Sea Peoples and the Phoenicians: A Critical Turning Point in History

[The Puzzler]

4 hours ago, Abramelin said:

What signs?

See post #1037 for the link.

”. It is, however, worth pointing out that the total decline of Ugarit cannot be entirely ascribed to the Sea Peoples, as hitherto widely accepted; there were other exter- nal and internal factors that altogether contributed to the downfall of the city. This study investigates Ugarit’s external relationships principally with Ḫatti and Karkamiš. These relations, which were characterized by mistrust and tension, have rarely been considered in the literature available, but in this article they will be given more weight. By tracing the tangled relationships between Ugarit and the Hittite overlords, an intense conflict, which took place mainly during the city’s final days, becomes apparent. In order to illustrate this, a brief presenta- tion of Ugarit’s political situation at the end of the Late Bronze Age is neces- sary.”

Here…https://fada.birzeit.edu/bitstream/20.500.11889/4717/1/Halayqa- UF-42 the Demise of Ugarit.pdf

 

BUT more specific to your question…I mean…it does appear the Sea People attacked many of the towns but was not the reason they fell so hard to begin with, final nails, yes.

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

15 hours ago, atalante said:

Political organization, at the time when Ugarit was attacked by ships of the Sea Peoples is demonstrated in the following video clip.  The king of Cyprus ruled over Ugarit; and the Hittites were the overlord of the king of Cyprus.   

So apparently, Ugarit society collapsed in an anti-Hittite uprising.   

atalante is onto it.

This is not about some groups of people looking to migrate because of famine.

This is an all out political play of falling governments and revenge.

[The Puzzler]

Plato says something interesting when explaining the Dorians…he says they were exiles, after the return of the men from Troy, the leaders of the country were worthless.

The whole country was in disarray, there was no government control, the men had turned to anarchy, left Kingless for a period of “ten years”, they reduced themselves to barbarians.

 

So that was the time Greece itself fell into the Dark Age…the time before the Dorians, Doric rule got it back on the path to resurrection. 
 

So, what this tells me is, that NO Sea People attacked Mycenae. It was a failing polity and the people fell with it. 
It could be why Greece came back with such vengeance on the political program. 

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

Ath. The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy. 
Cle. True. 
Ath. And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight. Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence. The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians-a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta. “
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.3.iii.html
 

In fact, I think story of Atlantis has many clues within Book III. But I’m not going there, just saying lol

“Ath. Do you believe that there is any truth in ancient traditions? 
Cle. What traditions? 
Ath. The traditions about the many destructions of mankind which have been occasioned by deluges and pestilences, and in many other ways, and of the survival of a remnant? 

Cle. Every one is disposed to believe them. 
Ath. Let us consider one of them, that which was caused by the famous deluge. 

Cle. What are we to observe about it? 
Ath. I mean to say that those who then escaped would only be hill shepherds-small sparks of the human race preserved on the tops of mountains. 

Cle. Clearly. 
Ath. Such survivors would necessarily be unacquainted with the arts and the various devices which are suggested to the dwellers in cities by interest or ambition, and with all the wrongs which they contrive against one another. 

Cle. Very true. 
Ath. Let us suppose, then, that the cities in the plain and on the sea-coast were utterly destroyed at that time. 

Cle. Very good. 
Ath. Would not all implements have then perished and every other excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have utterly disappeared? ”

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

This is the real Return of the Heraclidae…the exiles, the Achaeans who became Dorians, rose up again, (returned men of Troy)  after the fall of Mycenae, from the revolutions of the unruly citizens…

”Ath. The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy. 
Cle. True. 
Ath. And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight. Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence. The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians-a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered them together. The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as part of the history of Sparta. “

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

It’s like the Achaeans attacked Troy at its weakest moment, knowing this. The loss of the Hittite Empire as backing for  Troy would have been a paramount reason to attack. The myth has nothing to offer by taking and burning Troy, to the Achaeans. They gain nothing. They,  like Lukka, have attacked their own protectors…as a rebellion act.
The Lions Gates at Hattusa and Mycenae are relative. The Hittites were backing Greece as well. The Lions Gate is very late Mycenae. The end was nigh.
Like Ugarit, in the You Tube, the actions of the Mycenaeans were hinged on Hittite support. Once that was gone…they all fell like dominoes.

We should note, that Hattusa, is so far inland, it was not attacked by people of the sea.

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

Abe…that was to answer your question, what things? The Sea People did not attack the capital of the Hittites from a coastal position, It fell by internal strife.

Edited June 10 by The Puzzler

[atalante]

9 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

See post #1037 for the link.

 "....This study investigates Ugarit’s external relationships principally with Ḫatti and Karkamiš. These relations, which were characterized by mistrust and tension, have rarely been considered in the literature available, but in this article they will be given more weight. By tracing the tangled relationships between Ugarit and the Hittite overlords, an intense conflict, which took place mainly during the city’s final days, becomes apparent. In order to illustrate this, a brief presenta- tion of Ugarit’s political situation at the end of the Late Bronze Age is neces- sary.”

Here…https://fada.birzeit.edu/bitstream/20.500.11889/4717/1/Halayqa- UF-42 the Demise of Ugarit.pdf

 

BUT more specific to your question…I mean…it does appear the Sea People attacked many of the towns but was not the reason they fell so hard to begin with, final nails, yes.

The linked paper by Halayqa was published in 2011. https://fada.birzeit.edu/handle/20.500.11889/4717 

It shows that the Hittite empire itself had reassigned the imporant parts of Ugarit's property, includining its adjacent farmland, to other subordinates of the Hittite empire.  This left the core city Ugarit with virtually no way to support itself.  

Edited June 10 by atalante

[Abramelin]

Just adding:

When Canaanites and Philistines Ruled Ashkelon

 

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/17/2/4/en/23

 

See John A. Wilson, ANET, p. 28, for Wen-Amon, where Dor is called a “town of the Tjeker (=Sikil).” Recently Dr. Avner Raban, of the Center for Maritime Studies at Haifa University, has discovered the remains of the ancient harbor used by Wen-Amon in the 11th century B.C. at Dor (see Raban, “The Harbor of the Sea Peoples at Dor,” Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987), pp. 118–126.) The terrestrial archaeologist at Dor, Professor Ephraim Stern, considers the fortification system with glacis to have been built initially by the Sea Peoples, and specifically by the Sikils (personal communication).

 Shortly before the fall of Ugarit at the hands of the Sea Peoples, the Sikalayu, “who live on ships,” were raiding and kidnapping along the coast, according to one Akkadian letter found at Ugarit (RS 34.129). Among the last tablets written there the last king of Ugarit despairs, saying: “The enemy ships are already here, they have set fire to my towns and have done very great damage in the country” (RS 20.238). These seafarers and pirates (the Sikalayu = “Sikils”) later moved down the coast and settled in the region of Dor.

Several scholars misidentified the Sikalayu with the Sea Peoples group known as Shekelesh (e.g. G.A. Lehmann, “Die Sikalayu—ein neues Zeugnis zu den ‘seevolker’—Heerfahrten im spaten 13 Jh. V. Chr. [RS 34. 129],” Ugarit Forschung 11 [1979], pp. 481–494).

 

[docyabut2]

On 4/29/2023 at 3:21 PM, docyabut2 said:

A fresco from the palace of Pylos, dated around 1300-1200 BC. Depicted... | Download Scientific

 

Could these people be the sea peoples?

 1200 BC: Migration and expansion of Dorian Greeks. Destruction of Mycenaean city Pylos.

Edited June 10 by docyabut2

[Abramelin]

8 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

Abe…that was to answer your question, what things? The Sea People did not attack the capital of the Hittites from a coastal position, It fell by internal strife.

The Sea People was a sort of loose confederation of sailors and landlubbers.

The mayhem of around 1200 BCE took place in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe.

The point is: all these migrations and wars took place around the same time.

It was like a row of domino stones falling.

Only the last one, the Egyptian domino stone, didn't fall.

And the Phoenicians weren't even part of the row of domino stones.

Edited June 10 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

On 5/14/2023 at 5:36 PM, Abramelin said:

Yesterday I found the next paper. And don't get fooled by the title: it mentions and discusses every possible cause for the collapse at the end of the Bronze Age:

How Disease Affected the End of the Bronze Age

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7123324/#Fn8

As a reminder.

[Antigonos]

3 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

Could these people be the sea peoples?

 1200 BC: Migration and expansion of Dorian Greeks. Destruction of Mycenaean city Pylos.

No.

[Abramelin]

On 6/10/2023 at 7:04 PM, docyabut2 said:

Could these people be the sea peoples?

 1200 BC: Migration and expansion of Dorian Greeks. Destruction of Mycenaean city Pylos.

If these Dorians were depicted in that fresco as the ones wearing animal skins, then no.

No Sea People were depicted wearing animal skins as far as I remember of the Medinet Habu mural.

But who knows? Maybe they didn't travel by sea like the Sea Peoples, but travelled overland. To the Hittite empire?

[Abramelin]

On 6/10/2023 at 7:04 PM, docyabut2 said:

Could these people be the sea peoples?

 1200 BC: Migration and expansion of Dorian Greeks. Destruction of Mycenaean city Pylos.

From your link to the Dorian Greeks:

Diodorus is a rich source of traditional information concerning the mythology and history of the Dorians, especially the Library of History. He does not make any such distinction but the fantastic nature of the earliest material marks it as mythical or legendary. The myths do attempt to justify some Dorian operations, suggesting that they were in part political.^[a]

Diodorus quoting from an earlier historian Hecataeus of Abdera details that during the Exodus many Israelites went into the islands of Greece and other places.^[47]

All the foreigners were forthwith expelled, and the most valiant and noble among them, under some notable leaders, were brought to Greece and other places, as some relate; the most famous of their leaders were Danaus and Cadmus. But the majority of the people descended into a country not far from Egypt, which is now called Judaea and at that time was altogether uninhabited.

[docyabut2]

They are almost always referred to as just "the Dorians", as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey,^[2] where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete.

And why the Destruction of the Mycenaean city Pylos.?

 

Edited June 11 by docyabut2

[The Puzzler]

On 6/11/2023 at 1:43 AM, Abramelin said:

Just adding:

When Canaanites and Philistines Ruled Ashkelon

 

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/17/2/4/en/23

 

See John A. Wilson, ANET, p. 28, for Wen-Amon, where Dor is called a “town of the Tjeker (=Sikil).” Recently Dr. Avner Raban, of the Center for Maritime Studies at Haifa University, has discovered the remains of the ancient harbor used by Wen-Amon in the 11th century B.C. at Dor (see Raban, “The Harbor of the Sea Peoples at Dor,” Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987), pp. 118–126.) The terrestrial archaeologist at Dor, Professor Ephraim Stern, considers the fortification system with glacis to have been built initially by the Sea Peoples, and specifically by the Sikils (personal communication).

 Shortly before the fall of Ugarit at the hands of the Sea Peoples, the Sikalayu, “who live on ships,” were raiding and kidnapping along the coast, according to one Akkadian letter found at Ugarit (RS 34.129). Among the last tablets written there the last king of Ugarit despairs, saying: “The enemy ships are already here, they have set fire to my towns and have done very great damage in the country” (RS 20.238). These seafarers and pirates (the Sikalayu = “Sikils”) later moved down the coast and settled in the region of Dor.

Several scholars misidentified the Sikalayu with the Sea Peoples group known as Shekelesh (e.g. G.A. Lehmann, “Die Sikalayu—ein neues Zeugnis zu den ‘seevolker’—Heerfahrten im spaten 13 Jh. V. Chr. [RS 34. 129],” Ugarit Forschung 11 [1979], pp. 481–494).

 

Yes, this is what totally changed my mind and made me realise the internal political conflicts within this…

 

As for the matter concerning those enemies: (it was) the people from your country (and) your own ships (who) did this! And (it was) the people from your country (who) committed these transgression(s) ... I am writing to inform you and protect you. Be aware”

Answer from the Vizier of Cyprus to the King of Ugarit.

 

[The Puzzler]

10 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

They are almost always referred to as just "the Dorians", as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey,^[2] where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete.

And why the Destruction of the Mycenaean city Pylos.?

 

Ok, why indeed?

[The Puzzler]

On 6/11/2023 at 3:04 AM, docyabut2 said:

Could these people be the sea peoples?

 1200 BC: Migration and expansion of Dorian Greeks. Destruction of Mycenaean city Pylos.

It’s a big question.

I think the Dorian Greeks as per Plato’s explanation, that I gave could encompass sea faring Mycenaean Greeks as part of the Sea People. 
A Lukka/Arzawa…becoming an Achaean/Doric people.

[The Puzzler]

On 6/11/2023 at 3:16 AM, Abramelin said:

The Sea People was a sort of loose confederation of sailors and landlubbers.

The mayhem of around 1200 BCE took place in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe.

The point is: all these migrations and wars took place around the same time.

It was like a row of domino stones falling.

Only the last one, the Egyptian domino stone, didn't fall.

And the Phoenicians weren't even part of the row of domino stones.

The Egyptian domino did fall actually…the Libu, Libya did indeed gain control of the Western areas of Egypt, installing themselves to Sais. 

[Abramelin]

7 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

Yes, this is what totally changed my mind and made me realise the internal political conflicts within this…

 

As for the matter concerning those enemies: (it was) the people from your country (and) your own ships (who) did this! And (it was) the people from your country (who) committed these transgression(s) ... I am writing to inform you and protect you. Be aware”

Answer from the Vizier of Cyprus to the King of Ugarit.

 

You'd think the king of Ugarit would recognize people from his own country??

 

[Abramelin]

7 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

The Egyptian domino did fall actually…the Libu, Libya did indeed gain control of the Western areas of Egypt, installing themselves to Sais. 

They conquered ONE city:

[The Puzzler]

20 hours ago, Abramelin said:

You'd think the king of Ugarit would recognize people from his own country??

 

Good question…I have thought about it, so I’m going with, he didn’t observe the attack. 

[The Puzzler]

20 hours ago, Abramelin said:

They conquered ONE city:

One is enough. The Pharoah Amasis was in Sais and Osiris cult was also there. It apparently also survived the “deluge” and had a hidden agenda connection with Athens

But just the first one, seat of the Pharoah….was enough to install the power they needed.

[The Puzzler]

On 6/12/2023 at 3:36 AM, Abramelin said:

If these Dorians were depicted in that fresco as the ones wearing animal skins, then no.

No Sea People were depicted wearing animal skins as far as I remember of the Medinet Habu mural.

But who knows? Maybe they didn't travel by sea like the Sea Peoples, but travelled overland. To the Hittite empire?

No, the murals depict the warriors wearing a skirt, most of them, some with tassels…I know there is other outfits shown, but the skirts are predominant in the battle ships scenes.

Edit PS…yea, it could be the people shown wearing the animal skin/ more elaborate outfits, could be the land forces.

Edited June 13 by The Puzzler