The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of naval raiders who harried the coastal towns and cities of the Mediterranean region between approximately 1276 and 1178 BCE, concentrating their efforts especially on Egypt. The nationality of the Sea Peoples remains a mystery as the only records we have of their activities are mainly Egyptian sources who only describe them in terms of battle (such as the record from the Stele at Tanis which reads, in part, “They came from the sea in their war ships and none could stand against them”). Names of, perhaps, the tribes which comprised the Sea Peoples have been recorded as the Sherden, the Sheklesh, Lukka, Tursha and Akawasha and, besides Egypt, they also constantly assaulted the coastal regions of the Hittite Empire and other states around the Mediterranean coast. Their nationality has been suggested (and debated) through the years as any from Palestinian to Etruscan/Trojan to Italian, Philistine, Mycenaen and even Minoan but, as no accounts discovered thus far shed any more light on the question than what is presently known, any such claims must remain mere conjecture.
The Sea Peoples and Rameses II
The Sea Peoples are mentioned as allies of the Hittites by Rameses II in his record of the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE and, in the second year of his reign, he defeated them in a naval battle off the coast of Egypt. Rameses cleverly allowed the war ships and their supply and cargo vessels to approach the mouth of the Nile and attack, what seemed, a small defending Egyptian fleet, before loosing his full attack upon them from their flanks and sinking their ships. This battle involved (it seems) only the Sherdan Sea Peoples as, afterward, many were pressed into Rameses’ army and some served as his elite body guard.
The Invasion Under Merneptah
Rameses’ successor, Merneptah (1224-1214 BCE) continued to be troubled by the Sea Peoples who allied themselves with the Libyans to invade the Nile Delta. At this point in their history it seems the Sea Peoples were seeking to establish permanent settlements in Egypt as the invading force brought with them scores of household goods and building tools. Egyptian records tell us that Merneptah, after praying, fasting, and consulting the gods in the matter of strategy, met the Sea Peoples on the field at Pi-yer where the combined Egyptian force of infantry, cavalry and archers slew over 6,000 of their opponents and took captive members of the royal Libyan family.
The Sea Peoples Defeat by Rameses III
During the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses III (1194-1163 BCE) the Sea Peoples attacked and destroyed the Egyptian trading center at Kadesh (in modern day Syria) and then again attempted an invasion of Egypt. They began their activities with quick raids along the coast (as they had done in the time of Rameses II) before driving for the Delta. Rameses III defeated them, first, in 1180 but they returned in force. Rameses then set up ambushes along the coast and the Nile and made especially effective use of his archers, positioning them hidden along the shore line to rain down arrows on the ships, at his signal, once they were in range. Once the ship’s complement was dead or drowning the ships were set afire with flaming arrows and the Sea Peoples were finally defeated off the city of Xois in 1178 BCE. Egyptian records, again, detail a glorious victory in which many of the Sea Peoples were slain and others taken captive and pressed into the Egyptian army and navy or sold as slaves. It was during this last campaign of the Sea Peoples that the now oft-cited Serbonian Bog was first noted. The Serbonian Bog was a lake 150 miles long (according the historian Pliny) east of the Nile which, owing to the shift of wind blowing sand across it, appeared to be dry land. It takes its name from the Sherdan of the Sea Peoples whose whole army was swallowed up in the quagmire during their battle with Rameses III (although an alternate theory has been advanced that the name comes from the King of Jerusalem, Sebaket-Bardoil, who drowned there, thinking it dry land, on a return from an expedition to Egypt). The expression `serbonian bog’ is used metaphorically today to describe any situation which at first seems simple but becomes a quagmire from which one cannot easily extricate oneself.
After their defeat by Rameses III the Sea Peoples vanish from history, the survivors of the battle, perhaps, being assimilated into Egyptian culture. No records indicate where they came from and there are no accounts of them after 1178 BCE but, for almost one hundred years, they were the most feared sea raiders in the Meditteranean region and a constant challenge to the might and prosperity of Egypt.
Sources:
Living In Ancient Egypt, Don Nardo, 2004
The Encylopedia of Ancient Egypt, Margaret Bunson, 1991
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