The Sea Peoples & The Late Bronze Age Collapse // Ancient History Documentary (1200-1150 BC)

Egypt land of the Nile in the 12th century BC. C. this place was already

ancient

, vast complexes of temples and pyramids dominating the skyline monuments to the power of the kings who ruled over a thousand years before a different era a different dynasty in the years since those colossal buildings had been carved into the landscape, Egypt had seen social upheaval outside of the invasion and the dark ages, however, over a millennium

late

r, the same gods ruled this land, a more or less similar culture dominated and now Egypt was no longer going alone as a piece of a vast interconnected trading system whose tendrils reached to the southern shores of Britain, in the far north, to the mountains of Afghanistan and beyond in the east, the richest and most stable system the world has ever seen, we know it thanks to a vast diplomatic library.

At Amana in Egypt, the capital of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, it was discovered that the great kings of this era maintained regular correspondence with each other to marry, make trade agreements and, very occasionally, go on war campaigns waged mainly by charioteers, the tanks. of the time supported by masses of spearmen almost 300 cuneiform letters written in Akkadian and Babylonian, the lingua franca of the time, sent from one side of the world to the other for hundreds of years from at least the 15th century BC. C., discovered only at this site, but in the 12th century BC. C. all was not well with the world after centuries of stability, disconcerting reports had begun to filter into distant Hattie.

Famine struck the land year after year in mainland Greece, one by one the great palace complexes of the Mycenaean warrior kings were burned to the ground, arrowheads and ashes permeated. The archaeological record of recent times the rot had come to Egypt no matter how much Pharaoh Ramses III tried to deny it and his state were part of this world system that was no longer self-sufficient when one day, around the year 1177 BC, black sails were sighted Facing the Egyptians on their shores a fleet of elegant warships gliding down the fertile rivers at the mouth of the Nile systems of irrigated fields and wild swamps around them glory and plunder in their minds the events that followed were so important to Ramses that the inscribed on a massive scale for future generations to contemp

late

in images and hieroglyphics this is the complex of medinette habu the decorated frescoes here that can still be seen today are one of the most important sources of the catastrophic turmoil of the time of ram caesar speaking directly to his people the pharaoh gifted his Of course, the pharaohs never lost according to imperial propaganda, they simply won closer and closer to home, but the situation seems to have been so dire at this point that, according to Ramses, it was necessary a direct proclamation before defeating them. the nile no land could resist the weapons of this foreign force that had already devastated territories from code hattie carcamish azawa and alecia onwards devastation that coincides with the archaeological record before ending its journey in egypt in the images of medinetaboo we can see these Face to face invaders some wore horned helmets, others Aegean style kilts and feather headdresses, they were not uniformed and comprised a variety of

peoples

of different appearances, some were heavily armed with plates, others wore light leather, some of them were Shirtless, they had all come to destroy the established world and the beginner knew that most of them were longswords and javelins, not spearmen supporting chariots as had been the way of warfare for centuries.

The world was changing. These warriors were racers, chariot killers. Perhaps most importantly, at Medinet Habu we receive names. These marine invaders were Pelosette Tajeka Danuna and Washesh. confederation of united lands overflowing plots in their proud chests the fire of war carried before them but who were these newcomers and where did they come from today we know them simply as the people of the sea their story is one of the most fascinating ever told and This was not the only group of so-called sea

peoples

, but it is the second of at least two major attempted invasions of Egypt.

An earlier armada was defeated by Ramesses' father some three decades earlier. Egyptian and other sources also mention other names: Sherdon Shekalesh, Lucas Karkesha, Nine. or ten seafaring towns wherever their names appear, death and destruction follow, but the Egyptian sources are extremely Egyptian. The attack on the Nile was in fact just one battle in a much larger saga illuminated by its recording in the historical record just before

history

goes dark. almost completely for hundreds of years, the darkest era that has ever fallen upon humanity. Ramses' state would survive the

collapse

by pushing back the sea peoples into the Nile, forming a wall of ships and spears to block his advance.

It is telling that a chariot is present on the battlefield, but is not integral. to victory a sign of the times despite the victory of ramses this was a battle that marked the fall of the egyptian state it was going to be a slow and persistent death leaving its colossal empty remains decomposing throughout the land condemned to irrelevance the only power of the

bronze

age that remains in a new and uncertain age of iron, since after the 12th century BC. C. for at least a century or more there were no cities in the eastern Mediterranean. Scholars have debated for nearly 200 years about the identity of these elusive invaders and their exact nature. where they came from and where they went were grizzled mercenary veterans who opportunistically went to war some had no doubt fought at sea for decades when they arrived in Egypt or a mass migration from the west the survivors of destroyed civilizations banded together to get out of The need to This was the

collapse

of the Late Bronze Age to this moment, the most devastating social collapse in

history

, the first true disruption since the city builders of

ancient

Sumer, some 3,000 years earlier, although we will never be able to know for sure what prompted it. to the sea peoples or even for the most part, the lives they led, the battles they fought, the record is simply too scant;

However, using the latest archaeological, genetic, climatological and historical research we can form a more basic picture of who they might have been telling about the Late Bronze Age collapse. your point of view hello and welcome to history, this is a two-hour deep dive into the epic world of the late

bronze

age and the seafaring warriors who contributed to its end. I'm your host, Pete Kelly, don't forget to mention that. the subscribe button and notification bell so you can access the library of other story videos on this channel and be updated on new projects in the future.

Story time is a one-man team, so don't forget to leave a like and comment to feed. The YouTube algorithm makes this gigantic project worthwhile and similar ones in the future possible. Shortly we will return to the end of the Bronze Age to investigate the origins and everything we know about each and every one of the peoples of the sea but first a few brief words from our sponsor magellan tv what was the secret of Egypt's survival during the last bronze age giant sphinx warriors aliens without knowledge what better place to acquire new knowledge than magellan tv science nature space society and, of course, history of all times, all completely ad-free and now History Time and Magellan TV have teamed up to offer you an exclusive one-month free trial.

My recommendation this month is this epic about the great Pharaoh Ramses II, who we will hear more about shortly and if he is not looking for knowledge. Well, I don't want to say it, but I'm pretty sure that's how you get sea people. Visit try.magellantv.com to advance history time or use my link in the description below to get a free trial now. bronze age ugarit present-day syria was once the venice of the bronze age world a powerful city-state its kings rich and respected trade ties and diplomatic alliances that spanned the known world then a little over three thousand ago years, all that came to an end In the end, when they were excavated in the 20th century, the cause of sugar soon became evident.

Hastily scribbled cuneiform tablets were discovered here, still in the kilns, that had been baked into the last written messages of this land for hundreds of years, burned along with the city. that they were made before they could be shipped the picture painted here by those records is bleak the city's warriors were far away fighting in foreign lands the enemy's ships patrolling the coast at will drawing ever closer to the city itself during the year It was around the year 1180 BC. C. and according to those desperate distress messages, at that time the northern Hittite world was already dead and very soon it would be Ugarit, as we have already seen, Egyptian sources speak of a great concentration at this time in the seas around Cyprus. then known as alice, a maritime threat arising from their many islands, presumably those in the eastern mediterranean which they had recently overwhelmed.

We know from archeology that this was a region devastated by violence and chaos around the coast of this once peaceful sea. History is the same once decadent vibrant coastal societies retreating inland to the vastnesses of hilltops dwindling populations failed crops abandoned cities some never to be rebuilt further north and west in the Mycenaean world the Great kings had once engaged economically throughout the Mediterranean. Their warriors sought served as servants in the armies of prosperous kings, but now their palaces burned their destroyed cities also to the east in the valley of the Euphrates River, home of the first true cities. of the world.

It is said that hordes of enemies devastated the land. This was bad news if Babylon fell, access to tin would also fall, one of the main components of the bronze used by kings to retain their power, the bronze that equipped the armies that in a world before coinage paid their followers for bronze. who kept the world under control without him everything would fall apart the power of the king disappeared in an instant during the last bronze age the vast majority came from what is now Afghanistan transported by traders along the ancient silk route to mesopotamia , where little house babylon passed it to egypt hattie and greece the great city of babylon would survive for a time besieged as it was, but in 1158 b.c.

C. the neighboring king of Elam, the old enemy of Mesopotamia, had long promised to see the city burn and that year he did so by devastating the land between the two rivers that cut the border. tin trade to the east and leaving only assyria and egypt intact of all the great powers of the bronze age in anatolia, syria, even across the sea, in mainland greece, all major settlements met their end destroyed along with the trading system that egypt once enjoyed in greece the record simply remains blank later events half remembered by bardic poetry such as the iliad written much later here there would be no verifiable contact with the outside world for hundreds of years the palace world of powerful personalities Individuals interacting with each other on behalf of entire Kingdoms and empires would give way to one of the many illiterate warriors, chiefs and warlords whose words, actions and motivations are lost today, but what caused the collapse was the invasion of the elusive peoples of the sea, perhaps not unlike the 4th century Germanic barbarians who embedded in fact, the evidence seems to suggest that for the first time infantry armies on the periphery of the Bronze Age world had discovered how to defeat the warriors of chariots that now had the technology and experience to do so, all the great cities of Egypt are located on the Nile.

If they had been able to get through there, they would have been able to take over the entire kingdom or at least plunder its cities. However, it remains a debated point whether the sea peoples were directly responsible for the collapse. or whether they were a symptom of it, both victims and those they attacked, perhaps lured from afar to take by force what had once been freely traded to them. Something else seems to have been happening to cause the invasions in recent years: the idea The type of collapse of systems has come to the fore during the late Bronze Age, the great powers were not individual kingdoms, but a linked system that brought down one and the rest can easily fall, so what was the catalyst in the last few decades?

Recent developments in science have allowed researchers a completely new way of looking at the past and the image they obtain in the 13th and 12th centuries BC. C. is that of a disaster on a massive scale. We know from contemporary sources that thefamine ravaged the land and now we can know why. an era of unprecedented drought, to such an extent that in many areas rainfall appears to have decreased so much that there was no longer enough left to sustain agriculture in many areas where crops had once flourished, the ground became desert in mountainous regions such as Hattie, easily defendable in good weather. years those who suffered from lack of water in the best of cases the result could have been the end of the world and it may be that this environmental crisis has been felt throughout Europe and beyond creating a massive movement of population and then we have the earthquakes according to seismology on the 12th.

The century BC was awash with them throughout Greece, Anatolia, Syria and the Levant, but tellingly not in Egypt, where the imperial administration survived intact. There is also another argument, one based on access to resources. Most states of the late Bronze Age had their own small copper mines, although it was often difficult to extract, there was one place, however, with an abundance that practically fell out of the ground, to the point that the place may have been named after him. Cyprus, the effects of the fall of Cyprus on the sea peoples could have been devastating, although not as devastating as the loss of tin, the other metal necessary for bronze, there were small tin mines in Italy, Spain, Anatolia and a good quantity in distant and inaccessible Britain, which no doubt made its owners incomprehensibly rich, but most of the trade came from Afghanistan, some three thousand kilometers away in the 12th century BC, however, it was beginning to use a new metal, a sign of a new era to come, iron was first used around 3000 BC, but not in massive quantities, iron is much more difficult to smelt than copper or bronze , since it needs temperatures of more than 1500 degrees.

However, the advantage was that this metal could be found everywhere, a great leveler that allowed the formation of new elites and the result was the destabilization of the entire world. Then, in the year

1200

BC. C., driven by crisis after crisis, a new order was emerging. It is quite possible that hungry people in rural areas rose up to raze and burn their own cities to the ground, completely eliminating the upper strata of society to be replaced. with something else helped along the way by sheer desperation and perhaps access to weapons and weapons previously only in the hands of the elite, so it may well be that the pre-existing populations of the eastern Mediterranean were as responsible for the collapse as the long-talked-about underworld of Pirates and raiders on the fringes of the Bronze Age system, which they now took advantage of to attack on a scale never before seen, especially given the enmity generally felt between common people of different regions, the Hittites and the Mycenaeans in particular, who seemed to be engaged in a cold war. war that lasted centuries like the vikings in the early middle ages these raiders could have launched surprise hit and run attacks always attacking when the enemy is weakest to some extent some of the sea peoples may well have been former citizens of the powers of the bronze age there is some evidence of this also in greek myth which recounts events before the dark ages, Odysseus' 10 year travels around the world after the Trojan War saw him travel to Crete, Egypt, Lebanon and Libya before finally returning to Ithaca to find the place in turmoil.

Menelaus of Sparta had a similar situation. Odysseus' eight-year return journey even recalls the seven years he spent in the service of the Egyptian pharaoh working as a retainer for cash after failed attacks on the country. In fact, many of the archaeological finds related to the so-called sea people are still in the Aegean style from the Bronze Age. surely this was not just a military expansion; There is evidence to suggest that population movement was occurring on a massive scale, forced to flee wherever they came from drought, environmental devastation, economic and social upheaval and war, the margins of the Bronze Age world in comparison. with the far east and west, where some of these invaders may have originated, were wilder and less organized lands and now it is towards the western mediterranean where we must look when the frenchman jean-francois champollion began to study the ancient buildings of egypt to beginning of the 19th century.

In the ascending French empire under Napoleon, he could not have imagined the immense antiquity displayed on those surfaces hidden within long-forgotten tombs, as these were hieroglyphics and when finally, after devoting his entire life to the study of those ancient symbols, their secrets were finally discovered because The long-kept secrets of ancient Egypt could finally be read on the rosette stone, offering an unprecedented window into an ancient world. Much was learned in the following decades. Immense dynasties rose and fell one after another for thousands and thousands of years. Archeology undertaken by the greats. Flinders Petrie and the like, one by one, ancient cultures began to fill in on the map, beginning to show a complicated mosaic of kingdoms and empires long thought to be biblical fantasy.

The Hittites held out the longest before their texts were also unraveled, allowing us another window into the world of the Bronze Age, but one obvious mystery still remained: that of the nations that put an end to that world. It was quickly understood that such a collapse had occurred, but who caused it and where they came from became a topic of intense debate in 1855. French Egyptologist Emmanuel Darusch was the first to use the term sea peoples when describing the nations represented at Medinet. Habu. He was a scholar of the next generation, however, Gastón Masspero popularized the term by pointing out that most of the nine nations mentioned in the Egyptian sources came from the sea in ships, also associating it with the popular migration theories of the time that were related to the origins of the Germanic peoples of Europe and others, a theory that in recent decades has been intensely analyzed by many scholars, in fact, these nine arches were raised against Egypt as they are sometimes referred to in Egyptian sources, not all of them came from the sea and certainly their actions were not always there cities being plundered inland in Anatolia Syria Greece and Mesopotamia even Babylon was destroyed by the Elamites we know that Egypt was attacked across the Western Libyan Desert, probably from Nubia in the south and certainly from the east across the Levantine coast.

Greece and Anatolia resisted attacks from the north by the Phrygians, Thracians and perhaps the Dorians, the later heirs of the Mycenaean world, but there is still evidence of the arrival of the sea peoples. ships is unquestionable and in this time of immense upheaval and chaos with warriors arriving in force from the north, south and east, they must surely have also come from the west, a peripheral world almost completely unknown in the written records of the great powers of the Bronze Age, which they still use From archeology we can understand the relationship between the Eastern Mediterranean and the West for centuries.

The first sea-traveling culture that spanned the entire Mediterranean was thought to be the Phoenicians. Mysterious Levantine survivors of the Bronze Age collapse established trading posts everywhere. They emerged around the 10th century BC, one of which would eventually become Carthage, bringing with them the basis of the alphabet we still use today, along with exotic trade goods and settlers. This great expansion preceded that of the classical Greeks by centuries. It can be clearly seen in the archaeological record at first with small elements found in the flourishing cities of Iberia and further passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to the north of Britain known as the Tin Islands before eventually expanding to a network of metropolises facing to the ocean and finally advances in rigging and shipbuilding.

Technology was the secret innovations that generated this expansion; However, in recent years it is increasingly thought that these new types of ships allowing easier and longer voyages were actually developed earlier, towards the end of the Bronze Age, allowing cheaper and easier ships to be built. , they didn't do it anymore. ships have to cling to the coasts, it cannot be denied that the Phoenician expansion was unprecedented; However, given this earlier innovation in shipbuilding technology, they were surely not the first sailors to make the voyage across the open sea; earlier peoples did the same but in a less localized manner.

At an organized level, the Mediterranean is a relatively stable sea, not beset by as many storms as an open ocean like the Atlantic; In fact, sea travel is believed to have begun during the Stone Age, thousands of years before the Phoenicians, we know from archeology that such wide-ranging trade took place for millennia with ships mostly lining the coasts, but from time to time longer trips had to be made. We have evidence of this beginning in the Chalcolithic era with ascending coppersmiths of the glass people who spread across the continent to Ireland, Great Britain and Scandinavia spreading the art and magic of metalworking wherever they went.

In Spain, we have a massive Chalcolithic settlement populated by many thousands of people at that time. This was a world not far from parts of the eastern Mediterranean and in this ancient era, particularly in the second millennium. Before Christ, knowledge was power. Merchants with access to the outside world could easily become chiefs and kings capable of rewarding their loyal followers with exotic goods from faraway places. Those who controlled the river routes and coasts could exact tribute and thus the wealth and luxury of the East slowly trickled down. To the west, also incorporating it into the interconnected system that had evolved over thousands of years against the luxuries that came from the east, the outside world naturally wanted in, but what happens if trade stops?

The wanderers who previously came to his river no longer come. As may have happened in the 12th century BC, some would surely go looking for the source of the prosperity of the city builders that ultimately contributed to their demise. We know from archeology that it was not just the East that enjoyed advances in shipping technology so early. In the 14th century BC. C., the Ord galley, a light, long, narrow vessel designed specifically for speed, was introduced along the coasts and islands heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar. However, most representations occur in the 12th century BC. C., a bit like a long boat, these boats. depicted with animal heads at Medinet Habu were powered by minerals and sails, allowing for massive maneuverability, an advantage for these so-called outside world barbarians who came from far away from the palace systems of the east, but who on an individual level still possessed similar technology and a particularly martial culture, perhaps it was these people from the west, perhaps refugees from the other side of the Mediterranean, who moved to invade the neighboring islands, combining them with pre-existing disasters to create a domino effect that would end the bronze age, generally anarchic and disunited.

With a nearly non-existent command structure, Western leaders could typically command little more than a few hundred or, at best, thousands of men, but if anything could unite them into a coalition it would be devastating, the world of age. bronze was completely inadequate to defend against sea attacks. This was a world of orderly battles led by individual kings on chariots who gathered at pre-designated locations, not by raiders who appeared out of nowhere to plunder and steel, so whether the collapse began in the palace empires or the very edge of their trading system, we cannot be sure, but to find out more we must look at the first mentioned sea peoples who appear in Egyptian sources from the 15th century BC.

C., the sherdon of the sea in 1274 BC. C., an epic battle was fought on the plains. From what is now Syria, four huge chariot contingents, each equipped with a driver and a bow-wielding warrior, raced north from Egypt to meet the army of the Hittite king, who also rode fast chariots to war. , the first battle in history in which battle tactics have been recorded. The subsequent confrontation between the fort and Kadesh is the very embodiment of the Late Bronze Age, a campaign waged by thousands of elite professional soldiers equipped with expensive bronze weapons and armor, unstoppable at the time, two imperial powers at the height of their strength that they fought over the disputed. they land on theirborders, however, what is often not understood is the massive contribution of mercenaries in Kadesh, as both Ramses II and his rival Muatari used not only the forces of client kings but also hired swords, in much the same way how the Roman Empire recruited in war situations.

Areas are mentioned on the peripheries of the city-building world and perhaps the most interesting of all on both sides. Some of the same names as Medinet Habu, the sea peoples who fight for the imperial powers, one of these groups, the Sherdon of the Sea, who fight alongside the Libyans and Nubians. Tribes also settled in Egypt to defend the empire or were even said to have planned Ramses' failed battle plan, clearly respected and elite troops Sherdon even served as Pharaoh's personal bodyguard, a bit like the first Roman Emperor Augustus. which had a German guard and a few hundred years.

The later Germans were the ruin of the empire and Kadesh is not alone. Many of these northern sherdons, as they are called in Egyptian sources, well known for their piracy and war prowess, can be seen in records long before the attacks of the 12th century. B.C. in lettuce amana 200 years before sherdon of the sea they are specifically mentioned as hired swords working on behalf of a client that king rib had as part of an egyptian garrison in byblos they appear again during the second year of the reign of ramses the second launching a failed Attack on the Nile which he recorded for posterity in Tanis Stelle.

Several of these pirates were captured, perhaps forced to serve in the Egyptian army, and no doubt other attacks were launched as well. The situation can easily be interpreted as one of daring attacks by the sea on a broader scale than ever before seen as the Vikings during the early Middle Ages small bands at first of just a handful of ships eventually becoming much more lucrative prey. economic system of the city builders in a good year when the great powers were strong attacks could be easily repulsed during darker times, not so much, of course, the military prowess of the newcomers was quickly recognized and when they were offered access To the riches of the east, many no doubt flocked to enlist in the service of Egypt for Ramses II and his successors.

In particular, while some Sherdon fought in the coalition against Egypt during Moneptar's reign, others remained loyal fighting fiercely for the king; There is even ample evidence that Sherdon settled in Egypt with land and property specifically assigned to them as Germanic soldiers in Rome often had. elite status in Egyptian society and within the army, according to the Amion papyrus, they were even assigned lands directly adjacent to the temple of Karnak, an especially important site, and later, still during the 20th dynasty, under Ramses the 11th, much After the collapse, Sherdon's mercenaries were still being used in the Egyptian armies mentioned in administrative documents a relationship that had lasted over 300 years but that they were the Sherdon like all the sea peoples there is a lot of speculation, not many facts and today we have At least four main hypotheses Western Anatolia East Semitic Ionian Coast and Western Mediterranean One of them, although favored by scholars such as Giovanni Ugass, has some archeology to go on.

Sardinia, a picturesque gem in the center of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of western Italy, home to one of the most mysterious and little understood places. cultures of the ancient world because this is the land of the nuragi builders. Colossal towers and sprawling complexes still dominate the landscape. Today, the largest of these structures that has survived to the present incorporates five enormous central towers reaching heights of 30 meters, completed by multiple exterior walls and dozens of additional towers. Early Greek geographers were so perplexed by these structures that they speculated about links to the ancient labyrinth builders of Crete, later archaeologists also suspected their origins in Greece, today we know that this was a tradition native to the island.

Their construction began in the second millennium BC, shortly after the arrival of the Vase people to the island, and they continued in use possibly until the first millennium. few centuries AD, often located on hilltops, their purpose has long been debated by scholars, whether religious centers, meeting places or grain silos, today, a general consensus is that these were sites of defensible housing built both for protection and to stamp a mark of ownership. in the landscape very similar to the brocs of the Iron Age in Scotland in the second half of the second millennium BC. C., however, these structures began to grow much larger with towers, walls and additional structures added, as well as the settlements around them grew significantly.

This was a time of change of expansion and probably like other archaeological evidence suggests greater militarism on the neighboring island of Corsica. The Menieres statues depict Toray builders almost identical to the Naragi builders of neighboring Sardinia, suggesting at least a cultural, if not demographic, expansion, a somewhat similar culture also existing in Iberia and Sardinia was a land rich in metal copper and lead, which saw the massive construction of furnaces to produce and ship alloys throughout the Mediterranean, located roughly in the middle of the sea with access to the east and west of Sardinia, although these are mostly missing from the written record.

It has been an important and rich land. Archeology tells us that these Bronze Age Sardinians became especially skilled metal workers, producing a wide variety of bronze objects such as swords, daggers, axes, pins, rings and bracelets. However, most fascinating of all are these unique bronze figurines depicting warriors and ships that suggest a close relationship with the sea, perhaps representing a native warrior aristocracy, these figurines with horned helmets and round studded shields bear a resemblance more than surprising with those represented in Egyptian sources, and then we have the archeology of distant lands as one of the main ingredients.

To make bronze it is an especially scarce resource, since we have seen that it is only produced in significant quantities in the south of Great Britain, Iberia and in distant Afghanistan; However, there is some evidence to suggest that it was also mined in Sardinia at at least one site, as well as copper and lead. This could explain the important archaeological links found in recent years with the Mycenaean world, a land rich and poor in metals, so there was then a link with Greece after all the so-called gateway communities were located in Cyprus, Crete and in Greece, all containing elements originating from Sardinia and vice versa.

Neuralgic ceramics have been found dating from the 13th century BC. in the commands of Tirin, Kokino Kremos, in Sicily, in Lipari and in the Agento area, along the entire maritime route that connects the western Mediterranean with the eastern one, and other cultural links are found with Greece of the Ancient of the Bronze. also found with the worship of bulls and the form of the common tombs of thalos. Cyprus type copper ingots have also been found in Sardinia, as well as neuragic pottery in Aegean Cyprus in significant quantities in Spain and at sites on the Italian mainland and it was not only in the Mediterranean that Sardinia's links extended, as We know that amber found on pharaohs as famous as Tutankhamun's tomb had its origins in the northern end of the Baltic Sea, and in 2013 a study of 71 Swedish objects from the Nordic Bronze Age revealed that the vast majority of the copper used came from Sardinia. and the Iberian Peninsula and, curiously, this so-called golden age of neuralgic civilization did not end in the 12th century BC.

C. and spread for hundreds of years afterwards, perhaps coinciding with the heyday of mining on the island and eventually evidence. Interestingly, Sardinian culture would change significantly during this time with the construction of nuragi stopping for a time, many of which were totally or partially abandoned, dismantled individual tombs replaced collective ones. ancient burials and unlike the Eastern Mediterranean where there is evidence of a decline in population, here there is evidence of growth and a continuation of this culture for many hundreds of years before the conquest by a new incoming people from the Levant, the Phoenicians In 1974, archaeologists stumbled upon a series of broken pieces of stone covering the top of an ancient hill and painstakingly reconstructed these eight-foot-tall statuary menageries that closely resembled bronze statuettes possibly representing aristocracy. warrior of ancient Sardinia and who today are known as the Monty Prama giants.

A total of 44 are believed to have once existed, although only a few have been successfully rebuilt, including statues of nuragi castles of the period discovered on the sinister seafront peninsula in the west of the island, where we know from the pottery that the Mycenaean Greeks and possibly the Philistines had already long established a presence in the 12th century BC. C., it is at least possible that the power of these individuals came from their ties across the sea, so it is not too much of a stretch to imagine a rising warrior aristocracy ruling here dispatching raids on Egypt.

Another hypothesis is that the peoples of the sea They actually emigrated here around the 13th or 12th century after their failed invasion of Egypt, although not conclusive, the evidence is striking. These bronze statuettes in Sardinia dating from around the 12th century BC. From now on they closely resemble representations of Sea People in Egyptian art. There is even an early Phoenician inscription from the Iron Age from the city of Nora that bears the word cerdán. Very similar statues with horned helmets also appear in Cyprus. Place named as the starting point for the great mobilization against Egypt in the 12th century BC. and then there are the shreds of written evidence, unfortunately all coming from a much later time, although much closer to the Bronze Age than our own time.

Both Simonides of Chios and Plutarch speak of Sardinian raids against the island of Crete at the same time of the invasions. of the sea peoples, although the evidence is far from conclusive, the site of el awat in Israel has even been suggested as an attempted construction of a naragi by the Sardinians settled in Canaan as Pharaonic mercenaries, finally and perhaps one of the most important tests of all. It is the role of the anchors found along the Sardinian coast, the only remaining remains of ancient marine ships, for the historian Pierre Luigi Montalbano, these neuralgic anchors suggest the existence of highly efficient ships that reached lengths of up to 15 meters, which explains Sardinia's widespread links with the outside world, then Sardinia may well have been the homeland of the Sherdons, but of the western seaways it was surely not just Sardinia that spawned sea people thirty years before the fateful battle on the Nile.

Ramses III's father sat on the imperial throne having just fought a long civil war to claim it, founded a new dynasty, and proclaimed himself Pharaoh Moneptar. Gone were the glory days of Kadesh, however, rot seeping into the societies of the Bronze Age powers and around 1207 BC. C. enemy ships arrived on the Egyptian coast, accompanied by a much larger horde of Libyans following the hidden oases of the Western Desert originating in the neighboring region of Cyrenica, a relatively fertile land, the Meshwash warfighters engaged in a state of Almost perpetual battle with Egypt during the 19th and 20th dynasties, generation after generation, their warriors would head east to try their luck, no doubt enjoying some success, although Egypt did not record them, finally, in the 10th century, the meshwash would succeed in his conquest putting one of his own asakon the eldest in the pharaonic. throne in 1207 BC However, the ruler who waged the war was Mario the Despicable and this time an invasion force of tens of thousands of people came with allies who came to overthrow the new Egyptian government according to Moneptar's own inscriptions these were the inhabitants of the island de coss el luca sherdon tercenoy ekwesh and shekalesh in the bloodbath that followed moneptar claims to have killed some nine thousand invaders, including more than six thousand libyans, most of the force pharaoh also claims to have killed 222 vagrant shekalesh warriors of the great green sea capturing others and cutting off their hands and we have images of these shekalesh standing out next to the teresh with cloth headdresses, medallions on their chests, carrying spears with round shields, perhaps they are these figures with horned helmets who also wear kilts Aegean style with pointed beards, one of the best-known The Shekalesh, the sea people, also appear elsewhere.

They invaded Egypt in 1220 BC. C. and itThey would do so again later in 1186 and 1184, and it may well be that they were responsible for the destruction of Ugarit. According to a Hittite letter to the city, their ease at sea was such that they lived in boats. Today, the Shekalesh remain one of the most mysterious marine peoples and very little is known about them, but who they were and where they came from in 1984. Off the coast of Western Anatolia, one of the most important finds in the world was discovered. Bronze Age ever built, excavated between 1984 and 1994, this is the wreck of Ulla Baron, a 50-foot trading ship that carried a large quantity of exotic trade goods aboard cargo from almost every nation.

In the world of the Bronze Age and in many places further afield, apart from elephant tusk and hippopotamus ivory, enough bronze ingots were found here to fully equip and arm an entire army of 300 men, armor and all o thousands of swords. Copper from Cyprus and tin from northeastern Afghanistan were found. a fortune along with a host of other items from Canaan, Mycenae, Cyprus, Egypt, Nubia, the Baltic, the Northern Balkans, Babylon, Assyria and possibly the island of Sicily, as well as evidence of a multinational crew of course, diversity and, therefore, the ability to converse in many languages ​​would have increased. the crew's chances of survival and success, in truth, we simply do not know whether this was an independent trading ship, although it seems likely that, due to the extreme wealth on board, this was a royally sanctioned mission, regardless where they originated and where they were going.

It is not known whether such loss of wealth significantly affected the finances of the person who lost it, given the personal items found. It has been conjectured that up to four Cypriots or Canaanites may have been on board, perhaps intermediaries working on behalf of whoever belonged to the ship. Along with two fully equipped Mycenaean warriors, bodyguards perhaps hired to protect the cargo, some of the most interesting finds on board, however, are an Italian-style sword and mace, perhaps evidence of at least one armed individual from outside the Eastern Mediterranean serving aboard a commercial ship. perhaps from the island of sicily for decades, scholars such as nk sanders have favored a sicilian or at least southeast italian origin for the shekalesh in the late bronze age era, as sardinia, a flourishing archaeological culture, we know that in the mainland italy this was a time of great upheaval and population displacement as the highly martial central european culture known as the urn field moved further south down the peninsula leaving in its wake rich archaeological finds predecessors of the etruscans , Celts and Romans, this was a population movement or at least a cultural expansion that surely had a knock-on effect on the previous cultures of the peninsula.

In truth, there is very little evidence to go on, although in mythology there are many half-remembered mentions of movements around this time and whether the Sardinians were involved in the Late Bronze Age. collapse, so why not the Sicilians? another maritime land with far-reaching links to the outside world during the 12th and 13th centuries BC. sicily was far from an isolated place the shipwreck of ula baroon may well have been a state-sponsored ship, but it sheds light on the wider network of sailors who sail the seas for themselves rather than on behalf of overlords and perhaps a shekel trader with origins in Sicily found himself serving on an eastern trading ship, surely others run their own ships too, so we have to wonder.

The question is: what would people who had such knowledge of the sea do in difficult times, when trade from the east dried up and warlike peoples increasingly invaded their lands? Surely some at least would continue to travel the sea routes they always had, but now taking by force what they had previously negotiated, but it is not only to the west where we must look much closer to Egypt. Similar warlike peoples also existed in the centuries before the collapse of the Bronze Age. There is significant written evidence of maritime threats to shipping in both. Egyptian and Hittite records speak of coastal raids, the need to fortify river mouths and the interception of ships at sea are common, in other words, piracy is mentioned all the time in Homer's works as well, recalling a culture of maritime raids during this same time, but by around 1180 BC.

The situation had changed when only seven ships arrived from the sea to attack the lands of Ugarit which once possessed a powerful navy. Its king Amarappi could do little more than hastily scribble a letter to his ally the king of Cyprus my father now the ships of the enemy has been coming, has been burning my cities and has done damage to the land. Doesn't my father know that all my infantry and charity are stationed in Hattie and that all my ships are stationed in Looker's land now? The seven enemy ships that have come have harmed us now if other enemy ships appear send me a report somehow so that the navy knows and the Ugarit army was fighting on foreign soil, but why and who are the Luca ?

Of course, the Luca are another of the sea peoples mentioned in Egyptian sources and this shred of evidence from Ugarit could be interpreted as an attempt to defend the passage from the Aegean to the southern coast of Anatolia and the Levant beyond a Last resistance against the sea peoples, there are no representations of the Luca but they appear in the written record in abundance in 1274 BC. They were in Kadesh fighting not alongside Sheridan and Egypt but in the Hittite king's armies along with 18 other vassal states in 1210 BC. They attacked Egypt and in 1207 participated in the massive invasion during the reign of Moneptar, who claimed to have killed 200 of them.

The most interesting thing of all, however, is that we know almost certainly where Luca was. Today it is called Lysa, an enigmatic land of dry peaks and ancient tombs carved into cliffs on the western edge of modern Turkey. Here there are ruined cities and monoliths littering the dusty ground, but for the most part they were built long after the collapse of the remains of a later classical world to the ancient bronze age lysans ancestors of those later city builders in truth. We know very little. There are no Luca kings named in the Hittite records, but they do name many rulers of neighboring lands, suggesting that Luca is a kingdom of small chiefs for the most part.

Lacking political authority, the Lyceums left no written record. of themselves from this period, suggesting that they were probably illiterate, like most of the Greek world, only court scribes had the ability to write. This was very much on the fringes of the civilized world after the collapse of the Hittite empire Lycia emerged as the so-called Neo-Hittite kingdom, although of Indo-European origin like the Hittites, their culture was far from Hittite and they are believed to have spoken a form of Luion, the same language spoken by a variety of Hittite vassals in Anatolia frequently mentioned by Homer as allies of Troy.

Another probable Hittite vassal is often argued to have spoken with Louien. His contingent in the Trojan War was led by the warriors Sarpadan and Glaucus, a son of Zeus and a son of Hippecullus respectively. Lycanthropes also appear. Elsewhere in Greek myth, such as in the story of Bellerophon, who eventually succeeded to the throne of King Lysanus, long considered pirates by the great powers of the time, Lucan fleets often launched maritime raids into the Mycenaean world. , as well as sporadically his own Hittite lords. Forced to be vassals by the rising and waning power of the Hittite king, we know that in the late 15th century the Luca were part of an anti-Hittite coalition along with 22 other nations known as the League of Asua, eventually crushed by the Hittite king Tudalia the First. .

We know that the Luca were a feared people, there is a Hittite prayer that speaks of the Luca attacking the Hittite spear along with other peoples, as well as denouncing the Hittite sand of the sun goddess, perhaps the most notable of their victims, However, it was Alecia, the island of Cyprus where they made The almost annual attacks towards the end of the Bronze Age perhaps lured the Ugarit navy to its doom. Their pirate raids were also feared before. The amana letters included a plea from Alice's king against the Luca to which Pharaoh Akhenaten assures Alice. who is not on the side of the Luca, a Hittite text from the 14th century tells of a small king in Western Anatolia called Maduata who ruled an unknown nation who attempted to expand his dominions in Anatolia to rule the sea in Alice much to the anger of his Hittites. overlord this would suggest that madawata had ships at his disposal, it is possible that these partly or wholly included luca, either coming from or at least organizing his parental raids from lycia for the most part, egyptian records described the looked like allies of the Hittites, however, as We have seen that this was far from always the case, it probably only happened when Hattie was strong, when Hattie was weak, their Western Anatolian vassals, forced to submit only by their martial prowess , they went crazy on archaeological depictions of warriors with hedgehog helmets, also depicted in Egyptian sources found around.

This region is the first examples of this type of equipment seen 25 years before its appearance in Egypt, so there is a good argument that in the 12th century BC. C., driven by catastrophe, simple opportunity, or a combination of both, these warriors spread out from the southwest. Anatolia and the Dodecanese west to the Aegean and then finally south and east to Cyprus and the Levant, although it is unclear whether these were people from outside the Aegean who arrived in the area before moving on or whether a combination of both political events at that time definitely made the situation viable for the pirates now we must take a closer look at the collapse of the Hittites the empire that defeated ramses at kadesh when a superpower dies it rarely falls silently after its victory at kadesh the son of Hatusa Lee, Tudalia IV, was the last strong Hittite king.

He not only had to fight against the west and the south, but also against the east, because there, north of Babylon, existed one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, Assyria, lately on the warpath, although still a world power and able to keep the Assyrians out of its heartland throughout the 13th century, Tudalia lost many border regions, especially being heavily defeated at the Battle of Nerea by the Assyrian king to culti ninerta. Tudalia briefly conquered Cyprus before falling under Syrian control during the time of his successor Sapilla Liuma II, however, everything began to fall apart, although he regained Cyprus in a naval battle against Alice.

The Assyrians under Ashur Reshishi annexed much of the Hittite territory in Asia Minor and Syria expelling and defeating the Babylonian king in the process, who also had eyes. In the Hittite lands, the picture we have is a confusing picture of war after war and of increasing social collapse famine disaster a situation ripe for an external invasion as we have already seen the highland Hittite empire was particularly susceptible to drought surrounded on all sides by enemies its location was great in good times terrible in bad now vulnerable to attacks from all directions facing a combined attack of new invaders from the north traditionally called the Phrygian and Burgher coffins around 1180 BC. the capital city of hatusha was burned down all other cities in the empire soon the kingdom would disappear from the historical record now we turn to the most elusive of all the sea peoples, the karkeisha, all we have is a name, a name mentioned as an attacker of Egypt in 1207 BC.

C., but also as a Hittite vassal in the Kadesh fight. Along with 18 other loyalist nations, another shred of information from the Hittite archives speaks of Karkesha specifically with King Muatali sending aid to this land, which temporarily turned into a small rebellion before they came back online. The image we have is that Luca is one of a loyal client state only when it suited them to be Carquisha is most often equated with Karya a land neighboring Luca in the southwestern corner of Anatolia; However, there is also another argument that at least some of the Sea Peoples could well have been Hittites.

From a destroyed world, without a kingdom, desperate in search of a new home further west, even beyond the Hittite vassals of Anatolia, lies the most remote of the great powers of the late Bronze Age, this is Greece. Mycenaean, home to a palace culture of warrior lords riding in chariots served by literate people. scribes and loyal servants citadels on hilltops overlooking a mass of peasants on the plains below this was a rich world of colossal masonry, hard-fought battles and maritime tradegradually revealed over the last 200 years through archeology and literary analysis of the epic poetry written about him.

In future generations, the Late Bronze Age is the era of the Trojan War, long suspected to be a half-remembered memory of real events, the city of Troy perhaps also recorded in the diplomatic archive of the Hittites , united states, a sometimes rebellious vassal in western anatolia. With a history of animosity with the Greeks and perhaps also linked to the invasions of the Sea Peoples, after all, Homer constantly refers to the Greeks as city suckers in the 13th century BC, we can even see hints of individuals who We know of Homer in the A contemporary written record during this time of a Louisiana warrior leader named Pia Maradu, whose career spanned some 35 years, launched raids throughout western Anatolia, including Willusa, and is sometimes associated with King Priam of Troy. .

Similarly, there is also a certain prince of Wilusa named Alexander. in Hittite sources perhaps it contributes to the story of Paris of Troy called Alexander in Greek sources, so if Troy was a vassal of the Hittites, it could explain the great coalition formed by King Priam in the Iliad coming from lands around the world. Hittite Empire and similarly the need for all the Greek powers to combine their forces, perhaps then the Trojan War could actually be a memory of a conflict between Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite Empire that took place sometime in the century before the collapse of the Bronze Age and there are also many other indications of conflict between the 16th and 13th centuries BC.

C., perhaps the reality behind the Trojan War, interestingly, despite their relative proximity to each other, Hittite and Mycenaean trade goods rarely appear on each other's sites, while hundreds of goods from almost every other peoples in the region, this has led some scholars to suggest that there may have been a kind of cold war between the powers. A trade embargo. We even know of a treaty between the king of Amaroo and king Tadalia that put an end to the arrival of Mycenaean goods to Assyria. by sea Historian Trevor Bryce suggests that this may actually have put an end to ships laden with Mycenaean mercenaries resuming sailing the Mediterranean in search of loot or military service by hiring a foreign king, roles they had performed since the middle of the 19th century. second millennium.

Until the end of the Bronze Age, unfortunately, Mycenaean writing is few and far between, usually representing little more than lists and figures, mere fragments of information, not stories and chronicles. The Hittites, however, have much more to say. Much written in the Bronze Age. The same style as the Mesopotamian world that tells the stories and exploits of its kings and, most importantly for us, those of us who are on its borders. One of these states mentioned again and again is Ahiyawa, a great power in its west, often involved in skirmishes and wars that we are not. I don't know for sure, but ahiyawa is likely describing Homer's Achaeans, in other words, the Mycenaean world or at least one of its kingdoms.

Around 1400 BC. C. we have the first named Ahiyawa warlord, a king called Artisawa who ruled in the city of Miletus in Anatolia. During a time when Mycenaean power was at its height, having developed very rapidly only a century or two earlier and expanding eastward, the craftsman was probably a local ruler in western Anatolia rather than a great king of all the Greeks who We know of him from a tablet. called the accusation of madawada possibly a king of azawa a powerful kingdom of louisiana sometimes vassal of the hitites in the text madhuaada arrives at the court of the hittite king tudolada ii seeking refuge forced to abandon his lands by the expansionist craftsman who drove a hundred chariots of war before him artizawa again launches an attack on madawada along with other hittite vassals before the hittite king finally gets involved by expelling the ahiyawans finally artis hour launches an attack on cyprus with the help of the luca a similar attack on the sea peoples About 200 years later this time was accompanied by madawada.

Interestingly, we can also see evidence of this expansion in the archaeological record. It was around this time that the once powerful city of Canosos in Crete was burned to the ground. The once all-powerful Minoan world was finally incorporated into that of mainland Greece. It had probably always been the case that while some Mycenaeans traded, being called great kings and considered equal by other powers, others who were impossible to control attacked, it is possible that the Hittite king could be at war with one archaic power and at peace with another. just like the Hittite king did. The frescoes of the Mycenaean citadels suggest that war was fought against their neighbors much more than against anyone else, although lacking any kind of literary style, we do have some written record of the economic and military activities of the palace elites, mainly from the city of Pylos, where the linear b tablets were found in the early 20th century, the pylon rowers' tablets in particular reference crews of sailors who were called into the service of their lord in myth, we have story after story of Greek raids around the known world.

Homer constantly calls his protagonists plunderers of cities. and in the Odyssey he has Odysseus regularly remembering past glories, for before the sons of the archaics set foot in the land of Troy, nine times I had led warriors and swift ships against foreign people and great booty had fallen to my hands. hands. I choose what I liked and much that I later obtained by lot in archeology we can also clearly see the distances that the Mycenaean warriors crossed. Depictions of them are clearly visible in Egypt for centuries before the collapse, where they are believed to have served as mercenaries.

They knew the place. Well now we come to speculation, surely there should be a mention of these travelers in Egyptian sources. Well, if the Achaeans are indeed the Ahiyawans of the Hittite records, then why not the Ekes of the Egyptian? The name ekwesh is very similar to the Indo-European word for horse (the related Latin word ecua is pronounced the same.) In this period the Indo-Europeans were beginning to lose their exclusivity when it came to horse use, but still dominated the total number of horse users. in the world and the Achaeans to the end relied heavily on chariots Homer specifically mentions an Achaean attack on the Nile and Menelaus of Sparta talks about the same thing in book four of the Odyssey when he recounts his own return home after the War of Troy, later Greek myths even argued that Helen had in fact spent the time of the Trojan War not in Troy but in Egypt.

After the war, the Greeks went there to recover it. However, the situation is further complicated by the existing textual evidence of the Mycenaean world in Egyptian sources called non-eques. but like the tanahu during the era of tuthmosis iii, who began diplomatic relations between the two powers in 1437 BC. C., later in the 14th century, a list of cities of the Tanahu is mentioned in an inscription in the mortuary temple of Ammon Hotep III, whose names are given as mycenae napoleon kythera messina and thebes but, of course, these were not the only Mycenaean cities, perhaps separate factions with different names, then we have the Bortus helmets and Aegean-style kilts, armor often associated with both the Sea Peoples and Mycenaean Greece.

Odysseus's helmet itself had a long history reaching great antiquity before the hero laid his hands on it and these helmets with boar's tusks are found throughout the Greek world and closely resemble some of the weapons and armor of sea ​​people, probably the most famous of these being the early example found in the burial of a warrior from the 15th century BC. in gray they are also seen on an amana papyrus with two figures with boar's tusk helmets running towards a fallen Egyptian soldier this famous battle fresco from Nestor's palace in pilas an ivory head sculpted in mycenae and an Aegean - warrior of style on a bogserkoy bowl in the Hittite empire from around 1400 BC.

A bronze scale of armor has finally been found from the Greek island of Salamis steamed with the royal cartouche of Pharaoh Ramses II, perhaps belonging to an elite Pharaonic soldier returning home after a successful career just not we know, but then, in 1207 BC. C., along with a massive Meshwesh invasion force, the Eques were also present along with the Luca, the people with whom they may have had a long association, this was the event remembered by Odysseus and Menelaus in Homer's story. Odyssey, but what happened to make the situation so desperate? How did this come about by betting everything on an attack on Egypt around 1300 BC?

C.? The mysterious Louisianan kingdom of Azawa rebelled again against Hittite rule, while the Ahiyawan are said to have claimed many islands. seems to be supported by archaeology, particularly with Mycenaean-style pottery found in abundance throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, very soon the Hittite king refers to an unnamed Ahiyawan ruler as his brother great king, although this later appears to have been crossed out. , suggesting growing tensions towards the year 12.30 BC. Signs of growing unrest can be seen within the expanses of the Mycenaean palace walls and additional buildings within the citadels, suggesting a response to external threats and then suddenly everything came to an end, both the Hittite cities like the Mycenaean ones were wiped off the map, but surely all those people don't just disappear just before the Hittite record goes blank, there is a small hint of events that occurred around

1200

BC.

C., with an Ahiyawan presence in Lucca being mentioned only with archaeological evidence, it is not clear whether civil war or an external invasion was the reason The final death knell of the Mycenaean world with all the main sites of interest on the continent coming to an end At about the same time, however, the Mycenaeans were living everywhere and it has been argued that some of the ancient elites may have fled to the islands of the sea, perhaps the Cyclades, the mysterious home of civilization before the Greeks, They turn us into these strangely modern looking figures and are later said to have been the birthplace of Zeus himself.

Here these early Greek lords may have fled to end their days, their followers and their descendants, who knows. It is not clear whether it was the palace elites who initiated invasions or their subjects now free of their lordship to do as they pleased, perhaps it was at the same time that the image we get from archeology is of massive fires, enormous amounts of spikes. arrow and destruction; However, in some places only the palace structures were burned, suggesting a popular uprising. We can follow not only the swathe of violence from Greece through Anatolia to Cyprus to the Levant and finally to Egypt, but also the Mycenaean style pottery in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete and finally the evidence from the Levant as well.

There is a refortification and building boom in Cyprus at Ma Paleocastro Hala Sultan Teke Nilanika and especially at N Comey, there is an argument for these to have been built by overthrown Mycenaeans forced to sail the high seas by social and political upheaval, perhaps dethroned by the Mycenaean Greeks and even Hittites among their ranks victims of the Bronze Age collapse rather than instigators, but of course their presence exacerbated it perhaps some allies with the Luca their neighbors on the Anatolian coast such as artezawa of bygone eras in In mythology the Cyclopean masonry at Tyrins was said to have been built by Lycian Cyclopes who then accompanied the Protoss back to Greece with an army of Lysans to help claim a part of their kingdom, perhaps a half-remembered story of Luca and ekwesh returning to Greece after his forays elsewhere, of course, when Odysseus returns.

His land and his wife have been claimed by many suitors often referred to as pirates, perhaps instead of waiting and having their lands devastated, some Mycenaean warriors set out to claim new lands on their own, but there is a problem with the theory, the Egyptian sources clearly tell us that these warriors were circumcised, they counted their dead by making piles of corpses, this would have been unusual for the Greeks, so we are left confused once again, but it's not just the eques with possible links to Greece in the late 19th century, a sun-scorched desert around it.

Pioneering Egyptologist Flinders Petrie has found the immaculately preserved mummy of a long-dead senior Egyptian official. An official in the court of Pharaoh Ramesses III. Hieroglyphs confirmed the identity of this figure as a tertia, a butler in the service of the dynasty, who clearly had blonde hair. It has been hypothesized that Anne and Tertia were notoriginally from Egypt, according to the name of the mummy, it has also been speculated that it could have been Teresh, the last of the sea peoples who were spoken of in 1207 BC. C., perhaps just one member of a nation on the move swept into the vast displacements of the late Bronze Age collapsed, but if he was a Teresh, how did Anne and Tertia end up at the court of Ramses, buried in the decades after the invasions of the sea peoples with all the dignity of an elite member of Egyptian society if his origins had been with that maritime confederation what things could that tereshi have seen so many civilizations fell apart and fell by the wayside only to end His days in Egypt, the focus of the last great gamble that the sea peoples would succeed where so many others had failed, but who were Teresh's reliefs?

In Egypt they are depicted with beards, wearing pointed kilts, strips of leather or linen to protect their chests, and carrying spears or scimitars. As for its origins, there are many hypotheses that Anatolia is a popular choice with arguments ranging from the Hittite empire to its Louisiana neighbors in the West. There is even a particularly controversial inscription supposedly discovered by archaeologist James Mellard in the 19th century. XX, also discoverer of the Neolithic city of Chateau Huyuk. Unfortunately, the inscription may well be a forgery, although, if real, it provides an unprecedented window into the world of Louisiana that purports to describe a great raid through the Hittite Empire and into Egypt at the time of the collapse of the Bronze Age.

Another argument is that for the Troad region around Troy, the Trojan name for them was tarusia and if they had been fighting the Greeks on their own. in the name or on behalf of the Hittites after the destruction of their city, whether destroyed by the Greeks, the Phrygians, the Thracians or a combination of all, they had to go somewhere, an Italian link has finally been argued, such Perhaps the ancestors of the Etruscans expelled from mainland Italy or even inhabitants of the Sea of ​​Tyrania between Italy and Sardinia, a people related to the Sherdon and Shekhalesh, perhaps there is also a hint of evidence of this in the form of an epic poem from the 8th century BC.

Decked ships to war, although we cannot currently know for certain where Anne and Tertia originated, we do know that thousands of outsiders settled in Egypt during this time with a coalition as elusive as the sea peoples where they ended up is often Just as interesting to know where they came from to investigate this further, we must go forward a few centuries in time to the territories that were once in the hands of imperial Egypt and are now in the hands of a number of local powers, some of which They inhabited the region for centuries, millennia, even others were recent arrivals. 1177 BC, just as the world of the late Bronze Age collapsed, more warriors arrived in Egypt, sailing their ored galleys through the countless canals of the Nile.

It had been 30 years since the last recorded invasion and 30 years is a long time in the that entire generations lived and died. In the midst of social unrest, the names of these newcomers were pelosette tajeka shekalesh danuna and washesh the first of these names arrives seemingly out of nowhere the pellet placed in the reliefs of medanet habu some pelosets are represented fighting alongside sherdon with the army Egyptian, but the majority fight together with the Libyans against Egypt, we know very little about everything else, but the Peller group remains probably the best known of all the sea peoples, not necessarily because of their appearance in Egyptian sources, which They appear only in the reliefs of a single pharaoh and a handful of other sources, except for their possible appearances in the Holy Bible; ultimately, no material has ever been excavated that can be definitively equated with the sea peoples, for the most part.

Some of us just don't know where they ended up and wouldn't know what to look for. for even if we did, it is quite possible that the newcomers would merge with whatever society they came into contact with, at best, however, there must be plenty of evidence that Peller dates back to the early 19th century. Jean-François Champollion was the first scholar to equate the pelosette with a people we already know well, because there is a good argument that the pelosette is the same as the Philistines, long-standing rivals and antagonists of the Old Testament Israelites who They inhabited the southern Levant during biblical times, also known as the period immediately after the collapse of the Bronze Age.

The Old Testament of the Bible is full of violence and war. The Philistines were no exception and seemed more powerful than most. A culture. Over the last century, extensive Philistine archeology has been carried out in four of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis Ashkelon Ashdod Tell Mcnay and Tel Assafi, all located on the southern coastal plain of ancient Canaan, a land that was long in the hands of imperial Egypt, although it does not definitively link the cities to the pelosette the general archaeological consensus is of an incoming culture that arrived in the years after the collapse of the Bronze Age.

There are also indications in Egyptian sources in the papyrus Harris Ramses III claims to have settled defeated peoples in fortresses linked to his name, suggesting groups of Pelosette may have been settled by his order in Canaan, the persistent Egyptian influence seen in the Pentapolis Philistine might suggest that they were technically vassals of Egypt, a buffer that protected the imperial border before eventually going their own way as Egyptian influence waned in the 11th century and eventually became famous in the Bible as coming to dominate the local population of the region, but where did they come from? Greece, Crete, Illyria and Western Anatolia.

It has been suggested that there is even an argument that the Philistines originated in Canaan; However, archaeological and written evidence seems to suggest that this may not be the case, a distinct people was clearly visible after the collapse of the Bronze Age with its origins elsewhere, a mass migration perhaps or at least a replacement of the elite, they likely only arrived in Egypt after decades of wandering, perhaps they were made up of several different groups. The strongest evidence of all now surprisingly supported by genetics also suggests origins in Greece, although the archaeological evidence is not as simple as that pottery made in mainland Greece was imported throughout the Mediterranean from the 14th century to the end of the century.

XIII. and found in 350 palaces throughout the Mediterranean, this quickly disappears to be replaced by an imitation style known as Late Helladic 3c, which is the style used by the Philistines, this is mainly the reason why they have been associated with Greece, it could simply be that their Potters imitated the Greeks of old, however, there is more evidence that Pelosette Tajeker and Danuna are depicted with armor very similar to Mycenaean Greece. This Egyptian caricature doll originating from Malta is believed to represent a Philistine with a helmet with a feather crown very similar to the pelle. In terms of archaeology, there are other indications of a link between the Philistines and the Pelleset.

This Philistine-looking headdress found in Crete and these anthropomorphized Philistine sarcophagi sometimes appear adorned with feathered headdresses in the Philistine pentapolis. Changes in food clothing, including Aegean style. cooking jars and the increased consumption of beef and pork food products that are not usually associated with the region, but are associated with Greece and the Aegean Sea. Many biblical passages refer to the origins of the pelle set as being on the island of Kafftor, often equated with Crete, in fact some may have originated in Greece, although in reality it may have been their ancestors who made it. had done at that time, having changed a significant amount, the world had changed and almost all Greek cities were already long dead by that time, it may even be that the variety of objects associated with the sea towns Aegean-style troughs helmets with feathers and horns devices with bird heads on ships served as the basis of a new collective identity that in some way explains the mixed nature of the sea peoples old identities coming out of the window new charismatic leaders gaining power surprisingly there is an archaeological site where we can see hints of this new identity beginning to form.

This is the ancient city of n comey in northeastern Cyprus, once this place probably served as the capital of the Cypriot kingdom of Alice, but around the year 1200. BC archeology suggests that after a sacking or at least some kind of Destruction came under the control of the Greeks or at least an incoming Aegean culture, perhaps most famous for this ivory board game depicting charioteers and a figure with a feather headdress also found here. During the 12th century BC. Several bronze statuettes with horns were found that looked very similar to those found in Sardinia. Given the proximity to Ugarit and Hattie, it seems possible that this place, until its destruction by an earthquake around 1050 BC.

C., served as a base for maritime attacks. Interestingly, the bronze statuettes found in Sardinia not only have horned helmets, this one has a feather headdress, perhaps just an Aegean warrior who ended his days in the west, however, the Philistines had a golden age between the late In a sense, if they had been conquerors and had continued to live in figures like Goliath, which suggests dominance over the surrounding peoples, today, the people of Gaza may well descend in part of these sea towns. Unfortunately, the Peller assemblage is the only one of the Sea Peoples that is almost conclusively known.

According to archaeology, many must have merged with the people they settled with, but we have more evidence anyway, in the early 11th century BC. C., an Egyptian nobleman found himself sailing off the coast of the Levantine coast. Much had changed since the days when Egyptian power here had been unquestioned when the cedars of Canaan had been sent south en masse as tribute and warriors flocked south for the honor of serving in the armies of the great pharaohs of the new kingdom now, in the twilight years of the imperial era, he and his men had bartered with local leaders to obtain passage much less tribute with no guarantee of success, such is the story of when a moon is a work rare literary during this dark time upon arriving at the gate city in the land of canaan when a moon is forced to present the local king with a complaint after gold was stolen from his ships, which is interesting to us, the gate is specifically named as a city of tajeka, one of the names of medanet habu, archeology remains support this also cow bones, bichrome Philistine style pottery, bone handles, iron knives similar to Philistine sites and a cup with a head of lion excavated here during the 1980s the evidence is far from conclusive the rest of the gate fines are consistent with the rest of the region which could suggest however it is a small elite takeover influx of tajeka replacing those who ruled here before, but who were the tajeka in medanet habu, they are depicted fighting with short swords, long spears and round shields, armor reminiscent of Mycenaean Greece, other scholars have even equated the tajeka with the march of the Trojan War. being that both were arriving in Canaan via Cyprus, where they encountered other displaced peoples at the time, generations who had now lived and died without knowing the authority of the palace complexes and elites of the late Bronze Age world. who had now forged new identities.

In the fires of turmoil and cataclysm, finally an Egyptian document, the onomasticon of Amanope, appears to confirm that the Peller Set Sherdon and Tajeka were still settled in Philistia around 1100 BC, as we have seen, there is a great deal of evidence that links the peoples of the sea. with the Aegean and Greek world, none more so than the Denuna, considered one of the main groups that attacked Egypt in 1177 BC. C., but they are also seen in Hittite Egyptian and later classical sources in the works of Homer. All Greeks are known as Dhanoi or Donaians. They are mentioned over a hundred times along with the Achaeans and the archives are talked about over 500 and a hundred times respectively, in other words it seems that all the Greeks were Donaians, but not all the Greeks were Achaeans, they came from an area specific briefly mentioned as tanahu in the reigns. of Thutmose III and Amman Hotep III The first definitive reference to Danuna comes in the Amana lettuce in relation to Ammon Hotep the vassal of the fourth Abi Milku king of the Phoenician city of Tire in the text the death of a king of Danuna is mentionedreplaced by his brother and as a result the land is now at peace, it has been proposed that while ekwesh may relate to the akhayans and ahiyawans, denyen and tanahu may relate to classical greece da noi, unfortunately we cannot be sure and there are other theories also notably based on a bilingual inscription from the 8th century BC. which tells of a king of Kara Tepe, an Iron Age kingdom in Cilicia called Itawada, who boasts of expanding into the Adana Plain to restore his people, the Danunites.

Another argument is that their origins lie in the lands near Ugarit, possibly In Cyprus serving as mercenaries in Canaan, once defeated and captured as Tajeka Sherdon and Pelesette, it is believed that the Denuna may have settled along the coast of Palestine to help protect the Egyptian Philistines' path between Egypt and Syria, and there is some evidence of this as well. Like the peloset in the holy bible, one of the tribes of israel, the dan, is said to have originated in the sea and settled with its ships between the cities of ekron and joppa, perhaps later forced inland by the newly arrived Philistines before merging with the The Israelites over time, the most notable Israelites from the tribe of Dan were Samson, the ruler who lost his power when he cut his hair.

Perhaps its origins in distant Greece are a testament to the interconnectedness of the late Bronze Age world in light of this. We must now focus on the last and possibly the most enigmatic of all the sea peoples when the Hittite capital of Hatusha was wiped from the map in the 12th century BC. Little did its inhabitants know that at the dawn of modern historical scholarship in the 19th century they would be forgotten, writing only a few hundred years after the events. Homer also has no memory of the Hittite empire, which other kingdoms have also been forgotten, their stories will never be told, this tells us.

It bears the last name of the sea peoples who attacked Egypt in 1177, the most mysterious of all with little more than a name, the Weshesh, while their origins remain unknown, some have theorized their roots in Caria in Anatolia, while others They meet their end in Canaan, where they became the Israelite tribe of Asha, unfortunately, there is little concrete to go on. It seems likely that Homer's Trojan warfam was not in fact a completely independent state but a kingdom subject to the Hittite Willusa empire, even being mentioned in the diplomatic archive recovered from Hatusa as if Hattie Troy was destroyed around the same time, which leads some scholars to suggest that wolusa became weshesh finally wrote many centuries later the roman writer virgil using sources we have lost today finishes the story of homer adding the story of ernest the legendary founder of rome four according to virgil rome was founded by exiled trojans forced to sail the high seas to settle in italy, where they founded the cursive race, this may seem far-fetched, but if sardinians, sicilians and tyrants appeared in the eastern mediterranean at this time, it is not impossible to think that continental italians became involved as well, Which brings us to our last theory, perhaps the most fascinating of all is that in recent years several academics have argued for greater involvement of the Western Mediterranean.

It is almost impossible to prove it, but it is equally difficult to completely refute it, since events were also unfolding in the West that today remain almost unrecorded. Around the year 1300 BC. C., Greece was not the only continental European power that equipped its warriors with bulletproof vests, helmets, shields and bronze swords, as Mycenaean Greece had many neighbors, although aspects of its culture were borrowed from the eastern Mediterranean, much of it was native to his country. lands because this was the beginning of the urnfield culture, ancestors of the Celts and Romans who spread across much of the European continent during the time of the uprisings of the 13th and 12th centuries BC.

C., which were distinguished from the mound culture that preceded it by the custom of cremating the dead. and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in the fields, numerous treasured elements of urn field culture and the existence of fortified hillside settlements have often been taken as evidence of widespread wars and unrest during this time, a people much more disunited than the Earfield communities in Mycenaean Greece. They lacked the palace complexes of the east but had all the martial trappings on the battlefield a force to be reckoned with a Bronze Age battle found in Germany's Telensa Valley has more bones than any other found during the age bronze Middle East included a conflict involving thousands of combatants and much other evidence of wars and military expansion also exists.

Any written records or even oral traditions have been completely lost today. These bronze healings were found at Marmessa in France. This is Franklin Ben's horde. An amazing collection of articles. This collection. of 300 bronze sickles covered with strange symbols may even be a form of proto-runic, a primitive writing system if they were what they said, no one knows, one of the most curious phenomena of the Bronze Age in Europe, however, they must be these ceremonial hats, several of which have been found in different locations dating back to around 1200 BC. C. and are made of elaborately decorated thin sheets of gold.

It is thought that they may have been used as ceremonial items during the rituals of priest kings or oracles, perhaps used as an early form of calendar with echoes of a similar pointed style. Hats or helmets can even be seen in other areas of Europe, especially in Sardinia, not far from there. Earfield settlements, generally small in size, were generally built on hills and were circumscribed with fortifications. Its economy was based mainly on agricultural and pastoral activities. Without a doubt, metallurgy and commerce. some were carried out on a large scale, but how did Earnfield's lifestyle become so successful?

Part of the reason could be technology. New sword technology is now used for cutting rather than simply stabbing, surpassing that of the earlier mound culture originating in northern Italy around 1200 BC. The weapon spread rapidly throughout the Bronze Age world and was found as far away as Ugarit just before its end. Historian Robert Drewes has further suggested that the new Naohu2 cutting sword may have ushered in an entirely new type of warfare never before seen with mobile bands of sword-wielding infantry replacing chariots. Drew's even suggests that the political instability wrought in the states centralized in the decades prior to 1200 BC.

C. may have been caused, at least in part, by this new sword, far from unified nations, today, the culture of the urn fields is further divided into a series of subgroups one of which the proto -Villanovans emerged in Italy in the first half of the 12th century BC. C. and lasted until the 10th century. It is possible that this was, at least in part, a military invasion of Italy that could have had knock-on effects. far away, perhaps wide-ranging warriors of Earnfield culture in search of loot and glory could have continued into the eastern Mediterranean joining Seabourn Sherdon and Shekhalesh in distant lands and there may well have been pressing concerns that to some extent forced them to do so, as we have already seen, science tells us that this was an era of immense environmental upheaval.

Eastern seismic storms may not have affected Western Europe, but crop failures certainly did. A slight change in the weather can have an impact. massive effect on societies and pollen samples from northern Syria tell us definitively that in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age the climate changed, becoming drier and therefore much more difficult to grow food during the next 300 years. What do Marshall cultures do when they can't grow their own food, they go find it elsewhere, creating a domino effect around the world, as far north as Britain. Bronze Age hill forts bear the marks of war around 1200 BC.

The path to the south and then to the eastern palace systems so far we just can't say for sure, but it's interesting to wonder, you've been watching the story anyway, I've been your host, Pete Kelly, don't forget that. like and subscribe share and let me know what you think in the comments if you are interested in natural history check out my latest channel the whole history of the earth with me and David from Voices of the Past we tell the full story of our planet from the beginning, also check out Voices of the Past for dramatic primary source retellings of history and my other history channel, Pete Kelly, where I visit historical sites and take a closer look at archaeology.

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