  These were in addition to their home cities in Lebanon: Tyre (Sor), Sidon (Saida), Beirut (Beirut), Byblos (Jbail), Tripoli (Trablous), and many others. The Phoenicians gave rise to a powerful and wealthy sea-trading empire which stretched from Morocco to the Levant.

As a result of assembling and examining these many scattered facts about the Sea Peoples, which had been documented in separate studies by noted scholars, a larger picture has emerged. We are better able to see who the Sea Peoples were, what drove them, the actions they took, and where they settled. By clarifying the “mysteries” surrounding them, we are now able to more fully understand this critical turning point in history.

The legacy of the Sea Peoples was that they had forcefully cleared away the old powers from the Mediterranean and left freshly plowed ground for other emerging societies including the Israelites. In time the Greeks and Romans would rise and they—together with the often overlooked Phoenicians—would sow the seeds of Western civilization.

NOTES:

[1]  Jane. C. Waldbaum, “From Bronze to Iron. Vol. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology” (LIV. Paul Astroms Forlag, Goteburg (1978).
[2]  John Collis, “The European Iron Age”. 1989 (Reprint ed. B. T. Batsford, London.)
[3]  Leonard R. Palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans: Aegean Prehistory in the Light of the Linear B Tablets (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961),
[4]  Grant, Michael The Ancient Mediterranean (New York: Meridian, 1988), p. 80.
[5]  Scholars cannot agree on the specific year in which each of these events occurred. In each case there is a cluster of dates within a narrow band for these events. One of the well-supported dates within each band has been identified for use in this paper. Using any of the other dates within these bands does not change the outcome.
[6]  Oren, Eliezer D. “Introduction” The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 2000), p. xvii.
[7]  Wachsmann, Shelley “To the Sea of the Philistines” The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 2000), p. 122.
[8]   Barnett, R. D.  “The Sea Peoples”  Cambridge Ancient History  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), Vol. II, Part 2, pp.359-378.
[9]  Zangger, Eberhard  “Who Were the Sea People?” Saudi Aramco World 46:3 (Houston, 1995), pp. 20-31.
[10]  Joseph, Frank Survivors of Atlantis (Rochester, VT: Bear & Co, 2004), pp. 10-23.
[11]  Markoe, Peoples of the Past: Phoenicians, pp. 170-188.
[12]  Moscati, Sabatino The Phoenicians (New York: Rizzoli International, 1999/1988), pp. 8-304.