Collapse

The Sea Peoples’ homeland is generally believed to have been Greece, Anatolia, or somewhere deeper into continental Europe. Because they left behind pottery, shipwrecks and ruins, which archaeologists have used to trace their voyages, the Sea Peoples likely left their homeland in large numbers before their voyage to Egypt and the Levant.

They were not simply pirates, either. They brought their families and children with them. Their sailing vessels transported carts and livestock. This was an entire population gone nomadic. They were also likely comprised of a loose confederation of different uprooted tribes.

At the same time, the Sea Peoples were impoverished, dehydrated and starving. They fought among each other and worked as mercenaries. “The face of his brothers was hostile to slay him, one fought another among his leaders,” the Egyptians inscribed.

There are several theories for what caused a coalition of desperate people to flee to the sea—and turn to war. The emergence of the Sea Peoples coincided with a catastrophic event known as the Bronze Age Collapse.

It was one of the most destructive upheavals in human history. Between 1206 and 1150 BCE, nearly every city from Greece to northern Egypt was destroyed. Technological progress ground to a halt for centuries. The scale of destruction wouldn’t be seen again until the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The Sea Peoples just made it worse. It’s possible their original cities were destroyed by a series of earthquakes—of which there is some evidence—or stricken by drought and climate change. Or there could have been a combination of disasters.

The introduction of iron weapons and new tactics, like swarming, could have disrupted ancient societies, similar to how firearms revolutionized the ability of a peasant army to kill armored—and privileged—knights. Famine, disasters and new technology combined to throw the Aegean social order into chaos.

However, the Sea Peoples ran into an obstacle. The ancient Egyptians were the only kingdom known to be ravaged by the pirates and survive. In 1179 BCE, during the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses III, the Sea Peoples mounted a land and seaborne invasion of the Nile Delta.

The Egyptians, however, blocked the invading boats with river ships adapted for combat and pelted the Sea Peoples with archers set along the river’s banks. (The Sea Peoples made for good infantry, but poor archers.) The surviving pirates were captured and assimilated into Egyptian society—and the males castrated.