The Sea Peoples & The Late Bronze Age Collapse // Ancient History Documentary (1200-1150 BC)

Egypt, land of the Nile. By the 12th century BC, this place was already old. Vast temple complexes and pyramids dominating the horizon. Monuments to the power of kings who ruled over a thousand years before. A different time, a different dynasty.

In the intervening years since those colossal edifices had been hewned into the landscape, Egypt had seen societal turmoil, outside invasion, and dark age. Yet more than a millennia on, the same gods ruled over this land. [music] A more or less similar culture held sway. And now [music] Egypt was no longer going it alone. One piece of a vast interconnected trade system, the tendrils of which reached all the way to the southern shores of Britain in [music] the far north to the mountains of Afghanistan and beyond in the east. The wealthiest and most stable system the world had ever seen.

We know from a vast diplomatic library found at Ammana in Egypt, capital of the heretical pharaoh Akenatan, that the great kings of this age regularly corresponded with one another, intermaring, making trade deals, and very occasionally going to war. Organized campaigns fought primarily by charioteers, the tanks of the day, supported by [music] masses of spearmen. Nearly 300 cuneaoifor letters written in Aadian and Babylonian, the lingua franca of the day being sent from one side of the world to the other for hundreds of years from at least the 15th century BC. Discovered at this one site alone.

Yet by the 12th century BC, all was not well in the world. After centuries of [music] stability, unnerving reports had begun filtering in. In far off Hattie, famine racked the land year after year. In mainland Greece, one by one, the great palacial complexes of the Masonian warrior kings were burned to the ground. Arrowheads and ash permeating the archaeological record. And of late, the rot had reached Egypt. As much as he might try to deny it, the pharaoh Rammeses III and his state were part of this world's system, no longer self-sufficient.

Then one day around 1177 BC, black sails were cited off the Egyptian shore. A fleet of sleek war vessels gliding into the fertile riverways at the mouth of the Nile. Irrigated field systems and wild marshes around them. Glory and plunder on [music] their minds. The ensuing events were so important for Rammeses that he inscribed them on a massive scale, for future generations to behold in pictures and in hieroglyphics. This is the complex of Medinet Habu. The decorated fresco here that can still be seen today are one of the most important sources for the catastrophic turmoil of Ramsa's age. Speaking directly to his people, the pharaoh reailed [music] his own deeds in defeating this new seaborn menace. Of course, pharaohs never lost. According to imperial propaganda, they just won closer and closer to home.

Yet the situation seems to have been so dire by [music] this point that a direct proclamation was needed. According to Ramsy's, before he defeated them on the Nile, no land could stand before the arms of this foreign force, already having [music] ravaged territories from Hatti, Code, Kamish, Azawa, and Alyssa onwards. Devastation that matches the archaeological record before ending their journey at Egypt. On the images at Medinet Abu, we can see these invaders face to face. Some wearing horned helmets, others Aian-style kilts and feathered headdresses. They weren't uniformed, comprising of a variety of different looking peoples. [music] Some heavily armored in [music] plate, others in light leather, some of them are shirtless. All had come to destroy the established [music] world and begin a new.

Most importantly, their arms were long [music] swords and javelins, not spearmen supporting chariots, as had been the way of war for centuries. The world was changing. These warriors were runners, chariot killers. Perhaps most importantly, at Medinet Habu, we get names. These seaborn invaders were the Peliset, Teka, Danuna, and Wesh. A confederacy of lands united, plots brimming in their proud chests, the fire of war carried before them. But who were these newcomers and where did they [music] come from? Today we know them simply as the Sea Peoples. And their story is one of the most fascinating ever told.

And this wasn't the only group of so-called sea peoples, but the second of at least two large invasion attempts of Egypt. An earlier armada having been [music] defeated by Ramsy's father some three decades earlier. Egyptian and other sources [music] also mention other names. The Sheran, sheles, Luca, Carisha, Equesh, and Teres. Nine or [music] 10 seafaring peoples. Wherever their names appear, death and destruction follows. Yet, the Egyptian sources are extremely Egyptian-centric. The attack on the Nile was in fact just one battle in a much larger saga, illuminated by its recording in the historical record. Just before history goes dark almost completely for hundreds of years. The darkest age ever yet to befall mankind.

Ramsy's state would survive the collapse, turning back the sea peoples on the Nile, making a wall of ships and spears to block their advance. Tellingly, a chariot is present on the battlefield, but not integral to victory. A sign of the times. Despite Ramsy's victory, this was a battle which signaled [music] the downfall of the Egyptian state. It was to be a slow, lingering death, leaving their colossal [music] remains empty, decaying all across the land, doomed to irrelevance. The only Bronze Age power left in an uncertain new age of iron.

For after the 12th century BC, for at least a century or more, there were no cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Scholars have debated for close to 200 years as to [music] the identity of these elusive invaders and to their exact nature. Where did they come from and where did they go? Were they grizzled veterans, mercenaries opportunistically going to war? Some [music] no doubt having fought on the sea for decades by the time they got to Egypt. Or a mass migration from the west. [music] The survivors of destroyed civilizations [music] banding together out of necessity. For this was the age of the late Bronze Age collapse, until this time. [music] The most devastating societal breakdown in history. The first true interruption since the citybuilders of ancient Sumere some 3,000 years before.

Though we can never know for certain what drove the sea peoples or even for the most part [music] the lives they led, the battles they fought. The record is simply too sparse. However, using the very latest archaeological, genetic, [music] climatological, and historical research, we can form a most basic picture of who they might have been, telling the late Bronze Age collapse from their point of view. [music] Hello and welcome to History Time. This is a 2-hour deep dive into the epic world of the late Bronze Age and those Seaborn warriors who contributed to its end. I'm your host, Pete Kelly. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and [music] the bell notification so you can access the library of other history videos on this channel and be updated on new projects in the future. History Time is a one-man team, so don't forget to leave a like and [music] a comment to feed YouTube's algorithm, making this gigantic project worthwhile and others like it in the future possible.

Shortly, we'll return to the end of the Bronze Age to investigate the origins and everything we know about each and every one of the sea peoples. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, Mellin TV. [music] What was the secret to Egypt's survival during the late Bronze Age? Giant Sphinx warriors? Aliens? No. Knowledge? What better place to get yourself some new knowledge than Mellan TV? Science, [music] nature, space, society, and of course, history from all different [music] eras. All completely ad-free. And now History Time and Mellant TV have teamed up to offer you an exclusive month-long free [music] trial. My recommendation this month is this epic about the great Pharaoh Rammeses II, who we'll be hearing more of shortly. And if you aren't seeking knowledge, well, I don't want to say it, but pretty sure that's how you get see people. Anyway, head on over to try.mmagelantv.com/hisrytime or use my link in the description below to get yourself a free trial. Now, back to the Bronze Age.

Ugarit, modern-day Syria. Once this was the Venice of the Bronze Age world, a powerful [music] citystate. Its kings rich and respected. Trade links and diplomatic allegiances extending all across the known world. Then a little over 3,000 years ago, all that came to an end. When excavated in the 20th century, it soon became apparent what caused Ugarit's end. [music] Hastily scrolled cuneaoifor tablets being discovered here still in the kilns that they'd been fired in. The last written messages of this land for hundreds of years, burned along with [music] the city that made them before they could ever be sent. The picture painted here by those records is a bleak one. The warriors of the city were away, fighting in foreign lands. The ships of the enemy patrolling the coast at will, getting ever closer to the city itself. The year was around 1180 BC. And according to those desperate SOS messages, by this time the Hittite world to the north was already dead. And so soon would be Uggerit.

As we have already seen, the Egyptian sources talk of a great mustering at this time in the seas around Cyprus, then known as Alyssa. A seaborn threat [music] coming out of their many islands, presumably those of the eastern Mediterranean that [music] they'd recently overwhelmed. We know from archaeology that this was a region ravaged by violence and chaos. All around the coast of this once peaceful sea, the story is the same. Once decadent, vibrant societies of the shore retreating inland to hilltop vastnesses, populations dwindling, crops failing, cities abandoned, some never to be rebuilt again. Further north and to the west in the Masonian world, great kings had once engaged economically all over the Mediterranean. Their warriors seeking service as retainers in the armies of prosperous kings. But now their palaces burned, their cities destroyed. To the east too, in the Euphrates River Valley, home to the first true cities of the world, hordes of enemies are said to have ravaged the land.

This was bad news. If Babylon fell, so too would fall the access to tin. One of the main [music] components in the bronze used by kings to retain their power. The bronze that [music] kitted out armies. That in a world before coinage paid followers. The bronze that [music] kept the world in check. Without it, everything would fall apart. The king's power [music] gone in an instant. During the late Bronze Age, the vast majority came from what is now Afghanistan, carried by traders along [music] the ancient Silk Road into Mesopotamia, where Cassite Babylon passed it along to Egypt, Hatti, and Greece. The great city of Babylon would survive for a time, beleaguered as [music] it was. But by 1158 BC, the neighboring king of Elam, the old enemy of Mesopotamia, had long promised [music] to see the city burn. And in that year, he did it, laying waste to the land between the two rivers, cutting off the tin trade to the east, and leaving just Assyria and Egypt intact out of all the great powers of the Bronze Age.

In Anatolia, Syria, even across the sea in mainland Greece, every major settlement [music] met its end, torn asunder along with the trade system once enjoyed by Egypt. In Greece, the record simply goes [music] blank. Events later half remembered by bardic poetry such as the Iliad written down [music] much later. Here there would be no verifiable contact with [music] the outside world for hundreds of years. The palatial world of powerful [music] individual personalities interacting with each other on behalf of entire kingdoms and empires would give way to one of many warriors, illiterate chieftains, and warlords whose words, actions, [music] and motivations are lost to us today.

But what caused the collapse? Was it invasion by the elusive sea peoples? Perhaps not too dissimilar to the 4th century Germanic barbarians embedding themselves within the late Roman Empire whilst simultaneously laying it to waste. Indeed, the evidence does seem to suggest that for the first time, armies of infantry on the periphery of the Bronze Age world had worked out how to defeat chariot warriors, now [music] having the technology and expertise to do so. All of Egypt's great cities lay on the Nile. If they could break through there, they would have been able to take over the whole kingdom or at least plunder its cities. However, it remains a debated point whether the Sea Peoples were directly responsible [music] for the collapse or whether they were a symptom of it, just as much [music] victims as those they attacked, perhaps drawn in [music] from afar to take by force what once had been freely traded with them.

Something else seems to have been going on to cause the invasions. In recent years, the idea of systems collapse has risen to the fore. During [music] the late Bronze Age, the great powers weren't individual kingdoms, but a linked-up system. Topple one [music] and the rest can easily fall. So then what was the catalyst? In the last few decades, recent developments in science have enabled researchers an entirely new way of looking at the past. And the picture they get in the 13th and 12th centuries BC is one of disaster on a massive scale. We know from contemporary sources that famine racked [music] the land. And now we may know why. For this was an era of unprecedented drought. So much so that in many areas rainfall seems to have dropped so much that there was no longer enough left to sustain agriculture. In many areas where crops had once bloomed, [music] the ground became desert. In highland regions like [music] Hatti, easily defensible in good years, those suffering from a lack of water at the best of times, the result could have been world-ending. [music] And it may be that this environmental crisis was felt all over Europe and beyond, creating mass population movement.

And then we have the earthquakes. According to seismology, the 12th century BC was a wash with them all over Greece, Anatolia, Syria, and the Levant. But tellingly, not in Egypt, where imperial administration survived intact. There's another argument, too. One based on access to resources. Most states in the late Bronze Age had their own small copper mines, though it was often difficult to mine. There was one place, however, with an abundance, practically falling out of the ground. So much so that the place may have been named after it, Cyprus. The effects of [music] Cyprus falling to the Sea Peoples could have been devastating, though not as much as the loss of tin, the other metal needed for bronze. Tiny tin mines did exist in Italy, Spain, Anatolia, and a fair amount in far-off inaccessible Britain. No doubt making their owners incomprehensibly rich. But mostly the trade came from Afghanistan, some 3,000 km away.

By the 12th century BC, however, a new metal was beginning to be utilized, a sign of a new age to come. Iron. First used around [music] 30,000 BC, but not in massive amounts. Iron is much more difficult to smelt than copper or bronze, needing heats of over 1,500°. The upside, however, was that this metal could be found everywhere, a great leveler, allowing new elites to form, and the result, the destabilization of the entire world. So then, by 1200 BC, spurred on by crisis after crisis, a new order was arising. It may well be that starving people from countryside areas rose up to sweep [music] in and burn their own cities to the ground, removing the upper stratums of society entirely, to be replaced with [music] something else. Helped along the way by sheer desperation and just maybe access to weapons and arms only previously held by the elite. So, it may well be that the pre-existing populations of the Eastern Mediterranean were just as responsible for the collapse as the underworld of pirates and raiders, long spoken of at the edges of the Bronze Age system, who now took advantage to raid on a scale never seen before, particularly given the enmity [music] usually felt between common people of different regions, Hittites and Masonians, in particular seeming to be engaged in a cold war lasting centuries. Like Vikings in the early Middle Ages, these raiders could have launched surprise hit-and-run attacks, always striking when the enemy is weakest.

To a certain extent, some of the Sea Peoples may well have been former citizens of the Bronze Age powers. There's some evidence of this, too. In Greek myth, relating events before the Dark Age. Adysius's 10-year wanderings across the world following the Trojan War saw him traveling to Crete, Egypt, Lebanon, [music] and Libya before finally returning to Ithaca to find the place in turmoil. Menelaus of [music] Sparta had a similar 8-year journey back. Adysius [music] even reminisces about seven years spent in service to the Egyptian pharaoh working [music] on retainer for cash following unsuccessful attacks on the country. [music] Indeed, much of the archaeological finds [music] linked with the so-called sea peoples are Bronze Age Aegean in style. Yet surely [music] this wasn't just military expansion. There is evidence to suggest that population movement was happening on a massive scale. Forced to flee from wherever they came from by drought, environmental devastation, economic and societal turmoil, and warfare. The fringes of the Bronze Age world, in comparison, in the far east and [music] west, where some of these invaders may have originated, were wilder, less organized lands.

And now it is to the western Mediterranean that we must look. When [music] Frenchman Jean Francois Champollion began studying the ancient edifices of Egypt in the early 19th century, just brought into [music] the ascendant French Empire under Napoleon, he couldn't have fathomed the immense antiquity displayed on those surfaces hidden within long-forgotten [music] tombs. For these [music] were hieroglyphics. And when finally, after dedicating his [music] entire life to the study of those ancient symbols, their secrets were finally unlocked due [music] to the Rosetta Stone, the long-held secrets of ancient Egypt could finally [music] be read, offering an unprecedented window into an ancient world. In the ensuing decades, much was learned. Immense dynasties rising and falling one after another over thousands [music] upon thousands of years. Archaeology undertaken by the great Flinders Petrie and the like. One by one, ancient cultures began to be filled in [music] on the map, beginning to show a complicated patchwork of [music] kingdoms and empires. Long thought to be a biblical fantasy, the Hittites held out the longest before their texts, [music] too, were unraveled, allowing us another window into the Bronze Age world. Yet one glaring mystery still remained. That of the nations who ended that world. It was quickly realized that such a collapse happened. But who caused it and where they had come from became a subject [music] of intense debate. [music]

In 1855, French Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé was the first to use the term "Peoples of the Sea" when describing the nations depicted at Medinet Habu. [music] It was a scholar of the next generation, however, Gaston Maspero, who popularized the term, noting that most of the nine nations mentioned in the Egyptian sources came from the sea on ships, also associating [music] it with the popular migration theories of the time, which related to the origins [music] of the Germanic peoples of Europe and others. A theory which in the last few decades [music] has been intensely scrutinized by many scholars. Indeed, these "nine bows" raised against Egypt as they [music] are sometimes referred to in the Egyptian sources didn't all come from the sea. And certainly [music] their actions weren't always there. Cities being sacked far inland [music] in Anatolia, Syria, Greece, and Mesopotamia. Even Babylon was destroyed by Elamites. We know Egypt was attacked across the western desert [music] from Libya, probably from Nubia in the south, and certainly from the east across the Levantine shore. Greece and Anatolia weathered attacks from the north, from Phrygians, Thracians, and perhaps Dorians, the later [music] inheritors of the Masonian world. Yet [music] still, the evidence of the sea peoples arriving on boats is unquestionable. And in this age of [music] immense turmoil and chaos with warriors arriving in force from the north, south, and east, surely they must have come from the west, too. [music] A peripheral world almost entirely unknown in the written records of the great Bronze Age powers. Yet using archaeology we can reach some understanding of the relationship between the [music] eastern Mediterranean and the west [music] for centuries.

The very first sea-roaming culture to span the entirety of the Mediterranean was thought to have been the Phoenicians, [music] mysterious Levantine survivors of the Bronze Age collapse, establishing trading posts wherever they went from around the 10th century BC onwards, one of which would eventually become Carthage, bringing with them the basis for the alphabet we still use today, [music] along with exotic trade goods and settlers. This great expansion preceding that of the classical Greeks by centuries can clearly be seen in the archaeological record, at first with small items found in the burgeoning towns of Iberia and even further past the Straits of Gibraltar north to Britain, known as the Tin Isles, before eventually expanding into a network of ocean-facing metropolises. Ultimately, advances in rigging and ship building technology were the secret innovations that spawned this [music] expansion. However, in recent years, it's increasingly thought that these new types of ships, [music] allowing for easier and longer journeys, actually developed earlier towards the [music] end of the Bronze Age, allowing for cheaper and easier vessels to be built. No longer did ships have to cling [music] to sea shores. There's no denying the Phoenician expansion was unprecedented. However, given this earlier innovation in ship building technology, surely they weren't the first seafarers [music] to make the journey across the open sea. Earlier peoples [music] doing the same thing, but on a more localized, less organized level. The Mediterranean is a relatively stable sea, not beset by as many storms as an open ocean like the Atlantic. In fact, sea travel is thought to have first begun during the Stone Age, thousands of years before the Phoenicians. We know from archaeology that wide-reaching trade took place [music] for millennia with ships mostly hugging coastlines. But every now and again longer journeys must have taken place. We have evidence of this beginning in the Chalithic era with upwardly mobile coppersmiths of the Beaker people ranging far and wide across the continent to Ireland, Britain, and Scandinavia, spreading the art and magic of metallurgy wherever they went. In Spain, [music] we have a massive Chalithic settlement populated by [music] many thousands of people. At the time, this was a world not far behind parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. And in [music] this ancient age, particularly in the second millennium BC, knowledge was power. Traders with access to the outside world could easily become chieftains [music] and kings, able to reward loyal followers with exotic goods from far away. Those who held river routes and coastlines could exact tributes and thus the wealth and luxury of the east slowly filtered in to the west, bringing it too into the interconnected system that had evolved over thousands of years. Faced with the luxuries [music] coming in from the east, the outside world naturally wanted in. But what happens if the trade [music] stops? The wanderers who previously came to your river no longer come, such as may have [music] happened in the 12th century BC. Surely some would go looking for the source. The prosperity of the citybuilders ultimately contributing to their demise. We know from archaeology that it wasn't just the east that enjoyed the advances in shipping technology. As early as the 14th century BC, the Oared Galley, a long, narrow, [music] light craft specifically designed for speed, was introduced all along the seashores and islands running towards the Straits of Gibraltar. The majority of depictions, however, occur in the 12th [music] century BC. A little like a longship, [music] these vessels depicted with animal heads at Medinet Habu were powered by oars as well as sail, allowing massive maneuverability, an advantage to these so-called barbarians of the outer world. Coming from far outside the palatial systems of the east, but on an individual level still [music] possessing similar technology and a particularly martial culture. Maybe it was these people from the west, perhaps refugees from the far [music] side of the Mediterranean who moved in to invade neighboring islands, combining with pre-existing disasters to create a domino effect to bring the Bronze Age to an end. Usually disunited [music] and anarchic with a nearly non-existent command structure, leaders from the West could usually command little more than a few hundred or at best a thousand [music] men. But if something could unite them into a coalition, it would be devastating. The Bronze Age world was completely [music] unsuited to defend against seaborn attack. This was a world of ordered battles led by individual kings on chariots meeting at pre-appointed locations, not raiders appearing from [music] nowhere to pillage and steal. So whether the collapse began in the palatial empires or out at the very edge of their system of trade, we can't be sure. But in order to find out more, we now must look at the first mentioned [music] of the sea peoples appearing in Egyptian sources from the 15th century BC, the Sheran of the Sea.

In 1274 BC, an epic battle was waged out on the plains of what is now Syria. Four massive contingents of chariots, each kitted out with a driver and a bow-wielding warrior, raced north [music] from Egypt to meet the army of the Hittite king, also riding swift [music] chariots to war. The first battle in [music] history to have recorded battle tactics. The ensuing engagement fought at Kadesh is the very embodiment of the late Bronze Age. A campaign fought by thousands of elite career soldiers equipped with [music] expensive weapons and armor of bronze. Unstoppable at the time. Two imperial powers at the very height of their strength, squabbling over the disputed land [music] at their borders. However, what often isn't realized is the massive contribution of mercenaries [music] at Kadesh. For both Ramesses II and his rival Muwatalli, utilized not only the forces of client kings, but swords for hire, too. Much like the Roman Empire, recruited from warlike areas on the peripheries of the city-building world. And perhaps most interesting of all, on both sides are [music] mentioned some of the same names as Medinet Habu, the sea peoples, fighting for the imperial powers. One of these groups, the Sheran of the Sea, fighting alongside [music] Libyan and Nubian tribes, likewise settled in Egypt to [music] defend the empire, are even said to have masterminded Ramesses's ultimately unsuccessful battle plan. Clearly respected and elite [music] troops, Sheran even served as the pharaoh's personal bodyguard, a little like the first Roman Emperor Augustus having a German bodyguard, and a few hundred years later, Germans being the downfall of [music] the empire.

And Kadesh isn't alone. Many of these Sheran northerners [music] as they are called in the Egyptian sources, well known for their piracy and their [music] prowess in war, can be seen in records long before the attacks of the 12th century BC. In the Amarna letters 200 years before, Sherdan of the Sea are specifically mentioned as swords for hire working on behalf of a client king, Rib-Hadda, as part of an Egyptian garrison at Byblos. They appear again during the second year of Ramesses II's reign, launching an unsuccessful attack on the Nile that he recorded for posterity at Tanis Stele 2. A number of these pirates were captured, perhaps forced into service in the Egyptian army, and no doubt other attacks were launched, too. The situation can easily be interpreted as one of bold attacks from the sea on a wider scale than ever seen before. Like [music] Vikings during the early Middle Ages, small bands at first of just a handful of ships, eventually spiraling into much more. Their prey, the lucrative economic system of the citybuilders. On a good year when the great powers were [music] strong, attacks could easily be repulsed. [music] During darker times, not so much. Of course, the military [music] prowess of the newcomers was quickly recognized, and when offered access to the riches of the east, no doubt [music] many flocked to sign up in service to Egypt, to Ramesses II and his successors. Notably, whilst some Sheran fought in the coalition against Egypt [music] during the reign of Merneptah, others remained loyal, fighting fiercely for the king. There is even ample evidence of Sheran being settled in Egypt with land and goods specifically allocated [music] to them. Like Germanic soldiers in Rome, they often had elite status in Egyptian society and within the army. [music] According to the papyrus Amy, they were even allocated land directly [music] adjacent to the temple at Karnak, an especially important place. And later [music] still during the 20th dynasty under Ramesses the 11th, long after the collapse, Sheran mercenaries [music] were still being utilized in Egyptian armies, spoken of in administrative documents. A relationship that had lasted more than 300 years.

But who were the Sheran? Like all of the sea peoples, [music] there is much speculation, not much fact. And today we have at least four main hypotheses: Western Anatolia, the Semitic East, the Ionian coast, and the Western Mediterranean. One of these, however, favored by scholars such as Giovanni Ugass, does have some archaeology to go on. [music] [music] Sardinia. Picturesque jewel in [music] the center of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of western Italy. Home to one of the most mysterious, little [music] understood cultures of the ancient world. For this is the land of the Nuragic builders. Colossal towers and sprawling complexes that still dominate the landscape today. The largest of these structures [music] to survive to the present incorporated five massive central towers reaching [music] heights of 30 m, completed by multiple outer walls and dozens of [music] additional towers. Early Greek geographers were so perplexed by these [music] structures that they speculated links to the ancient labyrinth builders of Crete. Later, archaeologists too [music] suspected origins in Greece. Today, we know that this was a tradition native to the island. [music] Their construction beginning in the second millennium BC [music] shortly after the arrival of the Beaker folk on the island, and they continued in use [music] possibly as late as the first few centuries AD. [music] Often located on the summits of hills, their purpose has long been [music] debated by scholars: be they religious centers, meeting places, or grain silos. Today, a general consensus is that these were defensible homesites built for protection as much as to stamp a mark of ownership on the landscape, much like the Brochs [music] of Iron Age Scotland.

In the second [music] half of the second millennium BC, however, these structures began to grow larger, much larger, with additional towers, walls, and structures added, as well as the settlements around them growing significantly. This was [music] a time of change, of expansion, and probably, as other archaeological evidence suggests, increased [music] militarism. Upon the neighboring island of Corsica, [music] statued men depict builders near identical with the Nuragic [music] builders of neighboring Sardinia, suggesting at least a cultural expansion, if not demographic. A somewhat similar culture existing [music] in Iberia too. And Sardinia was a land rich in metal, of copper and lead. Seeing the mass construction of furnaces to produce and ship alloys all across the Mediterranean. Placed roughly [music] in the middle of the sea with access to east and west, Sardinia, though mostly missing from the written record, must have been an important and rich land. [music] Archaeology tells us that these Bronze Age Sardinians became especially skilled metalworkers, producing a wide variety of bronze objects such as [music] swords, daggers, axes, pins, rings, and bracelets. Most fascinating of all, however, are these unique bronze [music] statuettes depicting warriors and boats, suggesting a close relationship with the sea, perhaps representing a native warrior aristocracy. These [music] statuettes with horned helmets and round studded shields bear more than a striking resemblance to those depicted [music] in the Egyptian sources.

And then we have the archaeology from lands far away. [music] Tin, one of the main ingredients for making bronze, is an especially scarce resource, as we have seen, only occurring in significant amounts in southern Britain, Iberia, and far-off Afghanistan. However, there is some evidence to suggest that it was mined [music] in Sardinia too in at least one site, as well as copper and lead. [music] This might explain the significant archaeological links found in recent years with the Mycenaean [music] world. A rich land poor in metal. So then there was a link with [music] Greece after all. So-called gateway communities having been located on Cyprus, Crete, and in Greece, [music] all containing items originating in Sardinia and vice versa. Nuragic ceramics dating to the 13th century BC have been found at Tiryns, Mycenae, Kition, Kornos in Sicily at Lipari and in the Agrigento area, all the way along the sea route linking western to eastern Mediterranean. And other cultural links to Bronze Age Greece are found too with the adoration of bulls and the shape of common tomb [music] tombs. [music] Cyprus-type copper ingots have [music] been found in Sardinia too, as well as Nuragic ceramics in the Aegean, Cyprus, [music] in significant amounts in Spain and at sites on the Italian mainland. And it wasn't [music] just the Mediterranean that Sardinia's links extended to. We already know that the amber found in such famous tombs as Tutankhamun's tomb had its origins in the far northern Baltic [music] Sea. And in 2013, a study of 71 Swedish items from the Nordic Bronze Age revealed that the vast majority of the copper utilized [music] came from Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula. And tellingly, this so-called golden age of Nuragic civilization didn't end in the 12th century BC, extending for hundreds of years afterwards, perhaps coinciding with the apex [music] of mining on the island. And finally, evidence of iron working has been found [music] in the 13th century BC, some of the earliest in the Mediterranean. Interestingly, Sardinian culture would change [music] significantly during this time with the construction of Nuragis [music] halting for a time. Many being abandoned entirely or at least partially dismantled. Individual tombs replaced the collective burials of old. And [music] unlike in the eastern Mediterranean where there is evidence of a decrease in population, there is evidence here of growth and a continuation of this culture for many hundreds of years to come, before conquest by a new incoming people from the Levant, the Phoenicians.

In 1974, archaeologists stumbled upon a number of broken pieces of stone littering an ancient hilltop. Painstakingly pieced back together, these 2 and 1/2 m tall statued men looking very similar [music] to the bronze statuettes, possibly representing ancient Sardinia's warrior aristocracy, are known today as the Giants of Mont'e Prama. A total of 44 are thought to have once existed, though only a handful have been successfully [music] put back together, including statues of Nuragis, castles of the day, [music] discovered on the sea-facing Sinis Peninsula on the west of the island where we know from pottery that Mycenaean Greeks and possibly Philistines had already long established a presence [music] by the 12th century BC. It's at least possible that the power of these individuals came from their links across the sea. [music] So then it's not too much of a stretch to imagine an upwardly mobile warrior aristocracy ruling here, dispatching raids to Egypt. Another hypothesis is that the Sea Peoples actually migrated here around the 13th or 12th centuries after their failed invasion of Egypt. Though not conclusive, the evidence is striking. These bronze statuettes on Sardinia dating from around the 12th century BC onwards look very similar to depictions of Sea Peoples in Egyptian art. There is even an early Iron Age [music] Phoenician inscription from the city of Nora bearing the word "Serdan," very similar statues with horned helmets appear on Cyprus, too. The place named as the starting [music] point for the great mustering against Egypt in the 12th century BC. And then there are the shreds of written [music] evidence. Unfortunately, all coming from a much later age, though much closer to the Bronze Age [music] than our time. Both Simonides of Chios and Plutarch speak of raids by Sardinians against the island of Crete in the same era as the invasions [music] of the Sea Peoples. Though the evidence is far from conclusive, the site of Elawad in Israel has even been suggested as an attempt [music] at a Nuragic building by Sardinians settled in Canaan as Pharaonic mercenaries. Finally, and maybe one of the most important pieces of evidence of all is the role of anchors [music] found along the Sardinian shore, the only remains left of ancient [music] sea vessels. For historian Pierre Luigi Montalbano, [music] these Nuragic anchors suggest the existence of highly efficient ships reaching lengths of up to 15 m, thus explaining [music] the widespread links of Sardinia with the outer world. So then, [music] Sardinia may well have been the homeland of the Sheran. But of the western seaways, surely it wasn't [music] only Sardinia that spawned sea people. [music] [music]

Thirty years before the fateful battle on the Nile, Ramesses III's [music] father sat on the imperial throne. [music] He'd just waged a lengthy civil war to claim it, founding a [music] new dynasty and proclaiming himself as the pharaoh Merneptah. Gone were [music] the glory days of Kadesh, however, as rot very much seeped into the societies of the Bronze Age powers. And in around 1207 BC, enemy ships came bearing down on the Egyptian coast, accompanied [music] by a much more numerous horde of Libyans following the hidden oases from the western desert. Originating in the neighboring region of Cyrenaica, a relatively fertile land, the warlike Meshwesh engaged themselves [music] in a near perpetual state of battle with Egypt during the 19th and 20th dynasties. Generation after generation, their warriors would head east to try their luck, no doubt enjoying some success, though left unrecorded by Egypt. Eventually, by the 10th century, the Meshwesh would succeed in their conquest, putting one of their own, a Shoshenq I, on the Pharaonic throne. In 1207 BC, however, the ruler who waged war was Merneptah the Despicable. And this time, he came with allies. An invasion force numbering [music] tens of thousands come to topple the new Egyptian government. According to Merneptah's own inscriptions, these were the people of the island of Crete, the Luca, Sheran, Teresnoi, Equesh, and Shechesh. In the ensuing bloodbath, Merneptah claims [music] to have killed some 9,000 of the invaders, including more than 6,000 Libyans, the majority of the force. The pharaoh also claims to have killed [music] 222 Shechesh warriors, wanderers from the great green sea, capturing others and hacking off their hands. And we have images of these Shekelesh standing out alongside the Teres as wearing cloth headdresses, medallions on their chests, carrying spears with round shields. Perhaps they are these figures with horned helmets too, wearing Aegean-style kilts with pointed beards. One of the more widely noted of the Sea Peoples, the Shechesh appear elsewhere, too. They'd raided Egypt back in 1220 BC and would do so again later in 1186 and 1184. And it may well be that it was them who were responsible for the destruction of Ugarit. [music]

According to a Hittite letter to the [music] city, such was their ease at sea that they lived on ships. Today, the Shechesh remain one of the most mysterious of [music] the Sea Peoples with very little concrete known about them. But who were they and where did they come from? In 1984, just off the coast of western Anatolia, one of the most significant Bronze Age finds ever made was discovered. Excavated [music] between 1984 and 1994, this is the Uluburun shipwreck, a 50-foot trading vessel carrying a vast amount of exotic trade goods on board. Cargo from almost every nation in the Bronze Age world and many from further afield. [music] Aside elephant tusk and hippopotamus ivory, enough bronze ingots were found here to fully equip and arm an entire army of 300 men, armor and all [music], or thousands of swords. Copper was found from Cyprus and tin [music] from northeastern Afghanistan, a fortune alongside a wealth of other items from Canaan, [music] Mycenae, Cyprus, Egypt, Nubia, the Baltic, the Northern Balkans, Babylonia, Assyria, and possibly the island of Sicily, as well as evidence for a multinational crew. [music] Of course, diversity and thus the ability to converse in many tongues would have increased the crew's chances at survival and success. In truth, we simply don't know whether this was an [music] independent trading vessel, though it seems likely that due to the extreme wealth on board that this was a royally sanctioned mission. Though where they originated and where they were going is anyone's guess, it's probable that such a loss of wealth significantly impacted the economy of whoever lost it. Given the personal items found, it's been surmised that as many as four Canaanites or Canaanites may have been on board. Perhaps middlemen working on behalf of whoever the vessel belonged to alongside two fully [music] kitted out Mycenaean warriors. Bodyguards perhaps hired to protect the cargo. Some of the most interesting finds on board, however, are an Italian-style sword and mace. Perhaps evidence of at least one armed individual [music] from outside the eastern Mediterranean serving on board a trading vessel, just maybe from the island of Sicily. [music]

For decades, scholars such as Eric Sanders have favored a Sicilian or at least Southeast Italian [music] origins for the Shechelesh. At the time of the late Bronze Age, like Sardinia, a flourishing archaeological culture. We know that in mainland Italy, this was a time of great upheaval and population displacement as the highly martial Central European [music] culture known as the Unetice culture moved ever southwards down the peninsula, leaving [music] rich archaeological finds in their wake, predecessors to the Etruscans, [music] Celts, and Romans. This was population movement, or at least cultural expansion, which surely had a knock-on [music] effect on the earlier cultures of the peninsula. In truth, there is very little evidence to go on. Although in mythology there are many half-remembered [music] mentions of movement from around this time. And if Sardinians [music] were involved in the late Bronze Age collapse, then why not Sicilians? Another [music] maritime land with far-reaching ties to the outer world. [music] During the 12th and 13th centuries BC, [music] Sicily was far from a cut-off place. [music] The Uluburun shipwreck may well have been a state-sponsored ship, but it does shed [music] light on the larger network of sailors plying the seas for themselves [music] rather than on behalf of overlords. And just maybe a Shesh merchant with origins in Sicily found himself [music] in service on an eastern trading vessel. [music] Surely others too ran their own ships. [music] So then we have to ask the question, what would people having such knowledge of the sea do [music] in hard times? As trade from the east dried up and warlike people increasingly encroached on their land, surely some at least would continue to ply the seawards [music] they always had. But now taking by force what they had previously bartered for.

But it isn't just to the west that we must look. For much closer to Egypt, similarly warlike people existed, too. In the centuries leading up to the Bronze Age collapse, there is significant written [music] evidence of seaborn threats to shipping. In both Egyptian and [music] Hittite records, talk of coastal raids, the need to [music] fortify rivermouths, and the interception of ships at sea are common. In other words, piracy. It's mentioned all the time in the works of Homer too, recalling a [music] culture of seaborn raiding during this same era. [music] But by around 1180 BC, the situation had changed. When just seven ships [music] arrived from the sea to raid the lands of Ugarit, once possessing a mighty navy, its king, Amurapi, could do little but hastily scroll a letter to his ally, the king of Cyprus. "My father, now the ships of the enemy [music] have been coming. They have been setting fire to my cities and have done harm to the land. Doesn't my father know that all of my infantry and chariotry is stationed in Hatti and that all my ships are stationed in the land of Lukka? Now the seven ships of the enemy which have been coming have done harm to us. Now if other ships of the enemy turn up, send me a report somehow so that I will know." So the navy and army of Ugarit [music] were both away fighting on foreign soil. But why and who are the Lukka?

Of course, the Lukka are another of the sea peoples mentioned in [music] the Egyptian sources. And this shred of evidence from Ugarit could be construed [music] as an attempt to defend the passage from the Aegean to Anatolia's southern coast and the Levant beyond. A last stand against the Sea [music] Peoples. No depictions exist of the Lukka, but they show up in the written record in abundance. In 1274 BC, they were at Kadesh fighting not alongside the Sherdan and Egypt, but in the armies of the Hittite king alongside 18 other vassal states. In 1210 BC, they raided Egypt and in 1207 took part in the massive invasion during Merneptah's reign, who claimed to have killed 200 of them. Most interesting of all, however, is that we know almost certainly [music] where Lukka was. Today, it's called Lycia. [music] An enigmatic land of dry hilltops and ancient tombs hewn into cliff faces [music] in the far west of modern-day Turkey. Ruined [music] cities and monoliths here litter the dusty ground. But for the [music] most part, these were built long after the collapse. Remnants [music] of a later classical world. For the ancient Bronze Age Lycians, ancestors of those later citybuilders. In truth, we know very little. There are no named Lycian kings in Hittite records which do name many rulers of neighboring lands, suggesting Lycia to be a realm of petty chieftains for the most part [music], lacking political authority. The Lycians left no written records of themselves at [music] all from this period, suggesting that they were probably illiterate. Much like most [music] of the Greek world, only court scribes having the ability to write. This was very much on the fringe of the [music] civilized world. After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, Lycia emerged as a so-called Neo-Hittite [music] kingdom. Though Indo-European in origin like the Hittites, their culture was far from Hittite, and they are thought to have spoken a form of Luian, the same language spoken by a variety of Hittite vassals [music] in Anatolia. Frequently mentioned by Homer as an ally of Troy, another probable Hittite vassal, often argued to have spoken Luian. Their contingent to the Trojan War being led [music] by the warriors Sarpedon and Glaucus, a son of Zeus and a son of Hippolytus, respectively. [music] Lycians also appear elsewhere in Greek myth, such as in the story of Bellerophon, who eventually succeeded to the throne of the Lycian king. [music] Long considered

Pirates by the great powers of the time, fleets of Luca often launched seaborn raids on the masonian world as well as their own Hittite overlords, sporadically forced into vaselage by the waxing and waning power of the Hittite king.

We know that in the late 15th century, the Luca formed part of an anti-Hittite coalition alongside 22 other nations known as the League of Assura, ultimately crushed by the Hittite king Tudalia I. We know the Luca were a feared people.

There is a Hittite prayer which talks of the Luca attacking Hittite lands along with other peoples as well as denouncing the Hittite sun goddess Arena. Perhaps most notable of their victims, however, was Alisa, the island of Cyprus, where they made near yearly attacks towards the end of the Bronze Age, just maybe drawing the navy of Ugarit away to their doom.

Earlier too, their piratical raids were feared. The Ammana letters included a plea from the king of Alyssa against the Luca to which the pharaoh Akenatan assures Alyssa that he is not siding with the Luca.

A 14th century Hittite text talks of a petty king in western Anatolia named Madawata ruling over an unknown nation who attempted to expand his domains in Anatolia to rule over the sea in Alisa much to the anger of his Hittite overlord. This would suggest that Maduarta had ships at his disposal. It's possible these in part or in whole included Luca, either hailing from or at least staging their paratical raids from Lysa.

For the most part, the Egyptian records describe the Luca as allies of the Hittites. However, as we've seen, this was far from always being the case, probably only happening when Hattie was strong. When Hatti was weak, its western Anatolian vassels, forced into submission only by marshall prowess, ran wild.

In archaeology, depictions of hedgehog helmed warriors, also depicted in Egyptian sources found around this region are the earliest examples of such a type of outfit, seen 25 years earlier than their appearance in Egypt. So there's a good argument that in the 12th century BC, spurred on either by catastrophe, simple opportunity, or a combination of both, these warriors spread out from southwestern Anatolia and the Dodcanese, westward to the Aian, and then finally south and eastward to Cyprus and the Levant. Though it's unclear whether these were Luca outside people from the Aian coming into the area before moving on or a combination of both. Political events at the time definitely made the situation viable for pirates.

Now we must take a closer look at the collapse of the Hittites. The empire that defeated Ramsy's at Cadesh. When a superpower dies, it rarely goes down quietly. After his victory at Kadesh, Hatuseli's son, Tudalia IVth, was the last strong Hittite king. It wasn't just the West and the South that he had to contend with, but the East, too. For there to the north of Babylon existed one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, Assyria, of late on the war path. Though still a world power and able to keep the Assyrians out of his heartlands over the course of the 13th century, Tudalia lost many border regions, notably being heavily defeated at the battle of Na by the Assyrian king to Culti Ninerta. Tudalia conquered Cyprus briefly before it fell under Assyrian control.

During the time of his successor, Siluma II, however, everything began to unravel. Though he reclaimed Cyprus in a naval battle against Alisa, the Assyrians under Ash is annexed much Hittite territory in Asia Minor and Syria, driving out and defeating the Babylonian king in the process, who also had eyes on hitite lands. The picture we get is a confused one of war after war and increasingly societal breakdown, famine, disaster, a situation ripe for outside invasion.

As we have already seen, the Highland Hittite Empire was particularly susceptible to drought, surrounded on all sides by enemies. Its location was great in good times, terrible in bad ones, now vulnerable to attack from all directions. Faced by a combined onslaught of new invaders from the north, traditionally named as the Cascas, Friians, and Burges. Around 1180 BC, the capital city of Hushia was burned to the ground. Every other city in the empire would soon follow. The kingdom vanishing from the historical record.

Now we turn to the most elusive of all sea peoples, the Caresha. All we have is a name. A name mentioned as attacking Egypt in 1207 BC, but also as a Hittite vassel at Cadesh, fighting alongside 18 other loyal nations. One other shred of information from the Hittite archives, talks of Kauisha, specifically with King Muatali sending aid to this land, which spiraled temporarily into a small rebellion before they were brought back in line. The image we get, like the Luca, is one of a client state, loyal only when it suited them to be.

Most often Kauisha is equated with Karia, a neighboring land to Luca on the southwestern tip of Anatolia. However, there is another argument too that at least some of the sea peoples could well have been Hittites themselves, remnants of a destroyed world, kingdomless, desperate, in search of a new home.

Further west still beyond the Hittite vassels of Anatolia lay the outermost of the great powers of the late Bronze Age. This is Masonian Greece, home to a palatial culture of chariot riding warrior lords served by literate scribes and loyal retainers. Hilltop citadels overlooking a mass of peasantry in the plains below. This was a rich world of colossal masonry, hard-fought battles, and sea-panning commerce, gradually revealed over the last 200 years through archaeology and literary analysis of the epic poetry written about it in future generations.

For the late Bronze Age is the era of the Trojan War. Long suspected to be a half-remembered recollection of real events, the city of Troy perhaps being recorded in the diplomatic archive of the Hittites as Willa, a sometimes rebellious vassel in western Anatolia with a history of animosity with the Greeks and just maybe linked to the invasions of the Sea Peoples too. After all, Homer constantly refers to the Greeks as sackers of cities.

In the 13th century BC, we can even see hints of individuals we know from Homer in the contemporary written record. During this age, a warlike Louisian leader named Pia Maridu, whose career spanned some 35 years, launched attacks all over western Anatolia, including Woosa, and he is sometimes associated with King Pryam of Troy. Similarly, a certain prince of Woosa named Alexandu is also found in Hittite sources, just maybe contributing to the story of Paris of Troy called Alexander in the Greek sources.

So if Troy was a vassel of the Hittites, it could explain the vast coalition raised by King Pryam in the Iliad, drawing from lands all over the Hittite Empire. And similarly, the need for all the various Greek powers to combine their forces together. Just maybe then, the Trojan War could in fact be a memory of a conflict between Masonian Greece and the Hittite Empire occurring sometime in the century just before the Bronze Age collapse. And there are many other hints of conflict too between the 16th and 13th centuries BC. Perhaps the reality behind the Trojan War.

Interestingly, despite their relatively close proximity to each other, Hittite and Masonan trade goods rarely show up at each other's sites. Whereas hundreds of goods from nearly every other people in the region do. This has led some scholars to suggest that there may have been a cold war of sorts between the powers, a trade embargo even. We know of a treaty between the king of Amaru and King Toddalia which put a stop to Masonian goods reaching Assyria by sea. Historian Trevor Bryce suggests this might have actually been putting a stop to ship loads of free booting Masonian mercenaries trolling the Mediterranean in search of either plunder or military service in the hire of a foreign king. Roles they'd fulfilled from the middle of the second millennium BC all the way up to the end of the Bronze Age.

Unfortunately, masonian writing is few and far between, usually amounting to little more than lists and figures, mere scraps of information, not stories and chronicles. The Hittites, however, have much more to say, very much writing in the same style as the Mesopotamian world, regaling the stories and deeds of its kings and most importantly for us those on its borders.

One of these states mentioned over and over again is that of Aiyia, a great power to their west, often involved in skirmishes and wars. We don't know for certain, but it's likely that Aiwa describes the Aayans of Homer. In other words, the Masonian world, or at least one of their kingdoms.

By 1400 BC, we have the first named Aiyawan warlord, a king named Artisawa, ruling in the city of Mitus in Anatolia during an age when Msanian power arguably reached its very height. Having developed very quickly only a century or two earlier and expanding to the east, Artisawa was probably a local ruler in western Anatolia rather than a high king of all the Greeks. We know of him from a tablet called the indictment of Madawiada, possibly a king of Azawa, a powerful Louisian realm, sometimes vassal to the Hittites. In the text, Madiada arrives at the court of the Hitittite King Tudilada II, seeking refuge, forced out of his lands by the expansionist Artisawa, driving a 100 war chariots before him. Artisawa again launches an attack on Madawada along with other Hittite vassels before the Hittite king finally involves himself driving the Aayawan back. Finally, Artisawa launches an attack on Cyprus with help from the Luca. A similar attack to the Sea Peoples some 200 years later, accompanied this time by Madawada.

Interestingly, we can also see evidence of this expansion in the archaeological record. It was around this time that the once mighty city of Konos on Cree was put to the torch. The formerly all powerful Manoan world incorporated finally into that of mainland Greece. It had probably always been the case that whilst some Masonans traded, being called great kings and regarded as equals by the other powers, others impossible to control went raiding. It's possible the Hittite king could be at war with one Aayan power and at peace with another. Just as the fresco of the masonian citadels suggest war was waged upon their neighbors much more than anyone else.

Though lacking in any sort of literary flare, we do have some written record of the economic and military activities of the palatial elites, mostly from the city of Pyos, where linear B tablets were found in the early 20th century. The Pon rower tablets in particular make reference to crews of sailors being called up in service to their lord.

In myth, we have story after story of Greeks raiding around the known world. Homer constantly calls his protagonists sackers of cities. And in the Odyssey, he has Odysius regularly reminiscing about past glories. For before the sons of Aayans set foot on the land of Troy, I had nine times led warriors and swift fairing ships against foreign folk, and great spoil had ever fallen into my hands. of this I would choose what pleased my mind and much I afterwards obtained by lot.

In archaeology too we can clearly see the distances masonian warriors traversed depictions of them clearly visible in Egypt for centuries prior to the collapse where they are thought to have served as mercenaries. They knew the place well. Now we reach speculation. Surely there should be mention of these travelers in the Egyptian sources. Well, if the Aayans are indeed the Aiyans of the Hittite records, then why not the Equesh from the Egyptian? The name Ecquash is very similar to the Indo-Uropean word for horse. The related Latin word ecqua is pronounced the same. In this period, Indo-Uropeans were starting to lose their exclusivity when it came to using horses, but they still dominated the world's total number of horse users. And the Aayans right up until the end heavily relied on chariots.

Homer specifically mentions an Aayan attack on the Nile and Menaaus of Sparta speaks of the same in book four of the Odyssey when he recounts his own return home from the Trojan War. Later Greek myths even argue that Helen had in fact spent the time of the Trojan War not at Troy but in Egypt. After the war, the Greeks going there to recover her.

However, the situation is further complicated by existing textual evidence of the masonian world in the Egyptian sources referred to not as Equash but as the Tanahoo during the era of Tutmosis III who initiated diplomatic relations between the two powers in 1437 BC. Later in the 14th century, a list of cities of the Tanahoo are mentioned on an inscription at the mortuary temple of Ammon Hotep III. Their names given as Msini, Napleon, Kytherra, Messinia, and Thieves. But of course, these weren't the only Masonian cities. Perhaps separate factions going by separate names.

Then we have the bore tusk helmets and Agian style kilts armor often associated with both sea peoples and masonian Greece. Odysius's own helmet had a long history attaining a great age before the hero laid hands on it. And these Bors tusk helmets are found all over the Greek world, looking very similar to some of the arms and armor of the sea people. The most famous of these probably being the early example found in the 15th century BC warrior burial at Konos. They are also seen on a papyrus from Amana with two figures in Bor's tusk helmets running towards a fallen Egyptian soldier. This famous battle fresco from the palace of Neestor at Pilos, a sculpted ivory head at Msini and an Agian style warrior on a bowl from Bogakoy in the Hittite Empire from around 1400 BC. Finally, a bronze scale of armor from the Greek island of Salamus has been found, steamed with the royal cart of Pharaoh Rammeses II, perhaps belonging to an elite feronic soldier returning home after a successful career. We simply don't know.

But then in 1207 BC alongside a massive Meshw invasion force, the Equesh were present too along with the Luca, a people they may have had a long association with. Was this the event remembered by Adysius and Menaaus in Homer's Odyssey? But what happened to make the situation so desperate? How had it come to this? Gambling everything on an attack on Egypt.

By around 1300 BC, the mysterious Luian kingdom of Azawa again revolted against Hittite rule. Whilst the Aiowans are said to have claimed many islands, expansion that does seem to be supported by archaeology, notably with Masonan style pottery being found in abundance throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Soon enough, the Hittite king refers to an unnamed Aien ruler as his brother, great king, though this later seems to have been crossed out suggesting rising tensions.

By 1230 BC, signs can be seen of growing unease within the masonian palaces. Wall extensions and additional buildings within citadels suggesting a response to outside threats. And then all of a sudden, everything came to an end. Both Hittite and Masonian cities wiped off the map. Yet surely all those people don't simply disappear.

Just before the Hittite record goes blank, there is a tiny hint of events in around 1200 BC with an Aiowan presence in Luca being mentioned. With only archaeological evidence to go by, it remains unclear whether civil war or outside invasion sounded the final death nail of the masonian world. With all the major sites of the mainland, meeting their end around the same time. Yet manans lived all over the place. And it's been argued that some of the old elites may have fled to the islands of the sea. Perhaps the Cichlides, mysterious home to the civilization that came before the Greeks, makers of these strangely modern looking figures, and later said to have been the very birthplace of Zeus himself. here. These early Greek lords may have fled to end their days. Their followers and their descendants. Who knows?

Whether it was the palatial elites going off on invasions or their subjects now free from overlordship to do as they wished. It remains unclear. Maybe it was both. The picture we get from archaeology is of massive fires, huge quantities of arrow heads and destruction. However, in some places only the palace structures were burned, suggesting a popular uprising. We can follow not only the sway of violence from Greece all the way across Anatolia to Cyprus into the Levant and finally into Egypt but masonian style pottery too on Cyprus roads cree and finally the Levant.

Evidence also exists of a refortification and construction boom on Cyprus atmar paleiocastro hala sultan te near lanaka and especially encomi. There is an argument for these having been built by ousted masonians forced onto the high seas by societal and political turmoil, perhaps dethroned Masonian Greeks and even Hittites amongst their ranks. Victims of the Bronze Age collapse rather than instigators. But of course, their presence exacerbating it. Maybe some allied with the Luca, their neighbors on the Anatolian coast, like Artisawa of ages gone by.

In mythology, the cyclopian masonry at Tyrins was said to have been built by Cyclopses from Lysa, who then accompanied Protos back to Greece with an army of Lysans to help claim a portion of his kingdom back. Just maybe a half-remembered tale of Luca and Equesh going back to Greece after their raids elsewhere.

Of course, when Odysius returns, his land and wife have been claimed by many suitors, often referred to as pirates. Maybe rather than wait and have their lands ravaged, some Masonan warriors set out to claim new lands on their own. Yet there is a problem with the theory. Egyptian sources clearly tell us that these warriors were circumcised. They counted their dead by making piles of corpses. This would have been unusual for Greeks. So we are left confused once more.

But it isn't just the Aquash with possible links to Greece. In the late 19th century, sunscorched desert around him, pioneering Egyptologist Flenders Petri found the immaculately preserved mummy of a long deceased Egyptian high functionary, a court official of the pharaoh Ramsy's III. Hieroglyphs confirmed the identity of this figure as an enters a butler in the service of the dynasty. Clearly having fair hair, it's been hypothesized that an antia was not originally from Egypt. Based on the name of the mummy, it's further been speculated that he may have been Teres, the last of the sea peoples spoken of in 1207 BC, just maybe one member of a nation on the move, pulled into the vast displacements of the late Bronze Age collapse. But if he was a terish, how did an enters end up at Rammeses's court? Laid to rest in the decades after the sea's invasions with all the dignity of an elite member of Egyptian society. If his origins had been with that seaborn confederation, what things that Teresi might have seen. So many civilizations crumbled and left by the wayside only to end his days in Egypt, focus of the last great gamble of the Sea Peoples. Succeeding where so many others had failed.

But who were the ter reliefs in Egypt depict them as bearded, wearing pointed kilts, strips of leather or linen to protect their chests, and carrying either spears or scimitars. As to their origins, there are many hypotheses. Anatolia is a popular choice with arguments ranging from the Hittite Empire to their Louisian neighbors in the west. There is even an especially controversial inscription allegedly discovered by archaeologist James Melard in the 20th century. Also the discoverer of the Neolithic city of Chatal Hoyuk. Unfortunately, the inscription may well be a forgery. Though if real, it provides an unprecedented window into the Louisian world, purporting to describe a great raid through the Hittite Empire and on into Egypt at around the time of the late Bronze Age collapse.

Another argument is for the Troad region around Troy. The Trojan name for themselves was Terusia. And whether they'd been fighting the Greeks on their own behalf or on behalf of the Hittites in the aftermath of the destruction of their city, either destroyed by Greeks, Friians, Thrians, or a combination of all, they had to go somewhere. Finally, an Italian link has been argued. Perhaps forebears of the Atruscans ousted from mainland Italy or even inhabitants of the Terrannian Sea between Italy and Sardinia. A related people to the Sheran and sheles perhaps. There is a shred of evidence for this too in the form of an 8th century BC epic poem commonly attributed to Homer which describes a band of Tenian pirates sailing well-decked ships to war. Though at present we can't know for sure where Anenersia originated. We know that thousands of outsiders were settled in Egypt during this time. With a coalition so elusive as the Sea Peoples, where they ended up is often just as interesting as where they came from. To investigate this further, we must move forward a few centuries in time. To the territories once held by Imperial Egypt, now held on to by a number of local powers. Some having inhabited the region for centuries, millennia even, others being new arrivals.

In 1177 BC, just as the late Bronze Age world collapsed, yet more warriors came to Egypt, sailing their odded gs down the myriad waterways of the Nile. 30 years had passed since the last recorded invasion. And 30 years is a long time. Entire generations having lived and died in the midst of societal turmoil. The names of these newcomers were Peliset, Teka, Sheillesh, Denuna, and Wesh. The first of these names arrives seemingly out of nowhere, the Peliset.

In the Medinet Habu reliefs, some Peliset are depicted as fighting alongside Sheran with the Egyptian army. Most, however, fight alongside the Libyans against Egypt. Anything else we know tantalizingly little yet the Peliset remain probably the most well-known of all the sea peoples not necessarily for their appearance in the Egyptian sources showing up only in the reliefs of a single pharaoh and a handful of other sources but for their possible appearances in the Holy Bible. Ultimately, no material has ever been excavated that can be definitively equated with the Sea Peoples. For the most part, we simply don't know where they ended up, and we wouldn't know what to look for, even if we did. The newcomers very possibly merging into whatever society they came into contact with. The best case, however, and there is a lot of evidence, must be for the peliset.

Back in the early 19th century, Jean Francois Champolon was the first scholar to equate the Peliset to a people we already know well. For there is a good argument that the Peliset are one and the same as the Philistines, longtime rivals and antagonists to the Israelites of the Old Testament who inhabited the southern Levant during biblical times, aka the period immediately following the Bronze Age collapse. The Old Testament of the Bible is filled with violence and war. And the Philistines were no exception. Seeming more powerful than most. A marshall culture imposing itself on a fragmented landscape. For the mighty warrior Goliath of David and Goliath fame was a philistine.

Over the last century, extensive archaeology has been carried out at four of the five cities of the Philistine Pentopoulos. Ashcolon, Ashdod, Telmcn, and Tel Assafi. All situated on the southern coastal plane of ancient Canaan, a land long held by imperial Egypt. Though not definitively linking the cities to the Peliset, the general archaeological consensus is of an incoming culture arriving in the years after the Bronze Age collapse. There are hints in the Egyptian sources, too. In the papyrus Harris, Rammeses III claims to have settled vanquished peoples in strongholds bound in his name, suggesting groups of Peliset may have been settled on his orders in Canaan. Lingering Egyptian influence seen in the Philistine pentapoulos might suggest that they were technically vassels of Egypt, a buffer guarding the imperial frontier before finally going their own way as Egyptian influence waned by the 11th century. Finally becoming famous in the Bible, rising to dominate the local population of the region.

But where did they come from? Greece, Cree, Yria, and Western Anatolia have all been suggested. There is even an argument that the Philistines originated in Canaan. However, archaeological and written evidence seems to suggest this not to be the case. A distinct people being clearly visible after the Bronze Age collapse with their origins elsewhere, a mass migration perhaps or at least replacement of the elite. It's likely that they only arrived in Egypt after decades of wandering. Maybe they were made up of several different groups.

The strongest evidence of all, now astonishingly supported by genetics, too, suggests origins in Greece. Though the archaeological evidence isn't quite as simple as that. Masonian pottery made in mainland Greece was imported all over the Mediterranean from the 14th century until the very end of the 13th, and is found at 350 palaces all over the Mediterranean. This then promptly disappears to be replaced by an imitation style known as late heladic 3C, which is the style used by the Philistines. This is primarily why they have been associated with Greece. It could just be that their potters imitated the Greeks of old. However, there is more evidence. Peliset, Teka, and Denuna are all depicted as wearing armor very similar to Masonian Greece.

This Egyptian caricature doll originating on Malta is thought to represent a philistine with a feather topped helmet very similar to the peliset. In terms of archaeology, there are other hints of a link between Philistines and Peliset. This Philistine looking headdress found on Cree and these anthropomorphized Philistine sarcophagi at times look as if they are adorned with feathered headdresses.

In the Philistine pentapoulos, changes in food wear, including Aian style cooking jugs and the increased consumption of beef and pork, food stuffs not usually associated with the region, but associated with Greece and the Aian. Many biblical passages refer to the origins of the peliset as being on the island of Caur, often equated with cit. Indeed, some may have originated in Greece, although really it may have been their ancestors who had done so by this time having changed a significant amount. The world had changed and almost every Greek city was long dead by this time. It may even be that the range of objects associated with sea peoples, Aian style drinking sets, feathered and horned helmets, bird head devices on ships, all served as the foundation of a new collective identity, going some way to explaining the mixed nature of sea peoples. Old identities going out of the window, new charismatic leaders gaining power.

Amazingly, there is an archaeological site where we can see hints of this new identity beginning to form. This is the ancient city of Encomi in northeastern Cyprus. Once this place probably served as the capital of the Criate Kingdom of Alyssa. But by around 1200 BC, archaeology suggests that after a sacking or at least some kind of destruction, it was under the control of Greeks or at least an incoming culture from the Aian. Perhaps most famous for this ivory board game displaying charioteers and a figure with a feathered headdress. Also found here during the 12th century BC were several bronze horned figurines looking very similar to those found on Sardinia. Given the close proximity to Ugarit and Hatti, it seems possible that this place until its destruction by earthquake in around 1050 BC did serve as a staging post for seaborn attacks.

Interestingly, the bronze figurines found on Sardinia don't only have horned helmets. This one has a feathered headdress, just maybe an Aian warrior who ended his days in the west. Nevertheless, the Philistines had a golden age in the late 12th through the 11th century, which would make sense if they had been conquerors, living on in figures such as Goliath, suggesting dominance over the surrounding people. Today, the people of Gaza may well be descended in part from these sea peoples.

Unfortunately, the Peliset are the only of the sea peoples to be almost conclusively known from archaeology. Many must have merged with the people they settled with. But we do have some more evidence nonetheless.

In the early 11th century BC, an Egyptian nobleman found himself plying the seashores of the Levventine coast. Much had changed since the days when Egyptian power here had been unquestioned. When the cedar trees of Canaan had been shipped south on mass as tribute and warriors flocked southwards to have the honor of serving in the armies of the great pharaohs of the new kingdom. Now in the twilight years of the imperial age, he and his men had to barter with local leaders for passage, let alone tribute, with no guarantee of success. Such is the account of Wenamoon, a rare literary work during this dark age.

Upon reaching the city of Dor in the land of Canaan, Wammoon is forced to present the local king with a complaint after gold is stolen from his ships. Interestingly for us, Dor is specifically named as a town of the Teka, one of the names from Medanet Habu. Scraps of archaeology support this too. Cowbones, philistine style bicrome pottery, bone handles, iron knives similar to Philistine sites, and a lion headed cup being excavated here during the 1980s. The evidence is far from conclusive, the rest of the finds at door being consistent with the rest of the region. What it might suggest, however, is an elite takeover. A small influx of Teka replacing those who ruled here before.

But who were the Teka? Well, at Medanet Habu, they're depicted as fighting with short swords, long spears, and round shields. Armor reminiscent of Masonian Greece. Other scholars have even equated the Teka with the Troad of the Trojan War. It could even be that they were both arriving in Canaan by way of Cyprus, where they met with other displaced peoples. By this time, generations having now lived and died without ever knowing the authority of the palatial complexes and elites of the late Bronze Age world. Now having forged new identities in the fires of upheaval and cataclysm.

Finally, an Egyptian document, the Onamasticon of Ammonope, appears to confirm that the Peliset Sheran and Teka were still settled in Philistia in around 1100 BC.

As we have seen, there is a great deal of evidence to link the sea peoples with the Aian and the Greek world. None more so, however, than the Denuna, considered one of the major groups to attack Egypt in 1177 BC, but also seen in Hittite, Egyptian, and later classical sources. In the works of Homer, all Greeks are known as Danoi or Daans. They are mentioned over a 100 times along with Aayans and Archives spoken of more than 500 and 100 times respectively. In other words, it seems that all Greeks were Daeans, but not all Greeks were Aayans. They hailing from a specific area briefly mentioned as Tanahoo in the reigns of Tutmos III and Aman Hototeep III.

The first definitive reference to Denuna comes in the Ammana letters in relation to Aman Hototeep IV's vassel Abi Milu, king of the Phoenician city of Ty. In the text, the death of a king of Denuna is mentioned, replaced by his brother, and as a result, the land is now at peace. It's been proposed that while Equesh may relate to Aayans and Aiyawans, Denyen and Tanahoo may relate to the classical Greece Denoi. Unfortunately, we can't be sure. And there are other theories, too. Notably based on an 8th century BC bilingual inscription which talks of a king of Karateepe, an Iron Age kingdom in Cissia named Azawada, boasting of expansion into the plane of Adana to restore his people, the Danunites. Another argument is that their origins lay in the lands near Ugarit, possibly in Cyprus, serving as mercenaries in Canaan. Once defeated and captured, like the Teka, Sheran, and Peliset, it's thought that Denuna may have been settled along the coast of Palestine to help guard Egypt's way of the Philistines between Egypt and Syria. And there is some evidence for this too, like the pelicet in the Holy Bible. One of the tribes of Israel, that of Dan, is said to have originated on the sea, settling with their ships in between the cities of Echron and Japer, perhaps afterwards being forced in land by the newly arrived Philistines before merging with the Israelites over time. The most notable Israelite of the tribe of Dan was Samson, the ruler who lost his power when he cut his hair, just maybe had his origins in far off Greece. A testament to the interconnectedness of the late Bronze Age world.

In light of this, we now must turn to the last and arguably most enigmatic of all the sea peoples.

When the Hittite capital of Hertia was wiped off the map in the 12th century BC, little did its inhabitants know that at the dawn of modern historical scholarship in the 19th century, they would be forgotten. Writing just a few hundred years after the events, Homer too has no memory of the Hittite Empire. What other kingdoms have been forgotten, too? Their tales never to be retold. This brings us to the last named of the Sea Peoples to attack Egypt in 1177. Most mysterious of all, with little more to go on than a name, the Wesh.

While their origins remain unknown, some have theorized roots in Karia in Anatolia, while others see their end in Canaan, where they became the Israelites tribe of Asher. Unfortunately, there is little concrete to go on. It seems likely that Homer's Troy of Trojan War fame was in fact not a fully independent state, but a subject kingdom to the Hittite Empire. Woosa even being mentioned in the diplomatic archive retrieved from Hatusa. Like Hattie, Troy was destroyed around the same time, leading some scholars to suggest that Woosa became Wesh.

Finally, writing many centuries later, the Roman writer Virgil, using sources we've lost today, finishes Homer's story, adding on the tale of Anaeas, legendary founder of Rome. For according to Virgil, Rome was founded by exiled Trojans, forced onto the high seas to settle in Italy, where they founded the Italic race. Far-fetched this may seem, but if Sardinians, Sicilians, and Tyrannians showed up in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time, it's not impossible to think of mainland Italians involving themselves, too.

Which brings us to our very last theory, perhaps the most fascinating of all. In recent years, a number of scholars have argued for even more involvement from the Western Mediterranean. It's nearly impossible to prove. However, it's just as difficult to disprove entirely. For in the West, events were playing out, too. Events that remain almost entirely unrecorded today.

By 1300 BC, Greece wasn't the only mainland European power that kitted out its warriors with body armor, helmets, shields, and swords of bronze. For Mason, Greece had many neighbors. Though aspects of their culture were borrowed from the eastern Mediterranean, much of it was native to their lands. For this was the beginnings of the Nfield culture, ancestors of Kelts and Romans who spread over much of the European mainland during the age of upheavalss in the 13th and 12th centuries BC. Distinguished from the tumulus culture which preceded it by the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields. The numerous hoarded items of the Nfield culture and the existence of fortified hilltop settlements has often been taken as evidence for widespread warfare and upheaval during this time. A much more disunited people than masonian Greece. Nfield communities lacked the palatial complexes of the east. Yet they had all the marshall trimmings. On the battlefield, a force to be reckoned with.

A Bronze Age battle found in Germany's Tenca Valley has more bones in it than any other found during the Bronze Age. Middle East included a conflict involving thousands of combatants and lots of other evidence exists too of wars and military expansion. Any written record or even oral traditions have been entirely lost today. These bronze curuses were found at Marsa in France. And this is the Frankleburn Horde. An astonishing collection of items. This collection of 300 bronze sickles coated in strange symbols may even be a form of proto runic, a primitive writing system. If they were, what they said is anyone's guess.

One of the more curious phenomena of Bronze Age Europe, however, must be these ceremonial hats, several of which have been found at different locations dating from around 1200 BC made of thin sheets of elaborately decorated gold. It's thought that these may have been worn as ceremonial items during rituals by king priests or oracles. Perhaps used as an early form of calendar. Echoes of a similar pointed style of hat or helmet can even be seen in other areas of Europe, most notably in Sardinia, not far away.

Nfield settlements, usually of small dimensions, were generally built on hills and circumscribed with fortifications. Their economy was mostly based on agricultural and pastoral activities, metallurgy, and trade. No doubt some undertaken on a wide scale. But how did the Nfield way of life become so successful? Part of the reason could be technology. New sword technology now used for slashing instead of just stabbing, surpassing that of the preceding tumulus culture. Originating in northern Italy from around 1,200 BC, the weapon quickly spread all across the Bronze Age world, being found as far away as Ugarit just before its end.

Historian Robert Drews has further suggested that the new slashing now two sword may have ushered in an entirely new type of warfare never before seen with mobile bands of sword wielding infantry replacing chariots. Drews even suggests the political instability wrought on centralized states in the decades leading up to 1200 BC may have been caused at least in part by this new sword. Far from unified nations, today the Nfield culture is further divided into a number of subgroups. One of which, the proto Villanovven, emerged in Italy in the first half of the 12th century BC, lasting until the 10th century. It may be that this was at least in part a military invasion of Italy, one which could have had knock-on effects far away. Just maybe, wide-ranging warriors of the Nfield culture on the search for plunder and glory could have continued on into the Eastern Mediterranean, joining up with seaborn Sheran and sheles to lands far away.

And there may well have been pressing concerns which to a certain extent forced them to do so. As we have already seen, science tells us that this was an era of immense environmental turmoil. The earthquake storms of the east may not have affected Western Europe, but crop failures certainly did. Just a slight change in the climate can have a massive effect on societies. and pollen samples from northern Syria tell us definitively that at the shift from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the climate did change, becoming drier and thus much more difficult to grow food for 300 years to come. What do Marshall cultures do when they can't grow their own food? They go looking for it elsewhere, creating a domino effect across the world.

As far north as Britain, Bronze Age hill forts bear the marks of war around 1200 BC. Could the knock-on effects of events here have continued all the way to the south and then onwards to the palatial systems of the east? So far, we simply can't say for certain, but it's interesting to wonder nonetheless.

You've been watching History Time. I've been your host, Pete Kelly. Don't forget to like and subscribe, share, and let me know what you think in the comments. If you're interested in natural history, check out my latest channel, The Entire History of the Earth, where myself and David from Voices of the Past are telling the entire story of our planet from the very beginning. Also, check out Voices of the Past for dramatic retellings of primary sources from history and my other history channel, Pete Kelly, where I visit historical sites and take a closer look at archaeology. Thanks for watching. There are many, many more documentaries like this one on the way. If you made it this far, then why not leave a comment letting me know what you think. Thanks again and I'll see you on the next one.