THE SEA PEOPLES
All at once, they were on the move, scattered in war. They laid their hands upon the lands to the very circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting; Our plans will succeed... " (Ramesses III).
The name "Peoples of the Sea" comes directly from the Egyptian records, describing the Sea Peoples' exploits. As their collective name tells us, they were tribes who had developed a life style almost totally dependent upon the sea. They perfected boats, sailing and navigational techniques for fishing offshore as well as long distance travel and explored much of the Atlantic ocean. They invented or improved the easily constructed leather boats (coracle) by discovering that oak-tanned hides would keep their shape and usefulness when used in contact with salt water and to keep their boats sea-worthy, even after many days at sea. It appears that all the Sea Peoples adhered to the ancient religion of the one Great Goddess. Close contact was maintained by boat between these tribes trading goods and to standardize their religion, universal language, traditions and oral history. As all the Sea Peoples were actively involved in exploring the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Atlantic, the people keeping up the contacts must have heard fascinating tales of daring deeds, strange discoveries, amazing experiences and also of enormous hardships and loss of life. All these legendary tales are now irretrievably lost. (See Nyland (2001) for more details)
It appears that, as a result of the conquering of Crete by the aggressive Achaian pirates from the Greek mainland in about 1,400 bce., the Sea Peoples realized that their way of life, religion and their very existence was threatened by the new cult of the cruel sky gods of the Near East. The tribes of the Goddess then bonded closer together and formed the league of the Sea Peoples, the religious leadership of which was centered on the islands of Malta(1) and Gozo(2). It must have been a heart-wrenching decision to organize and arm for war, because most of these traditionally non-aggressive, fun- and life-loving people had rarely been at odds with other people. They had been too busy exploring and settling the empty parts of the earth, which had earlier been inaccessible or made unlivable by the ice and unfavable climate of the last ice age. There was no war mentality among them.
THE RECORDS
Many written references exist in Egypt documenting the activities of the Sea Peoples. Here in brief are a few of those mentioned in historical documents and elaborated on elsewhere:
1341 bce., ambassadors of the Sea Peoples, possibly from the British Isles and Ireland, brought special gifts for Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen Nefertiti, indicating a good relationship between their countries. The pharaoh and his queen had tried to break the hold of the polytheistic, male-dominated religion of Egypt and had returned to the old ways of the Great Goddess.
1290 bce., a major attack by Sea Peoples on Egypt. Ramesses II appears to have had trouble warding off the attack because in 1,278 bce., a source reported: "the Delta now lies safe in its slumbers now that the King has destroyed the warriors of the Great Green Sea". This may have been the end of the hostilities started in 1290.
1274 bce., Sherden auxiliaries, probably from Cyrenaica or Libya, fight alongside the Egyptian troops in the Battle of Kadesh. These may have been mercenaries who had been taken prisoners in the fighting of the past years.
1231 bce., In the fifth year of Pharaoh Merenptah's reign, the Libyans attacked the western Nile delta over land, supported by a group of Sea Peoples who had come from Anatolia by boat to Libya (probably Kirrukaska from the north coast of Anatolia). The attack was defeated, many were captured and settled in camps and trained as Egyptian mercenaries.
1210 bce., Pharaoh Merenptah wins a decisive victory over the Libyans in the western desert. The allies of the Libyans had been the Aqaiwasha people of the "foreign lands of the sea" probably the British.
1193 bce., In the fifth year of Ramesses III's reign, the Sea Peoples attacked Egypt by land and sea but few details are available.
1190 bce., In the eighth year of Ramesses III the attackers came back, again on both land and sea. The sea forces were driven off and sailed away in westward direction. Those who came by land were captured, branded with the Pharaoh's name and settled in military camps in the southern Palestinian coastal district, where the overland trade route to Syria was threatened by Bedouin attackers. These people were also used later as mercenaries against their own kinfolk who came back in 1,180 bce., and were called the Meshwesh people by the Egyptians.
1,180 bce.., some books say 1186, a truly massive attack by the League of the Sea Peoples started in the north of the eastern Mediterranean with the destruction of the Greek pirate states (except Athens), and continued on along the Turkish coast where all the harb cities were ransacked and burned and the Hittite empire was totally eliminated. This attack was followed immediately by the destruction of all the city states on the east shore of the Mediterranean. Correspondence has been found which shows that all these disasters had been reported to the Egyptians so that, when the Sea Peoples eventually sailed up the Nile river, Ramesses III was ready and waiting for them with his newly built fleet of oar-driven war galleys. A fierce battle followed during which the large, poorly maneuverable sailing ships were either capsized or captured and large numbers of fighters killed in the fighting or later executed. This action finally ended the efforts of the Sea Peoples to defeat the aggressively advancing patriarchal forces of the sky gods. A detailed description of these events may be found in Nancy K. Sandar's book "The Sea Peoples" (1987), chapters 5 to 8.
The Sea Peoples======================================================
The Sea Peoples could be Basque/Berbers. Both of them have the same rate of Rh negative blood.
