Talk:Sea Peoples/Archive 2

Contradiction in Article
The article claims Maspero coined the term sea peoples but later claims that Merenptah called them peoples of the sea. This needs correction. John D. Croft (talk) 21:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

This first link does not go to the correct page and comes up as 404- page not found, so this should be corrected. The article has very solid reliable information, but this link below appears troublesome. Philistine Kin Found in Early Israel, Adam Zertal, BAR 28:03, May/Jun 2002 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tdroback (talk • contribs) 19:01, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Dates
The dates of the Egyptian records in the 2nd table seem inconsistent with the remainder of the article. In the table these dates appear 1275, 1150, 1200, 1000 (all circa). From the reigns of the pharaohs mentioned, or the dates actually stated in the article, the dates should be circa 1275, 1205, 1175, and 1100.--Vortimer (talk) 10:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree - fixed. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:22, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Cambridge Ancient History on Sea Peoples
The Cambridge Ancient History has a link on the Sea Peoples to the Story of Mopsus ("the calf"), whose story seems linked to Cilicia, to the Libyans and to Ashkelon. This has connections to the Adana/Denyen/Danaan connection too.John D. Croft (talk) 13:24, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Alternative Theories on the Sea People
Given the many alternative theories shown here, perhaps we need a new Wikipedia Article on these topics. John D. Croft (talk) 13:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Varangians, Vikings. Miklagård was Istanbul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.27.30.118 (talk) 22:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Connection to the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer - Radical Suggestion
The Sea Peoples were, in my humble opinion, the people that Odysseus met in Scheria who helped him return to Ithaca. It is said that some Greek goddess, after the Phaeacians of Scheria gave Odysseus a passage home to Ithaca, turned their ship into stone and it sank. I interpret this as a metaphor for the ship having failed to return to Scheria. I make a tentative guess that the Phaeacians saw the cause of the disappearance of their ship as an attack by either the people of Ithaca or a neighboring civilization. In the last book of the Odyssey, Homer mentions that the (what I believe is metaphorical) transfiguration of their ship into stone made the Phaeacians regretful for their hospitality. As hospitality was viewed as very important by the people of the day, including the Phaeacians themselves, as it is today, such a disappearance of their ship could, especially since their ship was very seaworthy and unlikely to be destroyed by the forces of nature, be interpreted rather rashly as an act of war.

I think it makes sense because of the timing, especially. The Trojan War took place at around 1190 BC, and the invasion of the Sea Peoples took place at just around that time. I also believe it is noteworthy that the Phaeacians, somehow or another, knew about the outcome of the Trojan War and even of the Trojan horse stratagem of Odysseus, and in fact performed it on stage to entertain Odysseus (of course, King Alcinous, upon seeing Odysseus weeping, realized that the person who had washed ashore was in fact Odysseus himself!).

This implies that the civilization wasn't as secluded as they may have implied, as when Nausicaa, the King's daughter, said that "we are the farthest of all mortals." As I believe Scheria was in fact Bermuda, as there were olive trees growing on its shore, and the Olivewood is endemic to Bermuda, in addition to Scheria having been placed extremely far away from Ithaca in the "River Oceanus," which I believe is nothing other than the Gulf Stream, I hypothesize that the fact that the Scherians knew of the exploits of Odysseus merely ten years after the story of the Trojan horse forces us to conclude that the Scherians were conducting secret reconnaissance of the Mediterranean region in some way or another.

It is clear that they could not have known about the Trojan war and the horse stratagem unless they were somehow a seafaring civilization which could sail to and from the Western Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and far beyond perhaps, and the fact that others were not aware of them during that time implies that they were actively concealing themselves rather than peacefully conducting trade with local civilizations or otherwise making themselves known. It is also possible that they were collecting intelligence through a spy network of some sort.

In any case, I believe that the Phaeacians, whose hospitality must not be taken to be necessarily peace-loving, either to gain glory in defeating the Mycenaeans who had triumphed over Troy, or in believing that their hospitality was offended and their ship besieged and sunk, gathered their fellow island civilizations, and designed to attack and conquer the Mediterranean civilizations and colonize their land. I find the disappearance of the ship to be a plausible cause for war, especially given the way people in that age had a high sense of honor and sought vengeance for actions that might seem rather petty and inconsequential today; i.e. a ten year war fought for one abducted woman. It is also known that cultures that are known for their hospitability to strangers are, somewhat counterintuitively, the most warlike (i.e. the antebellum South, the Mycenaean Greeks, and I daresay, the Phaeacians).

This argument, I concede, is hard to substantiate, as it is based on literary interpretation. I am by no means an expert on Homer's works, but I have somewhat of a sixth sense on matters like these. =) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.95.21.176 (talk) 09:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * There is a link to Eberhard Zangger's article at Saudi Aramco. Make sense

"Labu: This tribe from which the land of Libya takes its name is sometimes called the Labu, Libu, or Rebu, and appears in many Egyptian texts, such as the inscriptions on the temple at Medinet Habu. The earliest of these texts is the Papyrus Anastasi II in Dynasty XVIII and appear in texts, if only rarely, up until Dynasty XXI. It is unclear for certain where the Labu originated, but they may have originated from west of the region of Libya. It is clear, however, that along with other tribes such as the Meshwesh they replaced the pervious inhabitants of Libya at some time during the New Kingdom. If the Labu are from the west of Libya, then it seems strange to associate them so closely with the Sea Peoples, even if the Labu do fight alongside the Sea Peoples against the Egyptians. Another theory, though, is that the Libu originated in the Balkans and were driven to migration by the Illyrians, with the Libu finally settling in Libya. The other Sea Peoples are generally thought to have originated in the Aegean, in the case of the Peleset, or in Anatolia, in the case of many of the other Sea Peoples tribes. The Labu are characterized by a number of features when they are depicted in Egyptian reliefs, such as fair skin, red hair, and blue eyes. They also wore ornamental cloaks, had one lock of hair, and were tattooed on their arms and legs." http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/sea.htm  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libu
 * How come they missed that? Because of the last sentence?

Conclusion. DNA proved that 18-19th dynasty were "R" DNA, probably come as Hyksos. There is also proof that there is more red hair and blue eyes in royal dynasty- on Mitani side. http://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedrace.html Also that Akhenaton was influenced by Vedas by his Mitani wife Nefertiti. http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/Akhenaten.pdf http://www.jatland.com/home/Original_Home_of_the_Indo-Aryans http://www.mgr.org/DivineMessage.html Labu could be expeled-refugees from Hittite-Mitani-Egypt business and they could spark this war, probably dynastic fight for the thrones, what could actualy be wars between Hittites,Mitanis and Egypt as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lapsoo (talk • contribs) 13:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I love Salimbeti's 'Holodeck' page, but he's hardly a source to take seriously on Wikipedia. And your sources go downhill from there. Please read WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. We should be using academic sources here, not fringe or amateur sources. The Libu article is certainly right in suggesting a relationship to Berbers, an ethnically mixed group. The article should probably mention that the Libu occasionally allied with the Hyksos. Zangger fails WP:RS even as fringe - no serious discussion I can find in mainstream sources. Dougweller (talk) 15:09, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

"Generally accepted outline of the Sea People’s incursions leaves many of its most significant questions unanswered. We still do not know either the origins or the motives of the Sea People. It is also hard to understand why they did not attempt to permanently subdue the countries they overwhelmed. Finally, virtually nothing is known about the fate of the Sea People themselves following these crisis years.Now that there is a wealth of highly specific information in hand from numerous excavations and text sources relevant to those years, scholars have become more and more inclined to think that the time has come to begin solving some of these riddles. Although a search for a unifying explanation began some time ago, and academic conferences abound on the crisis years, the Sea People, and the Trojan War, there has still been little progress toward a plausible explanation for this watershed in history. Some archeologists suggested that the Sea People may have been invaders from central Europe. Others saw them as scattered soldiers who turned to piracy, or who had become refugees. For a long time, researchers sought to explain the transformations around 1200 BC by invoking natural disasters such as earthquakes or climatic shifts, but earthquakes on such a broad geographic scale are unheard of, and no field evidence has indicated significant climatic change. Currently, very few—if any—archeologists would consider the Sea People to have been identified. I stumbled on these problems, mostly by accident, in an unlikely place. In the spring of 1990, I was writing up the conclusions of my dissertation research, which had involved several years of investigation in the Mycenaean heartland, searching out clues to determine what the landscape of the Bronze Age had been. The work had little to do with the Sea People." http://shebtiw.wordpress.com/lost/sea-people/ Fringe or amateur sources are ussualy colections of academic sources under "connect the dots" rule. I added 2 academic sources. First to Akhenaten's connection to Vedas and above with his own quote to prove that it is academic.


 * What academic sources? Kak's a computer scientist and that's self-published. What sources do you have that have gone through peer review, been published by an academic press, etc? Dougweller (talk) 15:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Confusing sentence in introductory paragraph needs rewrite
What on earth does this mean:

The problem with such statements is that between the gentilic nomenclature and the one of the hapiru last several centuries (Hapiru are renown since the II millenium B. C.), in between nobody could deny that there was no references to "Hebrews" as a nation, until properly the epoch of the Sea Peoples invasion; only in the times of Merneptha, in fact, we have the prime mention to a "seed of Israel". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikeblyth (talk • contribs) 14:46, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The writing is so awful, it's hard to tell, so I removed it. I also removed the preceding bit, as it references both sides of the controversy over Habiru, but is a bit undue to bring all that into an article about Sea Peoples where it is only tangential.  Readers can click on Habiru to find the various arguments about them one way or the other - not read a proxy debate about it here, where it is only tangential, and there are already enough controversies surrounding the actual topic, Sea Peoples. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Help needed: Relevance of Manuel Robbins
See talk page of Bronze Age collapse:


 * The relevance of a very popular author is in question.
 * Does anybody know Manuel Robbins? Is he relevant?
 * See the talk page. Thank you. --Thorwald C. Franke (talk) 21:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

B class?
This article was first rated as a B class in 2007 by someone using AWB. I cannot see how this can possible be a B class article. It is a jumble of single sentence paragraphs, hypotheses with seemingly WP:OR conclusions, and sections that appear out of nowhere.

I believe a large amount of work is necessary to get this to B standard, which is not warranted here at present. While there is a great deal of factual information from the Egyptian records, a lot of the rest of it is badly written and non-factual. I believe the page should be split to leave the Egyptian parts here, with the majority of the "hypotheses" sections removed to a separate article and a summary left behind in a single section.

The article states that the wars between Egypt and the Sea People were 1236-23 BC and during the 20th dynasty (most notably Ramses III) between 1198–66 BC. From the point of view of Cyprus, the main influx of peoples were the Mycaenean Greeks starting in 1400 BC, and greatly increasing in a second wave between 1100-1050 BC after the collapse of the MG. Personally, I would find it difficult to imagine anyone other than the MG being the sea peoples. These are the Ekwesh mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (used as one of the main sources)

To get to a B class, an article should show that:


 * 1) The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited.
 * 2) The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.
 * 3) The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.
 * 4) The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it certainly need not be "brilliant". The Manual of Style need not be followed rigorously.
 * 5) The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
 * 6) The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.

I believe that only 1 and 2 are met, with the greatest problems in 3, 4 and 6. I also believe there is little archaeological evidence, and that the references used have been somewhat misrepresented. For example the EB states "Tentative identifications". Identification of the Sea People is from Egyptian and Hittite sources, but the majority of the hypotheses sections refer to civilisations and people that are out of the time frame, or plainly wrong.
 * The "Mycenaean warfare hypothesis" section states that "There would have been few or no external invaders and just a few excursions outside the Greek-speaking part of the Aegean civilization."
 * This is blatantly incorrect. The MG roamed far and wide, from the Wikipedia article on them: "Mycenaean pottery, for example, has been found in Sardinia,[27] Southern Italy and Sicily,[28] Asia Minor[29] (i.e. Milawatta or Miletus, Iasus and Ephesus[30][31][32] where high-quality Palace style and Mycenaean ceramics have been recovered[33]) Cyprus,[34] the Levant,[35] and Egypt (especially Tell el Amarna)" I have also included some of the history of Cyprus (see above) which shows that the MG had taken Cyprus as their own from 1400 BC to 1050 BC. Crete (MG's main southern island - inc. Knossos) and Cyprus lie to the north of Egypt, and are both only 250 miles from Egypt. More importantly, these two islands are the only land to the north of Egypt apart from western Turkey, which was then Greek with Greek culture dominating its west coast as far north as Troy.


 * Troy is quoted as being one of the possibilities, yet it would have had to send its ships out through the MG area, very unlikely to be them, and more importantly it was part of the "Aegean civilisation", and so basically part of the MG - so basically those two sections are talking about the same thing.
 * The "Philistine hypothesis" has nothing to do with this article. It merely states that the Philistines might have been the MG, not that the Philistines were the Sea People

On further reading, the reader finds out that most, if not all, of these "hypotheses" are talking about the MG, or the Aegean civilisation which was the MG territory. They are all talking about the same thing.

The "Notes" section mix notes ([NB]} and citations, while the 24-book bibliography "Sources" contains a list of books with few citations from them, and it is difficult to identify those parts of the article that can be attributed to them other than single attribs. Similarly, the methods of citation are varied and extremely poor in several cases. Chaosdruid (talk) 06:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I hadn't noticed the class. I've downgraded to C for all projects. Upgraded importance to Egyptology, downgraded it to ethnic groups because I can't understand why this old and somewhat mysterious group was mid. Just out of curiosity, is any of part of the problem? Dougweller (talk) 10:24, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for the quick response and action. I will check this later tonight as it is an extensive change, and I am about to sit down for Sunday lunch (damn those mobile emails lol!)
 * There are some strange areas, such as the "Serbian Bog" section, which seems like it is just stuck in for a laugh - I am sure it is relevant, but it is not really clear in what way.
 * I have a friend who is a published Egyptologist, noted for being one of the people who started the "alternative timeline of dynasties", who mentioned the Sea Peoples to me in passing a while ago. I thought I would follow it up for our next meet in a few weeks, as the Egyptian mentions correlated closely to the dates of two waves of Cyprus MG influx I learned about while doing articles on Cyprus pre-history. I wanted to do some research on them, first port of call was Wiki for refs to read up on, then total dismay, so thanks for the work so far! Chaosdruid (talk) 17:24, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Question about Doggerland
204.38.52.66 (talk) 17:28, 14 July 2014 (UTC) As the Sea Peoples were known by this name over an extended period of time would that not imply they arrived over an extended period of time? Such as the time a land would sink? That they came by ship would indicate their strong sea faring ability. That they came again and again would indicate their travels were known to their group still in residence back home. The had a reluctance to divulge their origins. Additionally, and strongest, I think the weather of their submerged home--Doggerland-- was a determining factor in their decision to seek new homes south, finding the Med most favorable.

First mention of "Sea Peoples" - 1855 de Rouge, or Maspero in 1881?
Note 5 cites a couple of sources stating Maspero first coined the term.

But de Rouge, who was Maspero's mentor, definitely used it first (per footnote 3). But i can't see a secondary source stating the same.

Any ideas?

Oncenawhile (talk) 10:49, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I have found one here, but it says de Rouge started using the term in 1867 not 1855. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Mistake since 2006
A number of edits from User:Flembles and User:Leoboudv in 2006 (e.g. and ) led to this article including the misleading statement:


 * The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term "the foreign-countries (or 'peoples') of the sea" (Egyptian n3 ḫ3s.wt n<.t> p3 ym)

The implication of the statement directly contradicts Killebrew (see the sources and quotes I added), and the source used to justify this statement (see p.56) is actually using the text to refer to either just the Eqwesh, or all three of the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh, but definitely not all nine.

Oncenawhile (talk) 19:53, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Crackpot Theories
The Atlantic Ocean hypothesis is nonsense. I'm sure there are other theories. Why don't we put them in the article too. Hey, I have a theory can I put it in the article?

I hope there's a good reason why that section is there otherwise I'm going to delete it. Dr. Morbius (talk) 04:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd cut it per WP:FRINGE. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 06:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Oncenawhile (talk) 07:55, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Term used to describe
Hi, please could you explain this edit from a couple of months ago?

The sources here are clear that the concept of the Sea Peoples is just a theory, and the term "Sea Peoples" is a modern term with a tenuous basis in any evidence. See e.g.:
 * Kilebrew 2013, p. 2: "First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term "Sea Peoples" encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). [Footnote: The modern term "Sea Peoples" refers to peoples that appear in several New Kingdom Egyptian texts as originating from "islands" (tables 1-2; Adams and Cohen, this volume; see, e.g., Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term "Sea Peoples" in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation "of the sea" appears only in relation to the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Hencefore the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]"
 * Drews, p48–61 Quote: "The thesis that a great "migration of the Sea Peoples" occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, "eins ist aber sicher: Nach den agyptischen Texten haben wir es nicht mit einer 'Volkerwanderung' zu tun." Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but on their interpretation."

Oncenawhile (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was trying to avoid a presentation in the lede that this article is about a term, rather than a concept. If it is preferable that we emphasize their unproven status in the beginning, we could instead begin with saying explicitly that the Sea Peoples are a conjectured or theorized group of seafaring raiders, etc. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks - I agree with your proposal. I will implement. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:01, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The Serbonian Bog needs to go
Hi all, I am actually really impressed by the state of this article and think everyone has done a fine job. That being said, ending with that Serbonian Bog section is a huge sour note for me. I have never heard the name associated with the /Sherden/ and find the linguistic connection implausible. I am, of course, happy to be wrong if anyone can provide me some evidence for the proposition! I'll check back in a while, and unless someone voices a strong opinion to the contrary, I'll be removing that section. Thanks! Dumuzid (talk) 17:59, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I couldn't source it either, and as there's been a citation request sitting there since April 2011, I removed it. Doug Weller (talk) 18:26, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mr. Weller -- I was about to unilaterally remove it myself, but I wanted to be polite! Dumuzid (talk) 18:33, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Nuragic Peoples of Sardinia
This article includes a lot of discussion of the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia with no citations whatsoever. I am in no way an expert, so perhaps this is a perfectly cromulent theory, but it strikes me as a bit of a reach. Can anyone substantiate this idea? Thank you! Dumuzid (talk) 18:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I should say that I found this link at the Nuragic civilization page, but it seems quite a slim reed on which to rest such a prominent part of this article. Dumuzid (talk) 18:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * DumuzidI don't like it very much, but it does state it's an interview with Giovanni Ugas, and barring someone reading one of his books, that and are probably the best we are going to get. History of Sardinia has "It is known that the Sardinians had contact with the Myceneans, who traded with the western Mediterranean. Contact with powerful cities of Crete, such as Kydonia, is clear from pottery recovered in archaeological excavations in Sardinia. The alleged connection with the Sherden, one of the sea peoples who  invaded Egypt and other areas of eastern Mediterranean, has been supported by professor Giovanni Ugas from the University of Cagliari; this hypothesis has been however opposed by other archaeologists and historians. " The Dyson and Rowland source says "The best-known if the most debated evidence for Sardinians in the eastern Mediterranean is the case of the Sherden who appear among the sea peoples invading Egypt during the 19th Dynasty (1349-1197 BC). Their depiction on New Kingdom Egyptian monuments has been cited to support a variety of historical reconstructions. At one time the Sherden were seen as a people who were repulsed from Egypt and then moved westward to establish the nuragic culture in Sardinia. That view has lost most supporters (Sandars 1978:161, 198-299; Drews 1993:69-72,152-55, 217-18). If there is a connection at all between Sardinia and the invaders of the Nile delta, it probably took the form of small numbers of nuragic seamen who joined a mixed group of invaders who attacked Egypt (Drews 1993:50, 54)."
 * I'm also not happy with using a 50 year old source for the quote ""perhaps not operating from those great islands but moving toward them". There's been too much research since then I believe to use it to represent modern thought.
 * I don't think we should get into the details of the argument, eg pottery. Perhaps a combination of what History of Sardinia says and the quote from Dyson & Rowland? And change the section heading from "Sardinian, Sicilian and Tyrrhenian peoples hypotheses" to something like "Sardinian hypthesis" as none of the other stuff is sourced. Doug Weller (talk) 14:03, 29 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Mr. Weller, I think that's a good solution. I certainly have no problem with the hypothesis (I personally buy it!), but it seemed to be given undue weight in the article as compared to the sources.  And when it comes to our friends from the sea, I think hedging bets is a universally good idea.  Thank you! Dumuzid (talk) 14:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Invader Hypothesis section
The whole thing is a bit of a hard read for me, and I have been trying to clean it up without making any substantive changes. But there is one sentence that simply baffles me: "If different times are allowed on the Danube, they are not in the Aegean: "all this destruction must be dated to the same period about 1200." Even in context, I can't make heads or tails of it.  Does the source reference destruction over a long time period in the Danube region?  I can't tell.  I am sure it's my own thick head, but can someone help me understand what's going on here?  It would be most appreciated.  Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 14:05, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggested/Theoretical/Conjectured
I really don't like any of these adjectives in the first line. I think it puts the focus in the wrong place. We don't need to guess or conjecture about this; Ramses III tells us they existed (how historically accurate he is is another question). I certainly understand hedging our bets here, and that Medinet Habu never calls them explicitly "Sea People," but I would favor an adjective like "attested." Even if the invasion was pure myth, I think it's important to note that the myth was a creation of contemporaneous propaganda rather than later scholarly speculation. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Oops, I should have checked here first, but I just changed it to "hypothesized". Feel free to try other wording.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:09, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * these adjectives are referring to the points made in the quotes in references 1 and 2 in the article (Killebrew and Drews). It is not Ramesses or his temple or any other contemporary propaganda that purported the existance of "Sea Peoples", but instead it was some enthusiastic nineteenth century scholars who extrapolated and enhanced what the original sources actually say. Oncenawhile (talk) 11:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I understand your point, Oncenawhile, but actually, I think it's fair to say that Ramses did purport such existence. To paraphrase Medinet Habu, he said "a bunch of people from Islands(?) sacked these places, then they attacked me."  Now, granted, he does not use the term "sea people(s)" and that certainly was a 19th-century invention, as was much of the narrative.  But to use these "hypothesis" terms in the first sentence bothers me because it seems to envelop the entire concept in the veil of modern scholarly ideation.  Now, again, I don't mean to suggest that Medinet Habu (or really anything in this subject) should be taken as 'truth.'  But is it scholarly theory that Egypt was attacked by a confederation of foreigners?  No, it's not.  Ramses tells us that.  Is it theory that they sacked a bunch of other places as well?  Nope.  He gives us a list!  I will be the first to say that much of the article comfortably falls under the rubric of suggestion/theory/hypothesis.  I just think we should try to make clear that there is a nucleus of operative detail here (Ramses won a battle in the delta against a bunch of foreigners working together) that goes back three millennia, and is not a scholarly conceit.  I see nothing in the first two references that seems to gainsay that.  But I am wrong plenty.  Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 12:30, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but on the other hand the quote about islands does not mention any of the peoples purported to be Sea Peoples; it just says "northern countries". And there is a separate scholarly debate about whether "Great Green" meant the Nile Delta or the Mediterranean. But either way, such debates amongst us would be WP:OR. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I have no quibbles there, and, indeed, separate scholarly debates exist for just about every possible detail of this subject. I still think that nucleus of operative detail is important, and worth setting aside from the many layers of later interpolation.  Tradition calls the people who attacked Ramses III the "Sea People(s)."  This may be a terrible and misleading name (personally, I don't think it's THAT bad).  My point is a small and semantic one (sorry, I'm a nitpicker), and it is this: there's a big difference between saying "this is a useless name and a bad nineteenth century interpretation," and "these people are mythical."  The latter, I think, is not warranted in this instance.  Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:16, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I can't see what some of you are getting at. Would you prefer "boat people" or "pirates"?  "Island people?"  The core thing we know about these people is they traveled on the sea, in boats, and they came from north of the Nile delta.  "The Sea People" is less a name, more a description.


 * Reading this article, I had a hard time understanding what scholars generally accept as true (like things mentioned above: that Ramses reported being attacked by people from the north in boats) and what is in dispute (where they came from, their ethnicity, whether they were migrants, etc.). The introduction mentions "much speculation", but the "History of the concept" section doesn't really elaborate - it says only "Since the early 1990s, however [the migration theory] has been brought into question by a number of scholars". More detail in this section, especially to distinguish what's agreed on and what's in dispute, would be most welcome.DKMell (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Given the time and circumstances, we're lucky the Egyptians left us as much information as they did, and given human history the appearance of blood-thirsty pirates during a time of disorder doesn't surprise me. I doubt they were "migrants", the cattle and women in their boats were probably spoils. The social structure of pirate clans isn't easy to imagine and their motives might've been religious as much as rapacious. History is full of tribal names to get hung up on. I imagine the Egyptians interrogated captives, and kept informed on dangerous foreigners, and in the case of "Lukka", "Denyen", "Sherden", and "Peleset" it's natural to match them with similar names. Theories about the "Sea People" might be wrong, but they're good guesses. I respect that some of you are anal-retentive, but cluttering up this article with reminders to be doubtful is crank-ish. We know far more about "The Sea People" than "The Hyksos", even if we don't know their home address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:F00:3946:CDB4:1AE:79B:24C0 (talk) 07:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I am a big fan of nitpickers - I like to think that I qualify for that description too. I agree with what you said, and the conclusion in your last sentence. As an aside, one more little nit to pick - I don't like the use of the word "tradition", and have tried to replace references to it with specific descriptions of where each of these came from. The article used to say that each of these peoples have been "traditionally" associated with e.g. Sardinia or Lycia, and I have replaced that with "...following Chabas in 1872..." or similar. I just think Tradition is a word people use when we don't know when and why. Oncenawhile (talk) 15:27, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I wholeheartedly endorse that change. "Tradition" has its role as a concept, but anywhere it can be replaced by specific attribution, I approve!  Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 15:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I have made a proposal on the page - what do you think? Oncenawhile (talk) 16:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I think it's a good one, though perhaps take out the word "nine." I think it reads better that way, and that way we're allowing that maybe the Merneptah business was involved, if you see what I mean.  But I think it's a good change either way.  Thanks! Dumuzid (talk) 18:38, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello onceinawhile. Pleased to meet you. You left a message for me as the previous biggest contributor. I would have gone on but it was taking too much time. I've dropped by now as you can see. If you are looking for assurances and approval from me, you sure have them. I vote for you. I propose the community use you for just as long as you care to be used. I think you can take some satisfaction in this work. I'm not going back on it right now. I don't want to interfere with what you are trying to do. For the theory you just mentioned, what theory? I didn't see it. For the nitpicking, pick away. That is what anyone might expect in a course. Specificity is better than generality unless specificity leads too far from the thread. For the certainty, well, I think Dumezid is chasing a will-of-the-wisp. Except in rare cases it is not to be found in ancient history. Instead you get these conjectural concepts such as sea peoples. Scholars can then earn a living by arguing about them for the next century or two, This article IS about such a concept. You are right to point that out. You are right to examine the origin of the concept and any other concept. In fact, since you are cognizant of the source, I would like to see more about how he innovated that word. Anyway, yes I approve of your efforts and philosophy. No, I am not coming back on the article. It's yours. Good luck. On with the show.Botteville (talk) 00:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Outdated sources
This is about : to me the added sources seem outdated, there is no evidence that their view is still a significant academic view today. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you stalking me? I'm flattered, but this has got to stop. Woscafrench (talk) 16:38, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I follow a lot of editors and a lot follow me. In any case, you shouldn't be adding sources without checking them. I have found, for instances, that sources have been moved in articles so that the text they seem to source has nothing to do with the text they were added to source. Other times the source is misrepresnted. A few times it doesn't mention the topic at all. A source that is 39 years old and probably based on material at least 40 years old doesn't seem satisfactory to me, a lot has happened in archaeology in the last 4 decades. Doug Weller  talk 18:33, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's certainly a grey area. In this case I was reading the wikipedia article on Asher, and found that it was making a claim about a link to the Sea Peoples that wasn't in the article on the Sea Peoples. Whether the edit I made belongs in this article or not, I think the Weshesh-Asher link should either be in both articles or neither for consistencies sake. From what I can make out (and I'm not claiming to be an expert) there hasn't been any major breakthrough in the understanding of the Sea Peoples since the 19th Century. So as a best guess the most reasonable thing to do would be to leave the Asher article alone, and include the hypothesis in this article. Perhaps my previous comment sounded a little insincere. To be truthful, I have not found Tgeorgescu all that flattering. Woscafrench (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Here on Wikipedia everybody watches everybody else. I was explaining you the rules of Wikipedia. It is your own choice if you want to obey the rules and thrive as an editor or if you systematically disobey the rules and get blocked. I cannot force you to choose either way, but I can limit the damage. Robbing Wikipedia articles of the mainstream academic view is not something we appreciate, that's why I was watching your edits in the first place. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Tgeorgescu, you are not a historian.

You don't know if the Weshesh-Asher suggestion is out of date, you just say it is, because you don't like the idea. I'm sorry if you think historians solve mysteries so quickly that ideas of 40 or 80 years ago are laughable. Archaeology is not the exactly science you think it is: what we find, and how we can relate it to the Sea People, is two different things. The historian who you presumably find laughable because he mentioned something from the Bible actually had a solid line of reasoning for "Weshesh" possibly being "Asher". Of course the word could be early Indo-European, like proto-Italic for "Wanderers" or Illyrian for "Vinelanders". It could be from Washashatta, the capital of Mitanni. But there are solid reasons for a Canaanite faction of Sea People, and the captured tribes were indeed deported to Canaan. (1) the Egyptians recorded a tribe called 'Aser in the 14th century, right after the flight of the Hyksos. (2) their territory was part of Phoenicia, and one of their main ports was called Ushu (Ushuish = men of Ushu). (3) Another possibility is "Weshesh" = "Laysha", a port city near Jaffa, allied with the Phoenicians, and the site of only three Cretan temples off the island. (4) This was the territory of the tribe of Dan, perhaps a colony of the Denyen. The Denyen, from their inscriptions, seemed to be a mixed group with Semitic and Anatolian names. The Achaean name was pronounced "Ekwesh" at the time, and in a period of city states perhaps a faction of Greeks joined the Israelites, which might explain why the Egyptians found them circumsized. "Ekwesh" might mean "Okhos" or "crowd". (5) The Denyen also founded the city of Adana, near a Luwian state called Palestine. During the Trojan War the Trojans allied to Teucer joined the Denyen. (6) Bronze-age Israel was not that different from other Canaanites, who all had reason to attack Egypt. The remains of the Hittite empire also had a grudge against Egypt. (7) The Amarna tablets record the Habiru (the proto-House of David) marauding the port cities of the region. This is right around the time 'Aser is mentioned, and like Homer the Old Testament captures the madness and destruction of the coming period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:F00:3946:CDB4:1AE:79B:24C0 (talk) 09:35, 6 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Unsourced and mainly fringe. Eg Habiru was a general term including many different people, and they weren't proto-House of David. And pointless here as there are no sources. Doug Weller  talk 10:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Since the early 1990s, the theory has been brought into question by a number of scholars.
I agree that this need xclarifying, and the referenxces, despite their detail, don't help. Doug Weller talk 15:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Edit warring
See WP:ERA. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:32, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Tgeorgescu The article originally used BC. Do you mean that it currently uses BCE because somebody edit-warred to make it that way? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)


 * You will have to wait for the verdict at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Peter James conference paper
please could you provide links for your two assertions – that conference papers are unacceptable and that James represents an unreliable fringe? Onceinawhile (talk) 10:46, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Only when reliably published can conference papers be used. "Reliably published" is part of WP:VERIFY. Of course if you'd cited it properly that would have helped. I spent 10 minutes looking for it. That leaves us with James as well as WP:UNDUE - is his opinion in this paper discussed in clearly reliable sources? I don't understand why you don't realise James is fringe. His dating is not accepted in mainstream archaeology. Doug Weller  talk 12:05, 27 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Consensus on conference papers doesn’t seem to be as clear as your statement suggests, and WP:Fringe applies to theories not to people.
 * It strikes me as a marginal call here, but since you feel strongly I will accept your removal. Onceinawhile (talk) 13:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

link rot
See note 58; two of the links there don't work any more 100.15.127.199 (talk) 00:25, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Recovered links using the Wayback Machine. Thanks for pointing this out. - Donald Albury 02:09, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

"Earthquake" origin theory
The summary mentions "Existing theories variously propose equating them with several Aegean tribes, raiders from Central Europe, scattered soldiers who turned to piracy or who had become refugees, and links with natural disasters such as earthquakes or climatic shifts." but in the rest of the article the words "refugee", "disaster", and "earthquake" do not appear so I'm surprised: is it a reasonable theory, backed by reliable sources, and in this case it should be developed in the "Hypotheses about origins" section, or is it a fringe theory, and in this case it should probably not be mentioned in the summary? A455bcd9 (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

The Merneptah Stele reference in this article says Gaza instead of Gezer.
I haven't seen anyone argue it should actually read Gaza, so this seems like a mistake.--KuudereKun 05:33, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Sea People were Pre-Phonecian
The names seem to correspond with the Rivers of Phonecia. The time-frame for Ramses III corresponds to the "Return of the Heraclides", in Greek Mythology.

1. With Dor being a "town of the Tjekker" (Story of Wenamun). So this is the "Chorseas" River. Why is the old name for this river Tjekker?

2. And "Peleset" is the "Belus" River. (city - Acbatana?)

3. And "Ekwesh" is the "Ace" River. (city - Ecdippa?)

4/5. For Tyre and Sidon... the names of the rivers... would be a slightly variant name of the town, hence "Teresh" and "Sherden".

6. Lukka - Then to the "Lycus" River and Berytus

7. Denyen - Then, after Byblus, one comes to the "Adonis" River

Speculation:

Note: The rivers Magoras/Eleutheros/Badas are unaccounted for.

8. Weshesh - I see the city of Issana/Issus... and I'm guessing that.

9. Shekelesh or Skyros(See Scheria/Phaeacians)... this is still a mystery... Some of these rivers changed names. This could be Magoras.

Note2: Peleset could be Paltus/Phaliotis on the River Badas... but we're going for river names. 2601:58B:E7F:8410:A046:C1B3:BDCC:5FA9 (talk) 06:21, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * What Wikipedia is not. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)