# Who Were the Sea Peoples Bronze Age Collapse

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 26 Sep 2026, 1 h 06 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75116440/who_were_the_sea_peoples_bronze_age_collapse_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3

Journey into one of the great mysteries of the ancient world and discover who the Sea Peoples may have been. Appearing in Egyptian records during the dramatic upheavals of the late Bronze Age, these mysterious groups have long been associated with the collapse of powerful kingdoms across the eastern Mediterranean. Explore the surviving evidence from Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, Cyprus, and the Aegean world. Discover what Egyptian inscriptions actually say about groups such as the Peleset, Tjeker, Sherden, Shekelesh, and Denyen, and examine how these peoples appeared in the records of Pharaohs such as Ramesses III. But who were they? Were the Sea Peoples invading armies, migrating populations, displaced communities, mercenaries, pirates, or a combination of different groups? This episode examines the major theories and explores why identifying them remains so difficult. Archaeological evidence, ancient texts, pottery styles, weapons, settlement patterns, and linguistic clues all provide pieces of a puzzle that is still incomplete. The episode also places the Sea Peoples within the wider Bronze Age Collapse. Explore the interconnected crises that affected the Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece, the Levant, Cyprus, and other Mediterranean societies around the twelfth century BCE. Warfare, political instability, drought, famine, earthquakes, disrupted trade networks, and population movements may all have contributed to the transformation of the ancient world. Discover how the famous image of the Sea Peoples as a single mysterious invasion force developed and why modern historians increasingly favor more complex explanations. Drawing on Egyptian inscriptions, archaeological discoveries, ancient Near Eastern records, and modern historical scholarship, this journey separates established evidence from speculation and popular theories. Narrated with a calm, human voice, this episode is perfect for history enthusiasts, Bronze Age lovers, archaeology fans, ancient history listeners, documentary audiences, relaxation, or listening before sleep. Enter the final centuries of the Bronze Age and explore the evidence behind one of antiquity's most enduring mysteries: who were the Sea Peoples?

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The Late Bronze Age, a period of flourishing civilizations and
[0:06] Speaker 1: wide-ranging international connectivity in the Eastern Mediterranean. Great kingdoms such
[0:12] Speaker 1: as Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Babylonia, and even Mycenaean Greece
[0:18] Speaker 1: formed up an elite great powers club, and they engaged
[0:23] Speaker 1: in trade, diplomacy, and the exchange of luxury goods. Wealthy
[0:28] Speaker 1: ports like Ugarit on the Syrian coast and Enkomi on
[0:32] Speaker 1: Cyprus thrived as trading hubs. Royals exchanged letters and princesses,
[0:39] Speaker 1: while merchants shipped copper ingots, tin, oil, wine and grain
[0:43] Speaker 1: across the sea. By the 13th century BCE, this cosmopolitan
[0:49] Speaker 1: world had truly reached its zenith, with prosperous palatial centres
[0:56] Speaker 1: and complex economic networks. spanning thousands of miles. They had
[1:02] Speaker 1: it all. Life was good. What could possibly go wrong? Well,
[1:10] Speaker 1: around 1200, this interconnected world experienced a dramatic collapse. Within
[1:19] Speaker 1: just a few decades, many of the grand palaces and
[1:23] Speaker 1: cities of the old world were sacked, burned, or abandoned.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Even the Hittite capital, Hattusa, was left in ruins. The
[1:32] Speaker 1: thriving port city of Ugarit was utterly destroyed, to the
[1:36] Speaker 1: point where they never reoccupied it. And in the Aegean,
[1:41] Speaker 1: the Mycenaean palatial citadels, Pelos, Mycenae, Tiryns, they all fell
[1:49] Speaker 1: into ruin. Writing systems like Linear B vanished. Long-standing trade
[1:55] Speaker 1: routes disintegrated. and populations plummeted in several regions. This turmoil
[2:04] Speaker 1: is often called the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and it
[2:09] Speaker 1: marks a major turning point in ancient history. So what happened?
[2:15] Speaker 1: There has to be a villain. Of course, there's a
[2:19] Speaker 1: combination of plenty of factors. But amid this crisis, the
[2:24] Speaker 1: Egyptian records describe waves of foreign invaders. They have been
[2:30] Speaker 1: dubbed the Sea Peoples, the traditional boogeyman of this topic.
[2:37] Speaker 1: In Egyptian inscriptions, these enemies are called the Peoples of
[2:41] Speaker 1: the Sea or the Northern Countries, portrayed as seaborne raiders
[2:47] Speaker 1: and migrants attacking the coasts and delta of Egypt and
[2:50] Speaker 1: other lands. Of course, the term Sea Peoples is a
[2:55] Speaker 1: modern umbrella label for several groups of unknown origin who
[2:58] Speaker 1: appear in multiple sources at the end of the 13th century.
[3:01] Speaker 1: And these Sea Peoples have been implicated as a major factor,
[3:09] Speaker 1: perhaps both cause and effect, of the Bronze Age collapse.
[3:15] Speaker 1: But who were they? Where exactly did they come from?
[3:19] Speaker 1: And what do we know about them? Well, let's do
[3:24] Speaker 1: our best to figure that out, with all the latest
[3:27] Speaker 1: shiny 2025 information in archaeology. And perhaps even a few
[3:34] Speaker 1: outlandish theories, just for a bit of fun. Because why not?
[3:40] Speaker 1: Welcome to the channel. If you're new here, the subscribe
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[4:07] Speaker 1: of those links can be found in the pinned comment
[4:10] Speaker 1: and the video description. And so now, without further ado,
[4:14] Speaker 1: and the customary welcomes out of the way, let's Get
[4:19] Speaker 1: down to business, and we can figure out who the
[4:23] Speaker 1: Sea Peoples really were. But I must say it's kind
[4:29] Speaker 1: of hard to answer that. Who were the Sea Peoples? Well,
[4:35] Speaker 1: everyone has a different opinion about that. But why don't
[4:38] Speaker 1: we start from the Egyptian text? It gives us specific
[4:42] Speaker 1: names for these groups, but the two identities and their
[4:46] Speaker 1: homelands It's still a subject of debate, and you're just
[4:50] Speaker 1: going to have to make your own mind up. Now,
[4:53] Speaker 1: the records of Pharaoh Ramesses III, there's a reign date
[4:57] Speaker 1: of 1186 to 1155, list several tribes among the Sea Peoples. Now,
[5:03] Speaker 1: these include the Jekka, Shekelesh, Denyen, Sherden, Peleset, and Weshesh.
[5:12] Speaker 1: Earlier inscriptions from the Merintah and Ramesses II periods Mention
[5:17] Speaker 1: additional names too, like Ekwesh, Luka and Teresh. These labels
[5:24] Speaker 1: are kind of our starting clues to the Sea People's origins.
[5:30] Speaker 1: Ancient observers of the time did not recall the precise
[5:34] Speaker 1: homelands of these groups. They just called them Of the
[5:38] Speaker 1: Sea or From the Islands. Modern scholars have therefore tried
[5:44] Speaker 1: to link the names with known locations or peoples. So
[5:48] Speaker 1: let's try and do the same. We'll give some brief explanations.
[5:52] Speaker 1: Let's start with the Shekelesh. Now that name invites a
[5:56] Speaker 1: bit of comparison with Sicily, Siculi. Some scholars think that
[6:01] Speaker 1: Shekelesh may have originated in southern Italy or Sicily before
[6:06] Speaker 1: joining those larger migratory bands. And then we have Sherden.
[6:12] Speaker 1: or Shardana. They were possibly from the Western Mediterranean. And
[6:18] Speaker 1: think about the name a little bit. Try and do
[6:20] Speaker 1: a little bit of linguistic stretching. It's kind of reminiscent
[6:26] Speaker 1: of Sardinia. And indeed, Sardinian-style bronze weapons and Nuragic motives
[6:33] Speaker 1: have been noted, suggesting a connection. Now, Sherden warriors, we
[6:39] Speaker 1: do know, were formidable sea raiders. Ramesses II even noted
[6:45] Speaker 1: they came, quote, boldly, sailing in their warships from the
[6:49] Speaker 1: midst of the sea, none being able to withstand them.
[6:55] Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like the kind of guests you want to have,
[6:59] Speaker 1: particularly uninvited. Well, next we have the Teresh or Tursha warriors.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Possibly connected to Tirsenoi, that is an ancient name for
[7:09] Speaker 1: the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans, or to Troas, Troy. Although, once again,
[7:17] Speaker 1: the evidence is a little bit thin. When we're trying
[7:20] Speaker 1: to work these sorts of things out, we have to
[7:22] Speaker 1: engage in a little bit of speculation without drawing solid conclusions. Well,
[7:30] Speaker 1: some speculate a link to coastal Anatolia, or even the Aegean. Now,
[7:36] Speaker 1: then we have Equish and Denyen. These have been tentatively
[7:41] Speaker 1: linked to Achaean peoples, that is, Mycenaean Greeks. Denyen might
[7:47] Speaker 1: correspond to the Danans, a name Homer actually used for
[7:51] Speaker 1: the Greeks, or to the region of Cilicia, later known
[7:55] Speaker 1: as Danuna. Now, as for Equish, that might be related
[8:00] Speaker 1: to the Achaoi, the Achaeans. implying some sea peoples could
[8:05] Speaker 1: have actually been displaced by the Mycenaeans. And then, of course,
[8:11] Speaker 1: we have Pellicet, which is almost certainly the Philistines, who
[8:17] Speaker 1: appear in the archaeological record of Iron Age Canaan and
[8:21] Speaker 1: soon after. Egyptian reliefs depict Pellicet warriors with feathered headdresses,
[8:28] Speaker 1: and Ramesses III settled them in southern Canaan after defeating them,
[8:33] Speaker 1: Of course, if we look at some biblical tradition, in
[8:37] Speaker 1: later times, of course, it recalls Philistines coming from Kaphtor. Now,
[8:43] Speaker 1: that is possibly the old name for Crete. That aligns
[8:48] Speaker 1: with the idea that Pellicet originated in the Aegean region.
[8:51] Speaker 1: But then we have Jaker, another group settled in Canaan,
[8:57] Speaker 1: the city of Dor on the coast by the early
[9:00] Speaker 1: Iron Age. Their origin is a little bit more unclear,
[9:05] Speaker 1: but possibly from the Aegean or southern Anatolia. In a
[9:11] Speaker 1: later tale, the story of Wenamun in 1100 BCE, the
[9:15] Speaker 1: Jeka are the rulers of Dor, indicating they established a
[9:18] Speaker 1: small kingdom there. Well, then we have Weshesh, the least
[9:24] Speaker 1: attested group, possibly from somewhere in Anatolia or the Levant.
[9:29] Speaker 1: but some have speculated a link to the name Wilusa,
[9:33] Speaker 1: which was another wording of Troy. But once again, it
[9:36] Speaker 1: remains guesswork. Lastly, we have Luka, often listed alongside sea
[9:43] Speaker 1: peoples in Hittite and Egyptian texts. The Luka were essentially
[9:48] Speaker 1: the people of Lycia in southwest Anatolia. They were known
[9:52] Speaker 1: as pirates and troublemakers on Hittite borders. While not Foreign.
[10:00] Speaker 1: to the region, they likely joined or facilitated sea people
[10:04] Speaker 1: movements along the Anatolian coast. Likely, we would say. But
[10:10] Speaker 1: it is important to stress that pretty much everything that
[10:13] Speaker 1: we've just talked about, these identifications, are just hypotheses. The
[10:18] Speaker 1: Sea Peoples did not leave behind any written records of themselves,
[10:23] Speaker 1: and we know them mainly through Egyptian eyes. The names
[10:27] Speaker 1: could have been exonyms, that is, names given by the Egyptians,
[10:32] Speaker 1: and may not map neatly onto single ethnic groups or places,
[10:37] Speaker 1: but nonetheless evidence suggests that many of the Sea Peoples
[10:40] Speaker 1: had origins in the Aegean Black Sea region and the
[10:43] Speaker 1: western Mediterranean. For example, pottery. and artifacts associated with the Philistines,
[10:50] Speaker 1: that is, Peleset in Palestine, show clear influence from Mycenaean
[10:55] Speaker 1: Greek culture, indicating an intrusive Aegean population. Similarly, bronze weapons
[11:04] Speaker 1: and helmets, like horned and feathered helmets or Mycenaean-style boar's
[11:10] Speaker 1: tusk helmets, support links to the Aegean world. So let's
[11:16] Speaker 1: sum it up. We can say that the Sea Peoples
[11:19] Speaker 1: appear to have been a coalition of disparate groups, uprooted,
[11:25] Speaker 1: or on the move at the end of the Bronze Age.
[11:29] Speaker 1: Some may have been mercenaries, maybe even pirates turned invaders,
[11:33] Speaker 1: looking for a more brick-and-mortar home. And others, entire communities
[11:40] Speaker 1: migrating with women and children. But they were not a
[11:44] Speaker 1: single people. rather a confederation, northern peoples that banded together
[11:50] Speaker 1: during this time of upheaval. Their very diversity, different attires, tactics, languages,
[11:58] Speaker 1: it hints at a broad geographic range of origins, from
[12:01] Speaker 1: southern Europe in the Mediterranean Isles to Anatolia and the Aegean.
[12:06] Speaker 1: And so as we move forward, keep all of that
[12:09] Speaker 1: in mind, but we'll also see how groups erupted onto
[12:13] Speaker 1: the scene in the late 13th century and how all
[12:17] Speaker 1: of their raids and migrations ultimately helped to topple the
[12:22] Speaker 1: old order. Well, the first appearance of the Sea Peoples
[12:27] Speaker 1: in the historical record comes from those late 13th century
[12:32] Speaker 1: Egyptian sources. Pharaoh Ramesses II, reigning 1279-1213, and his son, Mernetar,
[12:37] Speaker 1: reigning 1213-1203. They both describe battles against these mysterious seaborne raiders,
[12:50] Speaker 1: suggesting that by the late 1200s, Egypt was already feeling
[12:56] Speaker 1: the edge of this. Let's look at Ramesses II. He's
[13:01] Speaker 1: one of Egypt's mightiest pharaohs, and he left an intriguing
[13:05] Speaker 1: account from the second year of his reign, that being 1278.
[13:08] Speaker 1: A stele from the Nile-Delta region, founded Tannis, records that
[13:15] Speaker 1: Ramesses II repulsed an attack by a group called the Sherden,
[13:20] Speaker 1: or Shardana, who had sailed in from the sea. That's
[13:25] Speaker 1: all it tells us. From the sea. Didn't say they
[13:29] Speaker 1: sailed from Cyprus or Anatolia or anything else. Just that
[13:33] Speaker 1: they came via water. Well, the inscription marvels at the
[13:37] Speaker 1: boldness of the invaders, and this is where the translations
[13:41] Speaker 1: that we have are quoted. the unruly Sherden, who no
[13:46] Speaker 1: one had ever known how to combat. They came boldly,
[13:49] Speaker 1: sailing in their warships from the midst of the sea,
[13:53] Speaker 1: none being able to withstand them. Ramesses II defeated these pirates, though,
[13:59] Speaker 1: and he captured many Sherden warriors. So I suppose no
[14:03] Speaker 1: one besides him could withstand them. That being said, Ramesses
[14:07] Speaker 1: II was, well, he was on a bit of a roll. Well,
[14:12] Speaker 1: You'd think that he'd execute them, right? But no. The
[14:17] Speaker 1: pharaoh actually enlisted them into his own army. In fact,
[14:25] Speaker 1: Shodan Ramesses fought for Ramesses II at the Battle of
[14:29] Speaker 1: Kadesh against the Hittites just a few years later. And
[14:33] Speaker 1: Egyptian art even depicts them as royal bodyguards with their
[14:36] Speaker 1: distinctive horned helmets and round shields. This early encounter shows
[14:43] Speaker 1: that the Sea Peoples, like the Sherden, were certainly active
[14:47] Speaker 1: by 1280, raiding up and down Egypt's coast, until Ramesses
[14:53] Speaker 1: put a stop to it. Of course, it also shows
[14:58] Speaker 1: that pragmatic response, co-opting some Sea Peoples as allies. Nevertheless,
[15:06] Speaker 1: the Sherden pirates remained a threat along the Mediterranean shores,
[15:11] Speaker 1: indicating that Egypt's prosperity was already attracting some predatory attention
[15:17] Speaker 1: from the wrong kind of people. But let's fast forward
[15:22] Speaker 1: a little bit. 72 years. We're in 1208. Pharaoh Mernetar,
[15:28] Speaker 1: that is, Ramesses II's son, he's facing a much larger
[15:32] Speaker 1: crisis involving foreign invaders. In the fifth year of his reign,
[15:37] Speaker 1: a great alliance of Libya and, quote, northern peoples attacked
[15:42] Speaker 1: Egypt's western delta. Mernetar's monumental inscriptions, notably the great Karnak
[15:49] Speaker 1: inscription on the Athrabis stele, describe this conflict in good
[15:54] Speaker 1: bit of detail. The Libyan king, Merye, led the invasion.
[16:00] Speaker 1: But alongside his Libyan tribes were contingents of sea peoples
[16:03] Speaker 1: who arrived, once again, quote, from the sea. Monantar lists
[16:10] Speaker 1: their names, Ekwesh, Teresh, Luka, Sherden, Shekelesh, and quote, northerners
[16:17] Speaker 1: coming from all lands. Well, these groups had likely joined
[16:23] Speaker 1: the Libyans in an attempted incursion into Egypt. The inscription
[16:27] Speaker 1: dramatically reports that the invaders had ravaged the delta frontier.
[16:32] Speaker 1: The quote from the inscription goes, The land was forsaken.
[16:36] Speaker 1: It was laid waste, as though never having existed. Of course,
[16:44] Speaker 1: until the pharaoh intervened. In Monotar's account, he decisively defeated
[16:50] Speaker 1: this coalition at a battle at the city of Perire
[16:54] Speaker 1: on the delta. When fragmentary still, the Cairo column confirms, quote,
[17:02] Speaker 1: the wretched chief of Libya, has invaded with, a little
[17:06] Speaker 1: bit missing, being men and women, Shekelesh, and the rest
[17:12] Speaker 1: is missing. I told you it was fragmentary. Well, it
[17:16] Speaker 1: does indicate, though, from this little bit of text we have,
[17:20] Speaker 1: that whole families of sea peoples were on the move
[17:23] Speaker 1: with the Libyans. Now, it usually goes like this. If
[17:28] Speaker 1: you've got a whole bunch of fighting-aged men coming into
[17:31] Speaker 1: your country, and all the rest, well, they're usually there
[17:33] Speaker 1: to raid to take things away, and then go back
[17:37] Speaker 1: to where they came from. Perhaps demand a ransom, you know,
[17:41] Speaker 1: Viking activities, that kind of thing. But if they're bringing
[17:45] Speaker 1: the wife and kids with them, well, that's a bit different.
[17:50] Speaker 1: That means they're here to stay. They're not just after
[17:53] Speaker 1: a little bit of treasure. They're coming for your best
[17:57] Speaker 1: farming land. You better watch out. Well, Mernetar's victory was significant.
[18:05] Speaker 1: Its inscriptions boast of thousands of enemy dead and captured,
[18:10] Speaker 1: and that the, quote, nine bows were utterly crushed. Now,
[18:15] Speaker 1: this nine bows is a traditional mention to Egypt's old enemies. Now, notably,
[18:24] Speaker 1: Merendah's famous Israel still, which actually mentions Israel in Canaan,
[18:30] Speaker 1: doesn't mention sea peoples, but it celebrates generally that Egypt
[18:34] Speaker 1: was secure after these victories. From these records we learn
[18:39] Speaker 1: about a few key points. For example, by 1208, several
[18:44] Speaker 1: of the later Sea People tribes, that is the Sherden, Shekelesh, etc.,
[18:49] Speaker 1: were already well and truly displaced, and fighting far from
[18:53] Speaker 1: their homelands, even aligning with Libyans to invade Egypt. But
[19:00] Speaker 1: the threat was not just a single raid. but a
[19:03] Speaker 1: migration of people with women and children in tow, and
[19:07] Speaker 1: that hints at a broader upheaval in the Mediterranean world
[19:11] Speaker 1: that was pushing these groups southward to greener pastures. Merendah's
[19:17] Speaker 1: inscriptions also hinted turmoil beyond Egypt's borders. In the same period,
[19:22] Speaker 1: troubles were stirring in Canaan and Syria. His records mention
[19:27] Speaker 1: suppressing revolts in Gaza, Ashkelon and other cities. although not
[19:33] Speaker 1: explicitly linked to the Sea Peoples in Egyptian texts, we
[19:37] Speaker 1: now know that around this time cities in the Levant
[19:40] Speaker 1: and Anatolia were under stress, if not just falling completely.
[19:46] Speaker 1: The quote, foreigners of the sea, that Mernetar fought may
[19:52] Speaker 1: have already been responsible for other attacks up the coast.
[19:56] Speaker 1: Let's take a few examples. Archaeological evidence shows that cities
[20:00] Speaker 1: like Ashkelon and Arco in the Levant suffered destruction around
[20:05] Speaker 1: the late 13th century. While Mernetau managed to save Egypt
[20:10] Speaker 1: from calamity, these early encounters were only a prelude to
[20:14] Speaker 1: a far greater upheaval. But by turning back to the
[20:18] Speaker 1: Sea People's initial onslaught, Mernetau won a brief respite for Egypt.
[20:25] Speaker 1: But is that word brief? Elsewhere, however, the storm was
[20:31] Speaker 1: about to hit with full force, especially upon Egypt's long-time
[20:36] Speaker 1: rival to the north, the Hittites, and upon vulnerable coastal
[20:41] Speaker 1: states too, particularly Ugarit, which is always a main character
[20:48] Speaker 1: when we talk about the fall of the Bronze Age.
[20:50] Speaker 1: It's just, well, you'll see. But before we go there,
[20:56] Speaker 1: let's look at one of the major dominoes to fall
[20:58] Speaker 1: in the Great Collapse. It is the Hittite Empire up
[21:02] Speaker 1: there in Anatolia. This once mighty empire Around 1200 BCE,
[21:09] Speaker 1: he just disintegrated. See you later, alligator. The royal capital, Edusa,
[21:18] Speaker 1: was abandoned and even partially burned. Hittite rule across Anatolia
[21:23] Speaker 1: and northern Syria also vanished. And although the Egyptian accounts
[21:27] Speaker 1: credit the Sea Peoples with destroying what they call Hatti,
[21:32] Speaker 1: the full story of the Hittite collapse is a little
[21:36] Speaker 1: more complex. In the decades leading up to 1200, the
[21:42] Speaker 1: Hittites were struggling with serious food shortages. And when you
[21:47] Speaker 1: have serious food shortages, people get angry, and angry people
[21:52] Speaker 1: cause unrest. A remarkable letter from Pharaoh Merneptah to the
[21:57] Speaker 1: Hittite king, likely to Dahlia IV or his son Superlilium II,
[22:03] Speaker 1: mentioned sending emergency grain shipments to keep alive the land
[22:08] Speaker 1: of Hatti during a famine. an Avaidite letter from Tudalia
[22:13] Speaker 1: IV himself, was sent to the ruler of Ugarit, urgently
[22:18] Speaker 1: demanding a shipment of 450 tons of grain, stating that
[22:22] Speaker 1: it was, quote, a matter of life and death. These, please,
[22:28] Speaker 1: imply that drought or crop failures had struck Anatolia, weakening
[22:33] Speaker 1: the empire from within. And indeed, when we look at
[22:37] Speaker 1: the archaeology, certainly reveals a bit of evidence of that desperation.
[22:43] Speaker 1: Storage pits were dug into floors of temples to hoard grain,
[22:48] Speaker 1: and bronze tools were stockpiled, suggesting preparation for hard times.
[22:55] Speaker 1: But at the same time as this, the Hittites faced
[22:57] Speaker 1: threats on multiple fronts. In the west, rebellious vassals and
[23:01] Speaker 1: the Luca, that is the Lycians, were restless. In the north,
[23:06] Speaker 1: hostile tribes like the Kaskans threatened the Hittite borders, and
[23:10] Speaker 1: most ominously, in the Mediterranean, sea-born enemies were disrupting the
[23:17] Speaker 1: Hittite shipping lanes. On the last Hittite king, Subaliluma II,
[23:23] Speaker 1: 1207 BCE till, well, whenever he took his last breath,
[23:28] Speaker 1: I suppose, he left inscriptions recounting battles against attackers at sea,
[23:35] Speaker 1: One inscription from Hadusa claims that Superluliuma defeated a fleet
[23:45] Speaker 1: from Alashia, which was their word from Cyprus. The first
[23:51] Speaker 1: recorded naval battle in history, by the way. Anyway, the
[23:55] Speaker 1: Hittites had never before mentioned naval warfare, and that shows
[24:00] Speaker 1: how unprecedented the threat was. These enemies from the sea,
[24:07] Speaker 1: using Cyprus as a base, were likely sea peoples, or
[24:11] Speaker 1: at least their allies, harassing Hittite-controlled waters and cutting them
[24:15] Speaker 1: off from their grain supplies. The Hittites responded, of course.
[24:21] Speaker 1: Superluliuma campaigned to Cyprus and claims to have sacked cities there.
[24:28] Speaker 1: But despite the peppered victories, the pressures just kept mounting.
[24:36] Speaker 1: And the end, that came swiftly. Hittite tablets from Hattusa
[24:42] Speaker 1: cease in the very early 12th century. Archaeological layers also
[24:47] Speaker 1: show that Hattusa was not thoroughly razed by a conqueror,
[24:52] Speaker 1: but rather it was carefully evacuated and partially burned. Well,
[24:58] Speaker 1: scholars do believe that the last Hittite kings seeing that
[25:02] Speaker 1: the writing was on the wall, deliberately buried the royal
[25:06] Speaker 1: archives and led a controlled withdrawal. But the question remains,
[25:14] Speaker 1: and that's whether any Hittite survivors managed to relocate. And
[25:19] Speaker 1: the answer is unclear. Some might have fled to Syria,
[25:25] Speaker 1: forming small neo-Hittite successor states. Maybe. Maybe. The Egyptian record
[25:32] Speaker 1: at Medinet Abu, that is Ramesses III's inscription, gives a terminus.
[25:38] Speaker 1: It states that by Ramesses III's year 8, 1175, quote,
[25:44] Speaker 1: Hatti is no more, listing Hatti among the lands devastated
[25:49] Speaker 1: by the Sea Peoples. And this indicates that certainly by
[25:54] Speaker 1: the 1170s the Hittite Empire was well and truly gone.
[25:58] Speaker 1: thrown into the dustbin of history, I'm afraid. And modern
[26:03] Speaker 1: evidence backs that up too. It suggests that Hattusa fell
[26:07] Speaker 1: around 1190, so the Sea People's incursions and other factors
[26:12] Speaker 1: between 1207 and 1190 certainly would have helped seal its fate.
[26:19] Speaker 1: I mean, perhaps they could have fought them off if
[26:21] Speaker 1: it wasn't for all the famines and internal problems, but
[26:26] Speaker 1: I guess we'll never know. In any case, far to
[26:30] Speaker 1: the south on the Syrian coast lay the wealthy city-state
[26:34] Speaker 1: of Ugarit, and it's quite an interesting one. It was
[26:39] Speaker 1: a vassal state of the Hittites, and a very important
[26:42] Speaker 1: node in international trade. Ugarit's demise has been vividly shown
[26:48] Speaker 1: by its last clay tablets, accidentally fired, actually, in the
[26:54] Speaker 1: conflagration that consumed the city. You see, they wanted to
[26:57] Speaker 1: wipe them from the pages of history. But instead, all
[27:03] Speaker 1: that fire actually hardened the clay tablets. Hardened them so
[27:07] Speaker 1: much that they survived thousands of years later. Kind of ironic. Anyway,
[27:15] Speaker 1: in these letters from Ugarit, we hear the voices of
[27:18] Speaker 1: pretty desperate rulers. The last king. Umarapi writes to the
[27:25] Speaker 1: king of Alashia, Cyprus, quote, Behold, the enemy ships came here,
[27:32] Speaker 1: my cities were burned, and they did evil things in
[27:36] Speaker 1: my country. Umarapi pleads that he cannot send help abroad because, quote,
[27:43] Speaker 1: all my troops and chariots are in the land of Hati,
[27:47] Speaker 1: and all my ships are in the land of Luka. Thus,
[27:51] Speaker 1: the country is abandoned. To itself. Doesn't sound like he
[27:56] Speaker 1: has much hope, doesn't it? It's extraordinary, isn't it? It
[28:01] Speaker 1: suggests that Ugrit was caught completely off guard. The army
[28:07] Speaker 1: was away. Possibly called off to assist the Hittites. And
[28:11] Speaker 1: its fleet, absent too. Just as the enemy ships arrived
[28:16] Speaker 1: to wreak havoc. Poor timing. Well, another letter found at Ugarit,
[28:23] Speaker 1: likely from a high official, urgently asks, Where are our
[28:28] Speaker 1: own ships? Send word to Alashiyya. Buying a frantic search
[28:33] Speaker 1: for naval aid. But no help came in time. Ugarit
[28:38] Speaker 1: was destroyed by fire. Its palaces and temples collapsed onto
[28:42] Speaker 1: archives of tablets that record no further dates after 1192.
[28:45] Speaker 1: One tablet precisely dated to 1192, actually. was still in
[28:51] Speaker 1: a kiln when the city fell. That gives us a
[28:55] Speaker 1: very close timestamp for Ugarit's end. It's kind of like,
[29:01] Speaker 1: you know, finding a watch from the sunken Titanic, stopped
[29:05] Speaker 1: and flooded on the time exactly when the boat went down.
[29:10] Speaker 1: Kind of like that. But who were these enemies that
[29:15] Speaker 1: destroyed Ugarit? Well, surprise, surprise. The correspondence strongly points to
[29:23] Speaker 1: that umbrella term of sea peoples. The mention of enemy
[29:28] Speaker 1: ships and the devastation matches that pattern of sea people
[29:32] Speaker 1: raids up and down the Levantine coast. And additionally, one
[29:36] Speaker 1: letter from a Hittite official, possibly even the expositionist, Bey,
[29:41] Speaker 1: warns Amurapi to beware of impending attacks. Ugarit, just like Hetusa,
[29:48] Speaker 1: fell in that window of 1192 to 1185, right as
[29:53] Speaker 1: the sea-peoples advanced. The archaeological site which is, by the way,
[29:58] Speaker 1: modern Rush Shamra, reveals a destruction layer with collapsed buildings, ashes,
[30:05] Speaker 1: and even arrowheads scattered in the streets. Recent radiocarbon dating
[30:10] Speaker 1: of Ugarit's destruction, the debris, rather, places it around 1190,
[30:16] Speaker 1: firmly where it's supposed to be, and that aligns with
[30:22] Speaker 1: the textual evidence, too. Not only Ugarit, though, but other cities, too.
[30:28] Speaker 1: Alalak inland, and ports like Enkomi and Kition on Cyprus
[30:33] Speaker 1: were burned and abandoned around this time. The entire northern
[30:38] Speaker 1: Levant trade network, gone. Thus, the Hittite Empire's collapse and
[30:45] Speaker 1: Ugarit's destruction seemed to be events intertwined with one another,
[30:50] Speaker 1: likely involving the Sea Peoples, as both invaders and opportunists.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Famine weakened Hatti. The sea-people struck decisive blows by land
[31:03] Speaker 1: and sea, and vassals like Ugarit were left to fend
[31:07] Speaker 1: for themselves. As Ramesses III later summed up, No land
[31:12] Speaker 1: could stand before their arms. From Hatti, Garkamish, Arzawa, Alishia,
[31:19] Speaker 1: all were cut off, destroyed at one time. And there
[31:26] Speaker 1: was the world. Changed. At least the known world of
[31:30] Speaker 1: those Bronze Age civilizations. By 1180 BC, the political map
[31:35] Speaker 1: of the North had been wiped clean. Now, the storm
[31:41] Speaker 1: rolled on to the Aegean, and finally back to Egypt's
[31:44] Speaker 1: doorstep once more. But we go to the Aegean first.
[31:50] Speaker 1: Of course, concurrent with the collapse of the Eastern Empires,
[31:54] Speaker 1: were the Mycenaean Greeks. they cut it pretty hard too.
[32:00] Speaker 1: The Mycenaeans, that being Bronze Age Greeks of Homeric fame,
[32:04] Speaker 1: you're talking the builders of fortified palaces like Tiryns, Pylos
[32:08] Speaker 1: and Mycenae, were not spared in that upheaval of 1200.
[32:14] Speaker 1: Their downfall was however slightly drawn out, occurring in waves
[32:19] Speaker 1: between roughly 1225 and 1175. But by the end of
[32:21] Speaker 1: that period, the palatial system in Greece had vanished. The
[32:29] Speaker 1: archaeological record shows widespread destructions and abandonments in the Aegean,
[32:35] Speaker 1: some likely due to earthquakes or internal conflicts, and others
[32:38] Speaker 1: possibly due to attacks or the ripple effects of sea
[32:41] Speaker 1: people migrations. Signs of trouble in Mycenaean Greece actually predate 1200.
[32:49] Speaker 1: In the later 13th century, several Mycenaean centres were damaged
[32:54] Speaker 1: or hurriedly fortified. At Mycenae itself, archaeologists found that around
[33:00] Speaker 1: 1220 BCE, the citadel's defences were significantly strengthened, and a
[33:06] Speaker 1: secret subterranean water cistern was built, presumably to withstand the siege.
[33:13] Speaker 1: You know, you run out of water, you're in real trouble.
[33:16] Speaker 1: At Tiryns, massive walls were built, and evidence suggests an
[33:21] Speaker 1: earthquake struck in the late 13th century too. At Pelos,
[33:26] Speaker 1: the palace of Nestor in later legend, Linear B tablets
[33:29] Speaker 1: indicate a state of emergency. One famous tablet records that
[33:33] Speaker 1: the Watchers are guarding the coast, implying coastal sentinels were
[33:37] Speaker 1: posted to watch for expected seaborne assault. But we do
[33:42] Speaker 1: not know who the expected enemy was. But if they're
[33:46] Speaker 1: coming from the sea, well, it could have been Mycenaean kingdoms,
[33:50] Speaker 1: rival ones, or outside raiders. But, hmm, coming from the sea,
[33:56] Speaker 1: we have to... We probably can assume that sea peoples
[34:00] Speaker 1: under that classification. Well, indeed, around 1200, Pelos was violently destroyed.
[34:10] Speaker 1: The palace was burned to the ground. Baking clay tablets
[34:13] Speaker 1: in the archive that chronicle the kingdom's final hours. One
[34:19] Speaker 1: tablet inventorying bronze distributions. hints that weapons were being handed
[34:24] Speaker 1: out for defense. The fact that Pelos was not rebuilt
[34:28] Speaker 1: or reoccupied suggested that destruction was total. Similar fiery ends
[34:36] Speaker 1: befell Mycenae and Tiryns just a few decades later. The
[34:41] Speaker 1: magnificent palace of Mycenae, with its famous Lion Gate, chose
[34:46] Speaker 1: a destruction layer and was never a palatial center again.
[34:49] Speaker 1: And what a shame, too. It would have been great
[34:53] Speaker 1: in its day. At Mycenaean Tyrians, some scholars see evidence
[34:58] Speaker 1: of earthquake damage, walls collapsed outward, etc., while others argue
[35:04] Speaker 1: for human attackers taking advantage of the chaos. It could
[35:09] Speaker 1: have been that both occurred. A quake might have devastated
[35:13] Speaker 1: the citadels, followed by marauders who sacked the cities in
[35:17] Speaker 1: its weakened state. In other regions, smaller Mycenaean towns and
[35:22] Speaker 1: trading outposts were abandoned around this time. For example, sites
[35:27] Speaker 1: in Attica and the islands. The grand city of Thebes
[35:31] Speaker 1: in Boeotia also suffered destruction and multiple rebuilds in this period.
[35:36] Speaker 1: And that shows a little bit of instability. But this
[35:40] Speaker 1: was not just a mainland phenomenon. Across the Aegean Sea,
[35:44] Speaker 1: the city of Troy, located in northwest Anatolia... met its
[35:49] Speaker 1: own end in the midst of these upheavals. The destruction
[35:53] Speaker 1: of Troy 7a, that is, the layers of Troy that
[35:57] Speaker 1: they have, met its end in the midst of, excuse me,
[36:02] Speaker 1: often associated with the historical kernel of the Trojan War, rather,
[36:05] Speaker 1: occurred around 1190 to 1180, roughly contemporaneous with the Sea
[36:11] Speaker 1: People's rampage. Whether the attackers were Mycenaean Greeks, as legend holds,
[36:18] Speaker 1: or perhaps others. Troy's fall exemplifies the regional scale of
[36:22] Speaker 1: conflict and movement at the end of the Bronze Age.
[36:26] Speaker 1: Now that we have the Luca and the other Anatolian groups,
[36:30] Speaker 1: they may have swept in from the southwest, while Mycenaean
[36:34] Speaker 1: sea peoples or their kin could have been moving through
[36:38] Speaker 1: the Aegean. Either way, within a generation or two after 1200,
[36:44] Speaker 1: the entire palace system of Greece had collapsed. The Linear
[36:48] Speaker 1: B script, used for bureaucratic record-keeping, completely disappeared, indicating the
[36:55] Speaker 1: administrative class was all gone. Many people likely fled. We
[37:01] Speaker 1: see new Greek settlements in coastal Anatolia and Cyprus, hinting
[37:06] Speaker 1: at migrations. This is the period Greek legend calls the
[37:11] Speaker 1: Dorian Invasion, or the migration of new tribes into a
[37:15] Speaker 1: Greece largely emptied of its old rulers. but some of
[37:19] Speaker 1: these migrants might have actually been the very Sea Peoples
[37:23] Speaker 1: that troubled others. The Denyen or Danuna, they could have
[37:28] Speaker 1: been Mycenaeans, who ended up in Cilicia or Syria. The
[37:33] Speaker 1: Ekwesh could have been those who stayed behind in Greece,
[37:36] Speaker 1: but were later labelled as part of the Sea People Confederations.
[37:42] Speaker 1: Of course, it's still debated to what extent external invaders
[37:45] Speaker 1: versus internal strife caused the Mycenaean downfall. Evidence of thick
[37:51] Speaker 1: destruction layers and arrowheads suggest violent ends at some sites.
[37:57] Speaker 1: But signs of earthquake and fire also exist at others.
[38:02] Speaker 1: So who really knows? It's likely not one or the other,
[38:08] Speaker 1: but a combination of factors. Earthquakes, famines, peasant uprisings, raiders,
[38:14] Speaker 1: all those factors converging. The Sea People's phenomenon ties in
[38:20] Speaker 1: when we consider that the collapse was nearly simultaneous across
[38:23] Speaker 1: the eastern Mediterranean. The Mycenaeans, as part of that world,
[38:29] Speaker 1: succumbed to the same cascade of disaster. That's one layer
[38:33] Speaker 1: of evidence. A study of ancient pollen and climate suggests
[38:37] Speaker 1: a severe drought struck around 1200, affecting Greece and the
[38:42] Speaker 1: Near East. It could have spurred migrations, hungry war bands,
[38:48] Speaker 1: setting sail in search of a new land. And there
[38:53] Speaker 1: we have it in 1150, where Greece enters its Dark Age.
[39:00] Speaker 1: It is the backdrop for later Greek memory. There was
[39:03] Speaker 1: the Trojan War, wanderings, peoples, all that. In these legends,
[39:10] Speaker 1: we might hear echoes of real events, Greek warriors sacking
[39:13] Speaker 1: cities across the sea, and newcomers, the Dorians, settling in
[39:17] Speaker 1: the old lands. The collapse of Mycenaean Greece both contributed to,
[39:23] Speaker 1: and was exacerbated by, the wider upheaval involving the Sea Peoples.
[39:30] Speaker 1: But now, let's go a little to the south. And
[39:36] Speaker 1: we find ourselves in Egypt now, the great surviving superpower
[39:40] Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age, but it faced its gravest threat
[39:44] Speaker 1: around 1177, when the Sea People showed up and launched
[39:48] Speaker 1: a massive invasion of the Nile Delta. It was the pharaoh,
[39:54] Speaker 1: Ramesses III of the 20th dynasty, who fought what were
[39:58] Speaker 1: arguably the world's first coordinated land-sea battles to repel the invaders,
[40:04] Speaker 1: and thanks to detailed inscriptions and elaborate reliefs on the
[40:07] Speaker 1: walls of Ramesses' mortuary temple at Medinetabu, we have a
[40:10] Speaker 1: pretty vivid account of the clash. It's pretty much the
[40:14] Speaker 1: climax of the sea people's migrations So let's have a
[40:20] Speaker 1: look at that. By Rameses III's eighth year, that is
[40:26] Speaker 1: around 1175, the Sea Peoples had already carved a swath
[40:30] Speaker 1: of destruction through the eastern Mediterranean. The Metanet Habu inscription
[40:35] Speaker 1: famously recounts, quote, The foreign countries made a conspiracy in
[40:39] Speaker 1: their aisles. All at once, the lands were on the move,
[40:44] Speaker 1: scattered in war. No land could stand before their arms.
[40:49] Speaker 1: From Hatti, Qod, Qakamish, Arzawa, Aliyasha, all cut off, destroyed
[40:54] Speaker 1: at one time. They set up camp in Amuru and
[40:58] Speaker 1: desolated its people. This is an Egyptian view of the
[41:04] Speaker 1: apocalypse unfolding, basically. And a clear statement that the Sea
[41:08] Speaker 1: Peoples had already completely wrecked the Hittites and others, effectively
[41:14] Speaker 1: turned them upside down and mopped the floor with their heads.
[41:18] Speaker 1: Going to put it that way. Well, Ramesses III then
[41:21] Speaker 1: describes the enemy turning its sights on Egypt itself. Quote,
[41:26] Speaker 1: They come forward toward Egypt. Their confederation was the Pellicet. Jekyll, Jekyll, Eshtenion,
[41:33] Speaker 1: and Weshess lands united. Bit of a paraphrase, but you
[41:39] Speaker 1: get what I mean. Well, in other words, the Sea
[41:42] Speaker 1: People Coalition composed of those tribes advanced by land and
[41:47] Speaker 1: sea into the Egyptian realm of Syria-Palestine in the delta.
[41:52] Speaker 1: Ramesses III prepared a two-pronged defense. He was not going
[41:57] Speaker 1: to let them just march in like what happened to
[42:00] Speaker 1: the Hittites. Knowing the invaders were approaching both over land,
[42:05] Speaker 1: that is through Canaan, and by the sea, he fortified
[42:08] Speaker 1: the frontier and positioned his fleet at the Nile mouth
[42:12] Speaker 1: in ambush. When the Sea People's Land Army tried to
[42:16] Speaker 1: enter the Egyptian territory, Ramesses III engaged them on the frontier,
[42:21] Speaker 1: perhaps in southern Canaan or Sinai. Egyptian reliefs show chaotic
[42:26] Speaker 1: battle scenes of hand-to-hand combat with foreign warriors. Well, the
[42:32] Speaker 1: scenes that are shown have those foreign warriors being trampled,
[42:37] Speaker 1: and they are identified as Pellicet and Jekir by their
[42:41] Speaker 1: feathered headdressers. At the same time, the Sea People's fleet
[42:45] Speaker 1: sailed into the mouth of the Nile, likely aiming to
[42:48] Speaker 1: land troops behind Egyptian lines. There, it was where Ramesses
[42:54] Speaker 1: III had sprung his trap. The Egyptian navy, concealed in
[42:59] Speaker 1: river channels, fell upon the Sea People's ships in a
[43:02] Speaker 1: furious naval battle. On the temple walls, we see ships
[43:07] Speaker 1: locked in combat, Egyptian archers on the shores. and on
[43:11] Speaker 1: ships raining arrows down too, while the sea-people's boats, with
[43:16] Speaker 1: high prows adorned by bird-head decorations, capsize and the enemy
[43:20] Speaker 1: warriors drown or get shot by arrows in the water.
[43:25] Speaker 1: Better luck next time. Well, Ramesses III claims total victory,
[43:32] Speaker 1: of course. There's another stellar, quoting, I caused the great
[43:38] Speaker 1: green to swallow them up, Their ships were capsized and sunk.
[43:43] Speaker 1: It's from the Papyrus-Harris account. The great green is referring
[43:47] Speaker 1: to the sea as well, by the way. And, of course,
[43:50] Speaker 1: he goes on to say those who crawled ashore were
[43:54] Speaker 1: slain right there on the beach. Now, this Battle of
[43:59] Speaker 1: the Delta was a defining moment. The Egyptians had never
[44:02] Speaker 1: before invased an invasion on such scale, involving whole families
[44:08] Speaker 1: of migrants. And indeed, the Medinet Habu reliefs depict not
[44:13] Speaker 1: only warriors, but also ox carts carrying women and children
[44:17] Speaker 1: in the Sea People's camp, indicating that this was a migration,
[44:22] Speaker 1: not just a raid. But despite the ferocity of the fighting,
[44:28] Speaker 1: many Sea Peoples were not killed. Ramesses took large numbers
[44:32] Speaker 1: of captives, and in the aftermath he claims to have
[44:34] Speaker 1: resettled them, quote from the papyrus Harris. I have subdued
[44:40] Speaker 1: the Sea Peoples, I have made them as my captives,
[44:44] Speaker 1: and settled them in strongholds bound in my name. End
[44:48] Speaker 1: of quote. And specifically, Ramesses states that he slew the
[44:52] Speaker 1: Denyen in their isles, burned the Jekera and Peleset, and
[44:57] Speaker 1: brought the Shoden and Weshesh as captives to Egypt. Well,
[45:01] Speaker 1: they suggest that after the battle, in year 8008, Rameses
[45:05] Speaker 1: might have dispatched part of his fleet to punish the
[45:08] Speaker 1: sea people at their home front, and then settled the prisoners.
[45:13] Speaker 1: But it is likely that the Philistines, that being Pelaset
[45:17] Speaker 1: and the Jekir, were settled in southern Canaan as vassals
[45:21] Speaker 1: or mercenaries of Egypt, laying the foundations for the Philistine
[45:24] Speaker 1: cities like Ashdod and Jekir presence at Dor. As for
[45:30] Speaker 1: the Sherden and Weshesh, They may have been given land
[45:33] Speaker 1: or integrated into Egypt's military colonies. Some evidence even hints
[45:37] Speaker 1: that Sherden were used to garrison Egyptian outposts. And so,
[45:42] Speaker 1: Ramesses went on to fight further campaigns in year 5
[45:46] Speaker 1: and 12 of his reign against the Libyans and any
[45:49] Speaker 1: residual Sea People forces. But after year 8, the main
[45:55] Speaker 1: threat had passed. Egypt, uniquely among the Bronze Age powers,
[46:02] Speaker 1: survived the onslaught, albeit not scathed. The war exhausted Egypt's treasury,
[46:10] Speaker 1: the huge mortuary temple, and the Harris Papyrus listing donations
[46:13] Speaker 1: suggest enormous resources were mobilized. And as for their Asiatic empire,
[46:20] Speaker 1: that was largely lost. The Philistines and others settled along
[46:24] Speaker 1: the coast, became de facto rather independent shortly after. And
[46:30] Speaker 1: in fact, Within decades, Egypt itself entered a period of
[46:34] Speaker 1: decline and internal turmoil, partly because of that economic strain.
[46:40] Speaker 1: Workers at Deir el-Medina famously went on strike, too, in
[46:44] Speaker 1: Ramesses III's later years, and that hints at a shortage. So,
[46:51] Speaker 1: while Ramesses III could boast of being the victor over
[46:55] Speaker 1: the Sea Peoples, the victory was pyrrhic. The old order
[47:01] Speaker 1: of the Late Bronze Age was all gone. A new
[47:05] Speaker 1: Iron Age order was taking shape, one in which Egypt
[47:09] Speaker 1: would never again reach the heights of international empire. But
[47:15] Speaker 1: let's go a little bit beyond the written records, because
[47:18] Speaker 1: archaeology has been pretty important in tracing the Sea People's footprint.
[47:23] Speaker 1: And not just that, but the broader pattern of migrations
[47:26] Speaker 1: at the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Transition, and bloody well
[47:32] Speaker 1: done to any archaeologists out there doing it. It's not
[47:36] Speaker 1: an easy job, especially in that sun, anyway. Well, excavations
[47:41] Speaker 1: from Turkey to Syria, Cyprus to Canaan, and even in
[47:45] Speaker 1: the western Mediterranean have unearthed a few clues of violent destruction,
[47:50] Speaker 1: abrupt climate and culture change, and movements of people around
[47:54] Speaker 1: 1200 BCE. One of the clearest indicators of the Sea
[47:59] Speaker 1: People's Passage is the destruction layers found at Late Bronze
[48:03] Speaker 1: Age sites. At the harbour town of Telgdueni, that is
[48:07] Speaker 1: ancient Gibala in Syria, a site within Ugarit's kingdom, by
[48:12] Speaker 1: the way, archaeologists identified a thick layer of ash, collapsed
[48:16] Speaker 1: walls and bronze arrowheads dating precisely to 1190, coinciding with
[48:24] Speaker 1: Ugarit's fall, if you remember the dates. where through radiocarbon
[48:28] Speaker 1: dating of burnt grain and timber, this destruction was fixed
[48:32] Speaker 1: at 1192 to 1190, and that provides a pretty firm
[48:36] Speaker 1: timestamp for the sea people ravagers in the northern Levant.
[48:41] Speaker 1: Similar layers at Enkonmi and Kition on Cyprus show these
[48:45] Speaker 1: cities were devastated in the late 13th or early 12th centuries,
[48:49] Speaker 1: after which new peoples and the pottery styles and made
[48:54] Speaker 1: decorated wares of early Iron Age societies start to appear.
[48:59] Speaker 1: That once cosmopolitan Cypriot urban culture disappears, and then is
[49:05] Speaker 1: replaced by simpler fortified villages, consistent with an invasion or
[49:10] Speaker 1: influx of newcomers. Now back in Canaan, that is the
[49:15] Speaker 1: southern Levant, the early 12th century also sees dramatic changes.
[49:20] Speaker 1: Several coastal cities, such as Ashdod, Lachish, Megiddo, Arco, etc.,
[49:26] Speaker 1: were destroyed or abandoned at this time. And shortly thereafter,
[49:30] Speaker 1: we find the emergence of the Philistine culture in the
[49:35] Speaker 1: coastal plain of what is today Israel-Palestine. This is a
[49:41] Speaker 1: prime example of the Sea People's Resettlement. But sites like Ashkelon,
[49:47] Speaker 1: Ekron Ashdod, and Garth, early Iron Age strata, that is
[49:52] Speaker 1: the 12th to 11th century BCE, reveal a distinctive assemblage.
[49:57] Speaker 1: Aegean-style pottery, notably Philistine monochrome ware, decorated with geometric patterns
[50:04] Speaker 1: in the Mycenaean technique, followed by Philistine bichrome pottery appear
[50:09] Speaker 1: in abundance. These stars are clearly derived from the Mycenaean
[50:13] Speaker 1: Greek ceramic traditions, indicating the presence of potters, and thus populations,
[50:19] Speaker 1: because there has to be someone around to make the pottery,
[50:22] Speaker 1: surely it doesn't just fall out of the sky. Well,
[50:27] Speaker 1: alongside this, we see new architectural styles, hearths and buildings
[50:32] Speaker 1: reminiscent of Cypriot and Aegean designs, and even new foods.
[50:37] Speaker 1: Pork consumption was much higher among early Philistines. aligning with
[50:42] Speaker 1: European diet patterns. All evidence points to an intrusive population
[50:47] Speaker 1: establishing itself, the Pellicet or the Philistines, whom we know
[50:52] Speaker 1: from texts were the Sea People settled by Ramesses III.
[50:57] Speaker 1: And here's a fascinating thing. DNA analysis of skeletons from
[51:01] Speaker 1: an early Iron Age Philistine cemetery at Ashkelon supports this
[51:05] Speaker 1: narrative too. It detected a component of Southern European ancestry,
[51:11] Speaker 1: and the 12th century individuals that was absent in earlier
[51:15] Speaker 1: Canaanite burials. What a good discovery that is. Or this
[51:21] Speaker 1: genetic influx which dissipated on succeeding generations due to the
[51:26] Speaker 1: intermarriage with locals, and it suggests the migration of people
[51:29] Speaker 1: from the Aegean or Cyprus into Philistine cities around 1200.
[51:36] Speaker 1: Other Sea People groups left more subtle traces. For instance,
[51:42] Speaker 1: the Sherden and Shekelesh are thought to have origins in
[51:46] Speaker 1: the central Mediterranean. In those regions around the end of
[51:50] Speaker 1: the Bronze Age, we see sudden changes too. Sardinia's nuragic
[51:56] Speaker 1: civilization shows signs of disruption, but also new contacts. Bronze
[52:02] Speaker 1: weapons of Eastern style have been found in Sardinia and Sicily,
[52:06] Speaker 1: possibly loot or emulation from the Sea People's adventures. Some
[52:12] Speaker 1: Sherdan may have returned west, after serving as mercenaries in Egypt,
[52:19] Speaker 1: bringing back Egyptian influence too. Things like Egyptian objects, they
[52:25] Speaker 1: appear in Sardinia in the Iron Age, such as the
[52:28] Speaker 1: famous sardonic statuette of a Sherdan warrior with a horned
[52:31] Speaker 1: helmet found on Sardinia. Now over in Anatolia, in the
[52:37] Speaker 1: vacuum left by the Hittite collapse, new peoples appear. The Philistines,
[52:42] Speaker 1: the Pellicet we already covered in Canaan, and the Jekker
[52:46] Speaker 1: establish themselves at Dor on the Carmel coast. At Dor,
[52:52] Speaker 1: archaeology finds a break in material culture around 1150, and
[52:56] Speaker 1: then an eclectic mix of the Aegean, Cypriot and local
[53:00] Speaker 1: traits in the early Iron Age, consistent with the sea
[53:03] Speaker 1: people ruling class over a local population. Farther north, A
[53:08] Speaker 1: group called the Palestine show up in 12th century Syria,
[53:13] Speaker 1: in text from Tiglath-Pileser I of Assyria, possibly referring to
[53:18] Speaker 1: those same Philistines who moved further north, or another branch
[53:22] Speaker 1: of the Sea Peoples, perhaps. At the Denyen, they may
[53:26] Speaker 1: have settled in Cilicia, parts of Adana and Dunana, contributing
[53:31] Speaker 1: to what became the Neo-Hittite-Dorian hybrid cultures there. Migration patterns
[53:37] Speaker 1: of the Sea Peoples likely followed the great circular route
[53:41] Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean, and many scholars indeed think that they
[53:45] Speaker 1: originated in the western or central Med, possibly displaced from
[53:50] Speaker 1: collapsing Mycenaean Greece, others from Italy or islands around it,
[53:56] Speaker 1: and then island-hopped via Sicily, Crete and Cyprus, gathering momentum
[54:00] Speaker 1: and picking up other uprooted groups along the way. They
[54:05] Speaker 1: hit the Levantine coast, Ugarit, Cyprus, some turning inland, devastating cities,
[54:12] Speaker 1: maybe even travelling overland into Anatolia or Syria, others continuing
[54:17] Speaker 1: to the ultimate prize, Egypt, the richest land. But we
[54:24] Speaker 1: know how that went. When Egypt halted them, the survivors
[54:28] Speaker 1: did not however simply vanish, but instead settled along the Levant,
[54:33] Speaker 1: That is, the ones who didn't have their throats cut
[54:35] Speaker 1: on the beach, I suppose. The widespread destructions, followed by
[54:40] Speaker 1: the evidence of new people settling, suggest a sequence of
[54:44] Speaker 1: rapid mobility, followed by local settlement. And interestingly, not all
[54:50] Speaker 1: movements were one-directional or uniform. It's possible that as cities
[54:55] Speaker 1: were destroyed and trade networks collapsed, local populations also fled
[55:00] Speaker 1: or migrated. Some might have joined the Sea People Confederations
[55:04] Speaker 1: out of either opportunism or just necessity. For example, we
[55:10] Speaker 1: know that the Luca, that being the Lycians, were native
[55:14] Speaker 1: to southwest Anatolia, but they're listed among the Sea Peoples
[55:18] Speaker 1: by the Egyptians. They might have been both victims and
[55:23] Speaker 1: participants in the turmoil. And similarly, the collapse of Mycenaean
[55:28] Speaker 1: palaces could have created roving bands of warriors, Those Homeric heroes, perhaps,
[55:34] Speaker 1: who ended up raiding foreign lands, essentially becoming sea peoples abroad.
[55:41] Speaker 1: And archaeology also highlights the continuity in some places. Not
[55:46] Speaker 1: every site was destroyed. For instance, the city of Carchemish
[55:50] Speaker 1: on the Euphrates survived the sea people's passage, perhaps due
[55:54] Speaker 1: to strong fortifications and help from Assyria. But that's just
[55:58] Speaker 1: a bit of imagination on that. It would make sense, though.
[56:03] Speaker 1: In any case, it became a refuge for Hittite elites.
[56:07] Speaker 1: In such places we find later layers showing new pottery
[56:10] Speaker 1: styles and mixed cultural influences, hinting at refugees and foreign
[56:15] Speaker 1: settlers integrating with one another. And thus the early Iron
[56:20] Speaker 1: Age was a bit of a melting pot in the
[56:23] Speaker 1: Levant and Aegean. But despite all we know, The late
[56:31] Speaker 1: Bronze Age collapse still remains one of history's greatest puzzles.
[56:36] Speaker 1: Why did these advanced civilizations fall so suddenly, and what
[56:40] Speaker 1: role did the Sea Peoples play versus other factors? Well,
[56:45] Speaker 1: most people think it's more of a multiple interconnected cause,
[56:50] Speaker 1: a perfect storm of a catastrophe. One category of exploration
[56:55] Speaker 1: is the invasion theory, that the Sea Peoples and other
[56:58] Speaker 1: invaders were the primary cause for the collapse. And this
[57:02] Speaker 1: was the traditional view for many, many years. Wave after
[57:06] Speaker 1: wave of ferocious barbarians, ravaging cities and toppling kingdoms, bring
[57:13] Speaker 1: an end to that old world civilization. And indeed, the
[57:18] Speaker 1: Egyptian accounts explicitly blame the foreign invaders for the destruction
[57:22] Speaker 1: of Hatti, Ugarit and other states. And there's no doubt
[57:26] Speaker 1: that these invasions did wreak havoc. However, A critical question
[57:32] Speaker 1: is why? Why did the Sea Peoples migrate and attack
[57:37] Speaker 1: in the first place? What drove entire populations to take
[57:41] Speaker 1: up arms and move en masse? Well, that's a question
[57:47] Speaker 1: that leads to the broader causes. One widely supported factor
[57:52] Speaker 1: is climate change and drought. Paleoclimate studies like pollen analysis
[57:58] Speaker 1: and isotope data from sediments and tree rings indicate that
[58:03] Speaker 1: around 1200 BCE, the eastern Mediterranean experienced a severe dry spell,
[58:09] Speaker 1: a climate shift, that led to prolonged droughts and poor harvests.
[58:15] Speaker 1: For example, pollen cores from the Sea of Galilee and
[58:18] Speaker 1: the Dead Sea show a sharp decrease in rainfall around
[58:21] Speaker 1: this time, and a study of pollen in Cyprus at
[58:25] Speaker 1: a site called Halasultanteke revealed a drought spanning 1197 to
[58:29] Speaker 1: 1195 Well, this would correlate with letters from Hittites begging
[58:38] Speaker 1: for grain and Egyptian records of their own famines. A
[58:43] Speaker 1: drought could, of course, have a domino effect. The crops fail.
[58:48] Speaker 1: Everyone's starving. Everyone gets angry. People leave. And when they
[58:54] Speaker 1: find their new place, and, well, they need to take
[58:58] Speaker 1: the food somehow, so there's the conflict. but globally linked
[59:03] Speaker 1: is the idea of system collapse, or at least an
[59:06] Speaker 1: overload of complexity. The late... Bronze Age world was highly interconnected,
[59:14] Speaker 1: and perhaps fragilely balanced. If one key node, say the
[59:20] Speaker 1: Hadite grain supply system, failed, it could cascade into a
[59:24] Speaker 1: whole bunch of other problems. Trade disruptions, possibly caused by
[59:29] Speaker 1: initial raids or internal war, could break the supply of tin.
[59:34] Speaker 1: And if you don't have tin, you don't have bronze.
[59:39] Speaker 1: But also food, too. Either way, economies would be crippled.
[59:44] Speaker 1: And some scholars have suggested that the collapse was not
[59:47] Speaker 1: due to one culprit, but that synergy of interdependent failures,
[59:53] Speaker 1: climate change, rebellions, invasions, earthquakes, and the breakdown of trade,
[59:59] Speaker 1: all reinforcing each other until the entire system fell to pieces. Well,
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: another angle is internal rebellion and societal change. I suppose
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: it's possible that long-running social tensions in these states led
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: to uprisings too. For example, some historians have suggested that
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: oppressed peasants or disaffected mercenaries in Mycenaean Greece or Canaan
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: might have seized their opportunity to revolt. burning the palaces
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: from within. The destruction of the House of the Oil
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: Merchant in Mycenae around 1250, with deliberate arson hints at
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: internal sabotages, by the way. We have archaeologists to thank
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: for that discovery, too. Within the Hittite realm, there were
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: certainly dynastic conflicts and civil wars shortly before the end.
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: In the letter to Dadalia IV, there is a reference
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: of a rebellion near the homeland's frontiers, So if central
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: authority faltered, due to famine or war, these resentments could
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: boil over, contributing to the chaos. So, in weighing up
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: these theories, it's best that we adopt a multi-causal explanation.
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: We can't just smack the label of Sea Peoples on
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: the Bronze Age Collapse. We just can't do it. And
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: not every region, of course, experienced all different factors equally.
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: Remember we said that Egypt was less affected by drought.
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: The Nile's inundation is a lot more stable. And they
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: also had a well-organized military, so it survived the invasions,
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: albeit barely. Well, in conclusion, I suppose we can say
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: that the Sea People certainly played a central role in
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: the Bronze Age collapse. for they were more the nail
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: in the coffin, the hammer that shattered those last cities,
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: but the anvil that may have been environmental and systematic
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: weaknesses that made those cities so fragile in the first place.
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: And so the collapse should be seen as a convergence
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: of human decisions, war and migration, along with natural forces,
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: seismic events, climate, and then structural problems too, dependence on
[1:02:24] Speaker 1: trade and over-centralization. And that is why such complexity of
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: the end of the Bronze Age is sometimes compared to
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: the fall of the Roman Empire, a perfect combination of
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: factors rather than a single invasion. And just like Rome's fall,
[1:02:43] Speaker 1: it ushered in a dark age in which we're left
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: with a very, very different world. But we must remember
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: that archaeology is always evolving. And as far as written records,
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: who knows what we're going to find? Who knows what
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: other cities and places were destroyed? You think of it
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: this way, use your imagination. What if some official thought that, well,
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: the writing's on the wall now, we have to go
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: out into the desert and bury all of the royal records?
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: And then that official got caught up and, well, The
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: mystery is still out there. I use my imagination a
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: little bit, but I think that's okay. When it comes
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: to this mystery of the old world, I think that
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: there's still a lot more to be told. I really
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: hope that in ten years' time, this video needs to
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: be redone because of all of the new information we have.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: Perhaps the story will be completely rewritten. Who knows? But
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: in any case, That is what we have as of 2025.
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: And I hope you enjoyed your time. I did. Allow
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: me to thank the top dear patrons and supporters. No
[1:04:05] Speaker 1: ads on this because of them. Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Ember, Susan, Cameron, Gary, Charlene, Lynn, Therese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Edneer, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Aaron, Jayden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Michelle, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stephan, Kevin, HMSHH, Crystal, Dalvery, Anthony, Lucy, Brandon, Gugu, Bubonic, Nicholas, Craig, Neftis, Alexander, Gokhan, Dorsey, Benita, Claire, Cortese, Carol, Robert, Mary, Bridget, Nefertari, Yvette,
[1:04:43] Speaker 1: Miss Mochi, Eleven, Allison, Free American, Jennifer, Brittany, David and Cody. Alright.
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: That's it from me. I hope you learned a lot.
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: And like I said, when we go back this far,
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: keep an open mind and a bit of imagination. But
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: don't be so open-minded that your brain falls out. Anyway,
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: goodnight everyone. As always, lots of love to you all.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: And I will see you in the next video. Farewell
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: for now.

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