#62 Who were the Sea Peoples?

And how did a group of sea-faring nomads end human civilization thousands of years ago?

Author

Dr. Dan Smith
April 17, 2024

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Dr. Daniel Smith

Art of the Day: Depiction of the Battle of the Delta, fought between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples in 1178.
Found in the Temple of Ramesses III in Luxor, Egypt.

Today’s Daily Concept is about the Sea Peoples.

No, it’s not the name of a hipster ska band from 2011 — it’s actually the name of one of the most mysterious groups of people in history.

I’m Bret, and this is Chet, Fret, and Bet - and we’re the Sea Peoples!

The Sea Peoples are the name used for a historical confederation of seafaring tribes in the eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BC.

They were partially responsible for the collapse of several advanced civilizations in ancient Egypt, Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), and Mesopotamia.

This period, which is widely referred to as the Bronze Age Collapse, saw the decline and eventual fall of major powers such as the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece, and the New Kingdom of Egypt.

The Sea Peoples are interesting for two reasons:

1️⃣ They played a major role in the collapse of what were then the most advanced civilizations on Earth

2️⃣ Despite this, we know very little about who the Sea Peoples actually were or where they came from

The only written records of the Sea Peoples' activities are Egyptian sources that describe battles against Sea People invaders.

One ancient Egyptian plaque describing the Sea Peoples reads:

“They came from the sea in their war ships and none could stand against them.”

An ancient illustration found at an Egyptian historical site depicts the Battle of the Delta (1175 BC) against the Sea Peoples.

The Bronze Age (3300-1200 BC)

The Bronze Age began around 3300 BC, when the practice of smelting bronze (from copper and tin) became widespread in the Near East region on the eastern Mediterranean.

The geographic spread of bronze-smelting technology during the Bronze Age.

The early Bronze Age was characterized by the emergence of short-lived civilizations concentrated around city-states on the Euphrates (in modern-day Iraq) and the Nile (in Egypt).

These early city-states were eventually replaced by larger empires like:

  • the Old Babylonian Empire

  • the Egyptian Middle Kingdom

  • the seafaring Minoan civilization based on the Greek island of Crete during the Middle Bronze Age (2100-1600 BC).

By 1600, new regional powers took control in the Near East:

The Hittite Empire: Largely concentrated in modern-day Turkey and Syria, the Hittite Empire was known for its military strength and technological innovations in metallurgy.

Historian Christopher Scarre described the Hittite capital city of Hattusa as:

“a vast fortress-city sprawling over the rocky terrain, with craggy citadels and elaborate temples.

It became the center of a powerful empire that covered not only most of Anatolia but also at times extended far to the south, into Syria and the Levant.”

A map showing the ancient Hittite civilization in the eastern Mediterranean

Mycenaean Greece: The Mycenaean civilization, based in the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece, was based around major palaces that served as administrative centers for the Mycenaean government and economy.

The emergence of a so-called palace economy in Mycenaean Greece, where control of trade, taxation, and tribute were centralized in palaces, was a major development in the political economy of ancient states.

A graphic depicting the nature of the Mycenaean palace economy.

The New Kingdom of Egypt: Between roughly 1550–1070 BC, ancient Egyptian civilization achieved its peak influence during the New Kingdom.

The pharaohs of the New Kingdom forged diplomatic alliances with other regional powers, enabling a golden age for Egyptian culture whose legacy we can see in the grandiose pyramids built in the Valley of Kings.

The Valley of Kings in Egypt.

Here come the Sea Peoples

Starting around 1200, things started to go south for these great civilizations.

Historians have argued that coastal raids contributed to the destabilization of these societies, quoting ancient Egyptian sources that spoke of pirate-raider groups attacking Egyptian cities.

Archaeologists and historians have also

drawn upon Hittite texts and other archaeological findings in the region to reconstruct the world of the Sea Peoples.

Some researchers have even used carbon-dating technology to precisely determine when the Sea People incursions took place.

Understanding the Sea Peoples

The term ‘Sea Peoples’ was coined by French Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé in the 1850s.

In a series of writings on the topic, de Rougé hypothesized that the Sea Peoples were a group of nomadic peoples who traveled from northern and western territories into the Near East around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse.

More recent research has moved away from the ‘mass migration’ theory offered by de Rouge, with this Reddit user in the R/AskHistorians subreddit summarizing recent shifts in thinking about the Sea Peoples among ancient historians and archaeologists:

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan