The Sea Peoples

The Sea Peoples were a confederation of tribes that attacked Egypt and other areas around the eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, roughly 1200 BC. Known groups include the Lukka and Peleset, while others, like the Weshesh, have unknown origins. The label "Sea People" was invented in modern times and is often considered inaccurate, as most of these groups seem to have moved over land. The modern idea of the Sea Peoples began with 19th-century Egyptologists Emmanuel de Rougé and Gaston Maspero. They based their work on primary sources, especially the reliefs at the Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. Later scholars expanded on this interpretation, trying to connect these records to other Late Bronze Age evidence of migration, piracy, and destruction. Early research often blamed the Sea Peoples as a main cause of the Bronze Age Collapse, but more recent studies tend to see them as refugees escaping a crisis already underway. **History of the concept**

Emmanuel de Rougé, then curator of the Louvre, first proposed the concept in 1855. In a work on hieroglyphic texts recently published by Mr. Greene, he interpreted the battles of Ramesses III shown on the Second Pylon at Medinet Habu, using recent photographs by John Beasley Greene. De Rougé noted that among the conquered peoples depicted, the Sherden and Teresh were called "peuples de la mer" (Sea Peoples), referring to prisoners shown at the base of the Fortified East Gate. In 1867, he published a dissertation on attacks against Egypt by Mediterranean peoples in the 14th century BC, focusing on the battles of Ramesses II and Merneptah and proposing translations for geographic names in the hieroglyphs. De Rougé later became chair of Egyptology at the Collège de France, succeeded by Gaston Maspero. Maspero expanded on de Rougé’s work, publishing *The Struggle of the Nations* in 1895–96, which detailed the theory of seaborne migrations for a general audience—a concept that resonated with the public at the time. The migration theory was adopted by scholars like Eduard Meyer and became widely accepted among Egyptologists and Orientalists. However, since the early 1990s, some scholars have questioned it. The historical narrative mainly comes from seven Ancient Egyptian sources. Although the phrase "of the sea" does not appear for all these peoples in the inscriptions, modern publications commonly use "Sea Peoples" to refer to the nine groups. **Primary documentary records**

The Medinet Habu inscriptions, which first gave rise to the Sea Peoples concept, remain the primary source and "the basis of virtually all significant discussions of them."

**List of Sea Peoples**

Three separate Egyptian narratives mention more than one of the nine peoples, found across six sources. A seventh, more recent source is a list (Onomasticon) of 610 entities, not a narrative. These sources are summarized in a table. **Ramesses II narrative**

Possible records of Sea Peoples date to two campaigns of Ramesses II, a pharaoh of the militant 19th Dynasty: operations in or near the delta in his second year, and the major battle against the Hittite Empire and allies at Kadesh in his fifth year. The exact years of his long reign are unknown but covered nearly all of the first half of the 13th century BC. In his second year, an attack by the Sherden (or Shardana) on the Nile Delta was repelled, and Ramesses captured some of the pirates. This event is recorded on Tanis Stele II. An inscription on that stela describes the ongoing threat: the unruly Sherden, whom no one had known how to fight, came boldly sailing in warships from the sea, with none able to withstand them. The captured Sherden were later incorporated into the Egyptian army and served on the Hittite frontier, fighting for Ramesses at the Battle of Kadesh. Another source, the "Aswan Stele," mentions the king’s operations against various peoples, including those of the "Great Green" (the Egyptian name for the Mediterranean). The Battle of Kadesh, in Year 5, was the climax of a campaign against the rival Hittite Empire and their Levantine allies. Ramesses divided his forces, which were ambushed piecemeal by the Hittites and nearly defeated, but he recovered and fought to a stalemate. He left inscriptions and depictions of his victory at temples in Abydos, Karnak, Luxor, and Abu Simbel. The "Poem of Pentaur," describing the battle, has also survived. It relates that the previously captured Sherden not only fought for the Pharaoh but also helped with strategy—they suggested dividing the Egyptian forces into four columns. There is no evidence in Ramesses’ inscriptions of Sherden disloyalty or collaboration with the Hittites. The poem also lists the Hittite allies at Kadesh, including some of the Sea Peoples mentioned in other Egyptian inscriptions who later took part in the great migrations of the 12th century BC.