Before I get started on the blog post itself, I should briefly mention that I was nominated by Helen Hollick (http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.co.uk/) for the Versatile Blog award. My explanatory post for that will follow in a few days.

So, today’s post explores theories about the original home of the Sea Peoples. These appear in The Flame Before Us in the form of a small clan of Sherden, travelling in ox carts south through the province of Canaan looking for a new home. The story, and the history behind it, has the Sherden as one group among many, and it seems that the Sea Peoples as a whole consisted of a collection of tribes linked loosely together. We know the names of many of these groups, though not their inter-relationships – as well as Sherden, we have Lukka, Tursha, Peleset, Danuna, Peleset, Tjekker, Weshwesh, Shekelesh and so on.

The various ancient literary sources do not give enough information about these people to be sure of their original homeland. Their names appear first as small groups of fighters allied to larger powers, with the suggestion that they served as mercenaries. Earlier texts describe them in north Africa, forming part of a Libyan army. Later ones place them on the move south through the Levant, this time in larger numbers and with family groups. It is not clear whether their journey from the north was voluntary migration, or if they were forced out by pressure of events.

The Egyptians, from whom we get the term “Sea Peoples”, recorded where they met various groups, and not their ultimate point of origin. One Egyptian word used of them is, unfortunately, ambiguous: it can be applied to either islands or coastal regions. The Hebrew Bible focuses on one group, the Philistines, (identified with Egyptian prst) as they moved south and settled in the coastal plain. We are told that the Philistines arrived from Caphtor (Crete), but, this is generally viewed in the same way as the Egyptian material – it tells us an immediate embarkation point rather than an original homeland.

So, research has largely focused around a few areas to give indirect information. The most popular one has been to look at place names around the Mediterranean, and decide if these give clues. Other people have looked at language relics, or archaeological links from their later settlement in the five cities in Canaan given by Egypt to different possible starting points.

Four major theories have emerged:

1. Various Mediterranean islands, with the links supplied by name – Sherden from Sardinia, Shekelesh from Sicily, and so on. This theory arose in the 19th century, and is probably the idea most commonly encountered.

2. Various places in Asia Minor, or more specifically southern Turkey, with name links such as Sherden from Sardes, Shekelesh from Sagalassos, etc. This theory was proposed by the Egyptologist Maspero, and is occasionally revisited. However, it has never really gained a great following, perhaps because it does not tackle the question of their relationships with the Hittites.

3. Various locations in the Balkan peninsula, along either the Aegean or Adriatic coasts. For example, Pliny lists Sardeates and Siculi as people-groups in this area, which recent scholars have linked to Sherden and Shekelesh respectively.

4. Various Mycenaean Greek locations. Although various name correspondences with the writings of Homer have been suggested, such as prst from Pylos, the main argument here is in fact archaeological. The twelfth century BC bichrome pottery from south-west Palestine known as Philistine Ware is considered similar to Aegean Late Helladic IIIC, suggesting that a travelling people brought their pottery techniques and designs with them.

In The Flame Before Us, I have gone along with the fourth of these. This is partly because I think that basing the link only on a correspondence of names is quite weak, and – clearly from the above list – open to multiple different possibilities. But in terms of the story, this also allows me to make links between the Greek participants in the Trojan War, and the Sherden of the story.

It seems to me that the destructive pattern attributed to the Sea Peoples is best seen as an extension of the Trojan War recounted in the Iliad and elsewhere. That war, stripped to a basic historical core, tells how Mycenaean Greeks travelled in ships to plunder a city on the western edge of the Hittite world. Seen in this way, the fall of Troy is simply the first episode in a chain of events that rippled around the eastern Mediterranean, encompassing Ugarit and Hatsor among many other cities.

At the end of the day the historical homeland of the Sea Peoples remains obscure, but in story-telling terms I am proposing a way for early Greek ideas and culture to enter into the Levant.