The migrations of the Sea Peoples circa 1200 BC according to written sources, narrative tradition and archaeology

Abstract

The article deals with the Sea Peoples’ migrations at the beginning of 12thcentury BC. It is based on ancient Egyptian written sources, archaeological data and Greek narrative tradition. The author tries to reconstruct the general stages of Late Bronze Age ethnical movements in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the 13th– beginning the 12thcenturies BC. The author shows that the Sea peoples’ movement was not homogeneous. Moreover, not all the Sea Peoples can be considered as migrants. The tribes of Shekelesh and Weshesh were the typical sea raiders who plundered the rich centres of the Eastern Mediterranean. The possible reason for the Peleset, Theker and Turša migration seems to be the war which devastated their homeland in north-eastern Anatolia between 1208/1203 и 1195 BC. The appearance of the Denyen in Sea Peoples’ movement must be connected with the destructions of Mycenaean centres in Southern Greece circa 1200 BC. Their inhabitants left their homeland and migrated to the different regions of the Aegean, Anatolia, Eastern and Western Mediterranean. The Sea Peoples’ migrations were only the first stage of global ethnic movements in Eurasia at the end of the Bronze Age which totally changed the ethnopolitical map of Southern Europe, Anatolia and Eastern Mediterranean.