The Sea Peoples were a purported confederacy of naval raiders who harried the coastal towns and cities of the Mediterranean region prior and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200 BC – 900 BC).
Image source: https://www.history.com/news/who-were-the-sea-peoples
Mysterious Origins of a Seafaring Coalition
The Sea Peoples origin is particularly obscure as the existing records of their activities are mainly Egyptian sources who only describe them in terms of battle. It is known that the seafaring confederation attacks were mainly concentrated on Egypt and other regions of the East Mediterranean, but where these warriors came from remains a mystery. Some of the hypotheses that have been made in these regards, place the origin of the Sea Peoples in western Asia Minor, the Mediterranea islands or southern European countries.
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples
A Term for the Tribes Coming from the Sea
No ancient inscription names the coalition as “Sea Peoples”. This is a modern-day designation first coined by the French Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé in 1955. He used the term “peoples de la mer” (literally “peoples of the sea”) in a description of reliefs on the Second Pylon at Medinet Habu documenting Year 8 of Ramesses III. Gaston Maspero, de Rougé’s successor, popularized the term “Sea Peoples” in the late 19th century. De Rougès, and Mespero after him, came up with the term because the ancient Egyptian reports claim that these tribes came “from the sea” or from “the islands” but they never mention which one. For this reason, many scholars believe that the origin of these invading sea warriors was common knowledge among the Egyptians that it was superfluous to mention it in inscriptions.
Documentary Records: Ramesses II and his Successors
The three great pharaohs who record their conflicts and victories over the Sea Peoples are Ramesses II (The Great, 1279-1213 BCE), his son and successor Merenptah (1213-1203 BCE), and Ramesses III (1186-1155 BCE). All three claimed great victories over their adversaries and their inscriptions provide the most detailed evidence of the Sea Peoples.
However, the Egyptians documents give conflicting reports, for example in Ramesses the Great’s account, the Sea Peoples are mentioned as allies of the Hittites but also as serving in his own army as mercenaries. While Merenptah accounts narrate of continuous troubles caused by the Sea Peoples, who allied themselves with the Libyans to invade the Nile Delta and Egypt.
The Importance of the Sea Peoples on History
While the identity and origins of the Sea Peoples remain mysterious, the terrors they inflicted upon the ancient world are very well documented.
Anyway, lacking sufficient evidence, historians can’t say for sure what their impact on the ancient world was, although some scholars speculate they may have indirectly led to the fall of the Hittite Empire and even the mysterious Late Bronze Age collapse that saw many of the Near East’s kingdoms fall and the region sent into a kind of dark age in approximately 1177 B.C.
The Design of the Sea People Ships
The Sea People fighting vessels are unique amongst Bronze Age seafaring vessels in having the prow and stern identical to one another.
The use of bird-headed motif on the prow and stern clearly goes some way to giving us yet another clue as to their cultural identity as they clearly considered the bird’s head important enough culturally to adorn their ships with it. Suggestions have been made that these vessels are the final stage in a long line of development in the Mycenaean shipbuilding tradition sharing similar traits to the single bird head prows of earlier Mycenaean examples.
It must be taken into consideration that the ships of the Sea Peoples may very well be only an example of a modified Aegean design capable of more open sea operations, the beaching prow of several of the Sea Peoples hips is noteworthy and goes to show that the Egyptian sculptors who put this naval scene together may very well have had actual captured Sea Peoples ships to study up close and baste their sculptures on.
Artcrafts: Amor and Weapons of the Sea Warriors
The Sea Peoples warriors wore armour which can only best be described as belonging to both Aegean and Western and Southern Asia Minor, an amalgam of both what appears to be at times Mycenaean and yet in other instances Minoan/colonial Minoan.
They wore horned-helmet as an integral component of body armour, a shield and a weapon such a sword or an axe. These were meant to defend the Sea People warriors both from human enemies and from ferocious predators as lions, leopards, bears, wild boar and wolves.
Devising a New Shield
Flat surface shields, like the XV centuries BC ones, no matter what their size was they were actually rather dangerous when it comes to infantry lines clashes.
With men piling on the pressure to progress forward from their own ranks and the enemy formation reciprocating the same way then a flat shield offers no ‘Breathing Space’ for the warrior to operate in, therefore the ability to be able to breathe in the crush of a massed infantry battle was an overwhelming priority.
Thus an interesting development was made by the Sea People, just as the basic flat shape would have become a liability with more developed weapons appearing to counter them the simple process of pinching the shield at its narrowest point forces the two halves to bulge out producing the classic Bronze Age figure-eight body-shields with their distinctive deep double-bowl shape. Once this is achieved the same shape takes on a completely new and improved ability.