ConflictThe Middle East

The Sea Peoples

1,178 BCE

Unknown fleets strike a world already faltering

In depth

The "Sea Peoples" are known almost solely from Egyptian inscriptions, which naturally present them as an external threat the pharaoh defeated. Newer scholarship sees them rather as a symptom: drought, earthquake, severed trade routes and internal unrest struck at once, and people on the move were both consequence and driver. One group, the Peleset, are probably the Philistines who settled in Canaan.

For children

Egyptian texts tell of peoples who came over the sea and attacked everything along the coast. Cities burned from Greece to Syria. Who they were we still do not know — perhaps refugees from the collapse rather than its cause.

Connects to

The Bronze Age collapse1,178 BCE
The Hittite empire1,651 BCE – 1,181 BCE
Ramesses II1,280 BCE – 1,214 BCE
The Phoenicians1,201 BCE – 301 BCE

Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org