Here's what I've posted before on the sea peoples:

“The northern countries which were in their islands were quivering in their limbs. They penetrated the channels of the river-mouths.” So wrote the scribe of Rameses III in recounting a great victory of his king in 1190 BC. Almost three centuries had passed since the Mycenaean navy had supplanted the Minoan, and over a century and a half since raiders began to disrupt commerce along the Levant. The age of flourishing overseas traffic was coming to an end, and the age of sea raiders was beginning. The Mediterranean was infested with bands of rovers, not only Lycians and other people from the coasts of Asia Minor but also people from “the northern countries which were in their islands.” They joined the Libyans in a savage attack on Egypt from the west in 1221 BC and again in 1194 and were somehow repelled both times. Four years later some reformed to attack again, by land and sea from Syria and Palestine. In a great naval engagement, one which stands as the first in history to be described and pictured, Rameses III destroyed their fleet.

“No land could stand before their arms,” Rameses has his scribe write. “A camp [was set up by them] in one place in Amor [perhaps in northern Syria]. They desolated its people… They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Denyen, and Weshesh.” Of these names and others, disguised in the orthography of the Egyptian scribes, one can be identified with certainty: the Peleset are none other than the Philistines. Further Egyptian accounts record still others which suggest tantalizing identifications. Are the Tursha Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, in the age still an Asia Minor people not yet having migrated to their historical abode in central Italy? Are the Akaiwasha Archaens, Homer’s name for the Greeks?

What faced Rameses was no mere hit and run raids such as Egypt had been putting up with since the days of Akhenaten. These attackers from “the northern countries which were in their islands” had consolidated their forces in northern Syria, had sacked the seaports of the Phoenician coast, and were sweeping down like a flood upon Egypt. It was a veritable migration. And as the main body moved forward by land, the fleet kept pace along the coast.

Rameses’ victory was total. To celebrate it he erected a great temple near Thebes, and it was on its walls that his scribes wrote the story of his conquest and his artists portrayed, in carefully carved reliefs, its highlights. The encounter on land took place first, and the sculptures depict the pharaoh’s troops smiting the invaders hip and thigh and breaking through the ranks of soldiers to get to the heavy two-wheeled oxcarts which carried the wives, children, and supplies. Once the land was secured Rameses turned to the enemy fleet. Somehow or other he managed to catch it unawares. As he puts it” Those who entered the river-mouths were like birds ensnared in the net.” The picture illustrating this part of the action is unique. It is the first and only complete representation of a historical sea battle that has come to us from the ancient world. The Egyptian galleys sweep down on the ships manned by the invaders, easily distinguished by their feathered headdresses. Egyptian archers from ships and shore spray them with a withering fire, crippling them severely before they can get close enough to strike a blow with their swords, and thrusting spears; the very lookout in one of the crow’s nests has been picked off and hand dead over the rail. The pharaoh’s men then move in with shield and spear to deliver the coup de grace; in the fight one of the northerners’ ships has capsized; some of the crew are bound captives in an Egyptian vessel, while other swim to shore only to be pinioned by the waiting Egyptian soldiers.

But not all the northerners were destroyed in this battle. Battered remnants made their way northward. The Tjeker planted themselves about Mount Carmel, and the Peleset settled to the south along the coast of Palestine. There they remained, not strong enough to try another attack on Egypt but soon sufficiently recovered to resume their old game of sea raising and to play a leading role in certain pages of the Old Testament.”

The Ancient Mariners
By Lionel Casson
Pp33-35


Kat

Ma'at Moderator

Founder and Director of The Hall of Ma'at

Contributing author to Archaeological Fantasies:
How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
"If you panic, you're lost" -- W. T. 'Watertight' Southard