Sea People

Sea People, any of the groups of aggressive seafarers who invaded eastern Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age, especially in the 13th century bce. They are held responsible for the destruction of old powers such as the Hittite empire. Because of the abrupt break in ancient Middle Eastern records as a result of the invasions, the precise extent and origin of the upheavals remain uncertain. Principal but one-sided evidence for the Sea Peoples is based on Egyptian texts and illustrations; other important information comes from Hittite sources and from archaeological data.

The Egyptians waged two wars against the Sea Peoples: the first, in the fifth year of King Merneptah (1236–23 bce); the second, in the reign of Ramses III (c. 1198–66 bce).

Tentative identifications of the Sea Peoples listed in Egyptian documents are as follows: Ekwesh, a group of Bronze Age Greeks (Achaeans; Ahhiyawa in Hittite texts); Teresh, Tyrrhenians (Tyrsenoi), known to later Greeks as sailors and pirates from Anatolia, ancestors of the Etruscans; Luka, a coastal people of western Anatolia, also known from Hittite sources (their name survives in classical Lycia on the southwest coast of Anatolia); Sherden, probably Sardinians (the Sherden acted as mercenaries of the Egyptians in the Battle of Kadesh, 1299 bce); Shekelesh, probably identical with the Sicilian tribe called Siculi; and Peleset, generally believed to refer to the Philistines, who perhaps came from Crete and were the only major tribe of the Sea Peoples to settle permanently in Palestine.

Further identifications of other Sea Peoples mentioned in the documents are much more uncertain.