Sea Peoples
Publication information:
Emanuel, J. P. (2017). Sea Peoples. In S. K. Stein (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, Trade (pp. 22-24). Santa Barbara: ABC–CLIO.
Abstract
The "Sea Peoples" are best known from Egyptian records of the 13th and 12th centuries BCE, where they are portrayed as foreign invaders who laid waste to empires across the Near East in the years surrounding the tumultuous transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The groups who collectively comprise the Sea Peoples, rendered in Egyptian as "Denyen," "Ekwesh," "Lukka," "Peleset" (the biblical Philistines), "Shekelesh," "Sherden," "Sikils" ( or "Tjekker"), " Teresh," and "Weshesh," primarily appear individually and in various combinations in the records of the pharaohs Ramesses II (ruled 1279-1213 BCE), Memeptah (1213- 1203 BCE), and Ramesses III (1183-1153 BCE), as well as in multiple texts from the Syrian trading emporium of Ugarit.