The Mysterious Sea People

[nivek]

Deciphered Ancient Tablet Sheds Light on Mysterious ‘Sea People’

One of the enduring mysteries of Egyptian history is the identity of the “Sea People,” an unknown civilization (or perhaps multiple civilizations) which is believed to have sailed throughout the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, wreaking havoc on ancient Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, Canaan, Phoenicia, and other territories.

Inscriptions and carvings depicting these mysterious invaders were first found in Egyptian tombs around Luxor in 1855, but Egyptologists and historians still aren’t sure who these people might have been or if they even existed at all. Still, numerous archaeological artifacts have been found depicting a mysterious civilization invading from the sea.

Thanks to the help of a few intrepid historians, researchers might be a little closer to answering those questions. Fred Woudhuizen and Eberhard Zangger have spent years studying the ancient inscription which is written in Luwian, a dead Indo-European language which only a few dozen scholars can read.

According to Woudhuizen and Zangger, the inscription describes a kingdom called Mira located in what is now western Turkey which ruled the legendary city of Troy. The inscription reportedly details how Mira’s leader King Kupantakuruntas sent the Trojan prince Muksus to conquer native lands. Could this shed light on the “Sea People” mystery?

While finding clues of an ancient seafaring race is fascinating, the story of the inscription itself is much more tantalizing. The inscription was reportedly found in the estate of James Mellaart, an accomplished Egyptologist and archaeologist who died in 2012. The original tablet on which the inscription was found has been lost to history, but Mellaart owned a rubbing and a replica of it.

After Mellaart died, colleagues found instructions among his estate that said the tablet should be deciphered as soon as possible after his death. Mellaart wrote that the copy of the inscription was made in 1878 in a remote village in Turkey shortly before villagers destroyed the original stone slab to use as building materials for a mosque. Mellaart published a few articles and book chapters on the inscription, but was unable to fully decipher it before his death. Some scholars even question its legitimacy altogether due to the fact that there is no concrete evidence other than this rubbing. Could this be a long-lost ancient treasure shedding light a forgotten corner of history?

 

[nivek]

I have read about these sea people, I often wondered if they were people from the continent of Atlantis...

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

Thanks....that is a good article. I'm sure a number of "sea" faring states were to be around during the time of ancient Egypt....this one from Troy sounds possible.

 

[nivek]

Thanks....that is a good article. I'm sure a number of "sea" faring states were to be around during the time of ancient Egypt....this one from Troy sounds possible.

Could have been the people from Troyer or elsewhere, there used to be many who discounted the city of Troy as fairytales because of lack of evidence...

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

Could have been the people from Troyer or elsewhere, there used to be many who discounted the city of Troy as fairytales because of lack of evidence...

Yes they did....but if its not Troy it easily could have been some distant city/state that were also capable sailors.

 

[nivek]

Yes they did....but if its not Troy it easily could have been some distant city/state that were also capable sailors.

Or a lost continent...

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

Or a lost continent...

Yes I've heard about that...but I've yet to see any lost continents above or below sea level and no one has pointed out any.

 

[nivek]

Yes I've heard about that...but I've yet to see any lost continents above or below sea level and no one has pointed out any.

Almost the same as Troy, hearsay and legend, until they found it...

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

Almost the same as Troy, hearsay and legend, until they found it...

Yes but Troy was a real city above see level....I don't see any lost continents below sea level.....or any effects of a suddenly submerged continent anywhere on the land surface.

 

[nivek]

This is interesting, I didn't know they had such an impact...


Regarding The Ancient Sea Peoples

Despite their important role in history and the widely held notion that they were responsible for the Late Bronze Age Collapse, a near-catastrophic decline in civilization throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, the Sea Peoples remain the subject of controversy.

 

[August]

Wiki says.
The Sea Peoples were conjectured groups of seafaring raiders, usually thought to originate from either western Anatolia or southern Europe, specifically a region of the Aegean Sea. They are conjectured to have sailed around the eastern Mediterranean and invaded Anatolia, Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age.

 

[nivek]

Wiki says.
The Sea Peoples were conjectured groups of seafaring raiders, usually thought to originate from either western Anatolia or southern Europe, specifically a region of the Aegean Sea. They are conjectured to have sailed around the eastern Mediterranean and invaded Anatolia, Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age.

That's one theory, no one really know who these people are and where they came from...Theres also a theory that possibly a World War brought down the sea people...



World War Zero brought down mystery civilisation of ‘sea people’

The Trojan War was a grander event than even Homer would have us believe. The famous conflictmay have been one of the final acts in what one archaeologist has controversially dubbed “World War Zero” – an event he claims brought the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age world crashing down 3200 years ago.

And the catalyst for the war? A mysterious and arguably powerful civilisation almost entirely overlooked by archaeologists: the Luwians.

By the second millennium BC, civilisation had taken hold throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The Egyptian New Kingdom coexisted with the Hittites of central Anatolia and the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, among others.

We know from Hittite texts that the Luwian kingdoms sometimes formed coalitions powerful enough to attack the Hittite empire. Zangger thinks that 3200 years ago the Luwians did just that and destroyed the Hittite Empire (see map, above).

Shortly after the demise of the Hittites, Egyptian texts document an attack force they termed the “Sea People”. Zangger says it makes sense to view these Sea People as the Luwians, continuing their campaign for wealth and power and, in the process, weakening and destabilising the Egyptian New Kingdom.

The Mycenaeans, perhaps anticipating an attack on their territory, formed a grand coalition of their own, says Zangger. They sailed across the Aegean and attacked the Luwians, bringing down their civilisation and destroying its key cities like Troy – events immortalised in Homer’s Iliad.

On returning to Greece, however, and in the sudden absence of any other threat, Zangger believes the Mycenaeans squabbled and fell into civil war – events hinted at in Homer’s Odyssey. Their civilisation was the last in the area to collapse.

Zangger says that only such a sequence of events fits with the evidence documented in ancient texts across the eastern Mediterranean, and also explains why the archaeological record shows that almost every large city in the region was destroyed in warfare at the end of the Bronze Age. He sets out his ideas in a new book, and on a website that launches in English today.

 

[August]

The Sea Peoples were a serious problem .

Sea Peoples