Page 401 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

338 Bronze and Iron [1230-1160 B.C.]

The people of the sea are a mystery. They are described in
detail, named by name, and even illustrated, in the Egyptian
records. While the list of peoples is not always the same for
every invasion, it comprises nations called Teresh, Meshwesh,
Shardana, Shekelesh, Akaiwash, Dainiuna, and Peleset. There
is good reason to believe that these are the people later known
to us as Etruscans, Maxyas, Sardinians, Sikels, Achaeans, Dan-
aeans, and Philistines, settled in historical times respectively in
Italy, Tunisia, Sardinia, Sicily, Greece, and Palestine. But it is
unlikely that, at the time of their attacks on Egypt, all these
peoples were already settled in the countries in which we later
find them and to which they in many cases gave their names.
This is at least true of the Philistines, who first occupy Palestine
after they are driven out of Egypt, and is very likely in the case
of the Etruscans, who are not clearly attested in Italy until about
750 b.c. The Egyptian records state that in some of their attacks
they were accompanied by their families and possessions—in
other words, that they were migrating. And it is probable that
their attacks on Egypt are part of the migratory movement which
eventually brought them to the lands where we later find them.
(An analogy with the Vikings is very tempting.) But where did
they come from? A certain amount of evidence points to western
Asia Minor and to Greece, with the rider that they do not ap­
pear to have been long in these lands. (Apart from the doubtful
case of the Achaeans, for example, none of them are mentioned
in the Hittite records.) I have here assumed that the people
of the sea are peoples of southwestern Europe, the Balkans and
the Danube basin, who in the century or so before this chapter
opens have pushed south to the Adriatic and Aegean coasts, and
into Asia Minor, and who there have taken to a sort of Viking
existence, combining farming with freebooting. And that during
this chapter and in the following generations they are still spread­
ing out, particularly towards the central Mediterranean, Libya,
Tunisia, Italy, and the islands. And I have assumed that the
invaders who destroyed the Hittite realm were part of the same
movement; certainly when records again become available we
find the Moski and the Phrygians occupying the territory of the