I'm completely blown away with the story of the sea people. They gave no land on which to discover artifacts, but their mention is unavoidable in ancient history. It was nice seeing a video focused on just them.
Sea people where tribes living in today west balkan knowen as illyrian...they were spread all over the mediteranian cost like in italy iscland of sardinia spain north african cost...and thats why they came all together couse they spoke the same language a were from the same origine.
@@klodianbiba2142 You desperate people even want to claim nameless, uncivilized raiders who caused the collapse of civilization and were so savage they hardly left any trace to commemorate them. Even Tamerlane and Genghis Khan knew to learn from the people they sacked and thus left cities or roads behind. These Sea People were quite illiterate savages. Maybe the dumbest and most primitive raiders any major crisis on civilization has seen.
@@zippyparakeet1074 yeah thats funny by you good comedian...i suggest you to keep on going with comedy and leave the history to whom does make reseach and studies on it.
The Sea Peoples always felt like an unfair in-game event, they just showed up out of nowhere and wrecked stuff. The art work in this brilliant as usual, it's great to see ancient faces and people depicted in a real way. Really brings them to life.
LOL; absolutely, I can imagine one of my favorite games like Crusader Kings or better even Tropico being interrupted by such a catastrophic, totally unfair, gam calamity. "Presidente, presidente! We have a huge crisis: the Sea Peoples are invading!" :D
The entire Bronze Age Collapse was probably the single most devastating balance patch in the history of civilisation. Perhaps even rivaling the Black Death.
The Black Death was ridiculous! It threw off the balance of the game completely and cause 1/3rd of the player base to rage quit. There was no need for that
just use the term "water tribes", bro. Like the original water tribe in Avatar, but with an 's' at the end, cause they were a collection of tribes.It just works.
@@Zara-T_780 Ok,fiiinnee. I'm not mad at you or anything.I'm just sayin', linguistically, the word "water" has a meaning that's close to sea, and "people" is close in meaning to tribe.I'm just a big Avatar fan,man. I mean, you certainly can't do the same to the fire nation. They were an allegory to the Japanese. Yamato means great.you can't substitute the fire nation with "the great people".It's just too broad.All people can achieve greatness but not all of them have the power to conjure fire. and yes I know that there are other ethnics who also live in Japan besides 'em,but's let's not talk about that now.
no, its an archeological study, primarily, that takes into account all possible socio-economic, environmental, and geographical hypotheses as to what may have occurred to disrupt bronze age life...kinda lets down the reader in the sense that a handful of key theories exist to explain how the bronze age civilization collapses, but with no definitive answer. think of this video as a mere outline to the book (i.e., LOTS more interesting details in the book...obviously a 10 minute video can't cover much ground)
Eric Cline does flashback to the previous centuries when the bronze age civilizations were on their peak. This flashback explains the collapse of the older empires (Hittites, Mycenaeans, Egypt etc) and the rise of the new ones such as Israel and Assyria. Egypt did not really collapsed but it lost the southern part of Syria and declined after the victories against the Sea Peoples.
Whenever anyone else covers this topic it always starts and ends with, "And then the Sea People showed up out of nowhere and we have no idea who they were or if they even existed at all." I never knew there was so much historians have already theorised about them.
@@gostandinostheodossiou6727It's Phoenecians aka Canaanites aka proto-Jews. They had colonies in Spain and elsewhere. Sea Peoples were likely their slaves that they had bred with over a few hundred years. They used them to destroy their enemies.
In bible philistines came from an island called caphtor, and many historian believe caphtor is crete and they're already migrated aroud bronze age..so they're might be minoan greek
Who would win? A millennium of prosperity and growth with the earliest known instance of a "globalized" economy and mass production, or some pirate dudes?
Well by this time many of the great empires were in collapse. That would be like saying the Germanic tribes were the sole reason the Roman Empire fell without acknowledging the decades and centuries of decline before then
The problem was exactly the globalized economy. The bronze age empires were too dependent on mutual trade, and if one piece fell the rest collapsed like a house of cards. The main issue was that to make bronze weapons, you need bronze. To make bronze you need copper and tin, and these are almost never found together. Thus needed to be traded from far away. Commerce interrupted=no bronze=no weapons.
@hellos grog majority of All European arent Excatly white too.. they are more Has brownish Shade than Central& East Asian who has such Clear white skin.. at least in my Opinion after Saw and compared many German tourists with Japanese tourists in Air port
@@williamgarayua5878 frkin ingrates. The Jews thrived in many places in the muslim world, in anadalus, in yemen etc. while the christians were constantly persecuting them. Now they turn it all around and act as if the muslims persecuted them all along(probably to justify what they're doing to palestinians, bombing men who have glass bottles and makeshift guns for weapons). The greatest rabbis were literally living peacefully in muslim lands.
Definitely were guys one would not want to mess with...Unless your the Sea People! :) Some now don't think they sacked Hatti, but Ramses III thought they did...so I'll go with his info, he lived through it
I'd say it was the Bryges-Phrygians-Armenians, who were a bit more land-minded and thus never made it to Egypt but they were in the wider plot or coalition, no doubt.
@@EpimetheusHistory - The Ugarit tables, taken at face value at least, suggest that prior to the invasion of Cyprus and Syria, there was already ongoing war further west ("all my ships are in Lukka", etc.) To me it seems the Greeks were leading (somehow it must be related to the Trojan War, also Cyprus hellenization, etc.) but that there was a huge amount of nations. The Egyptans treat it almost as a "Viking raid" (a major one anyhow) but to my eyes it was rather like a World War between (main powers) Greeks and Hittites (and whoever else they thought ripe for the taking).
Arzawa Lukka Wilusa and Peleset are Lydians Lycians Dardanians and Thracians Sea peoples are the Pelasgians and their descendants except the Mycenaeans and Minoans Phrygians were also sea peoples
Ireland thrived in the bronze age. Sheridan was an irish clan. We were seafaring merchants who never get a look in. Sure how could we navigate with a pig under our arm? Domestication of horse was arguably the greatest technological breakthrough of the last 10000 years. Who do you come to today about horses? Always overlooked 🧙♂️🍄🧚♂️🐉🐎
The only people capable of producing a complex civilization socially and militarily organized were the Shard'en. The others were fractions of peoples conquered along the route for the commerce of the tin or convinced to ally for the conquest of the Egypt. Today the evidence is visible through the presence in Sardinia of over 7000 towers of 30,000 originally present on the island. Apart from the pyramids, their powerful structure is unparalleled in the ancient world and their number suggests that the island was one of the most populated lands of the Bronze Age. The characteristics of the nuragic bronzes that reproduce warriors and ships found in large numbers also confirm their similarity with the figures painted in the tomb of ramsses. The great statues (statues of mont'e prama) found recently in Sardinia dating back to this period provide further confirmation of this great civilization, the only one able to lead and organize the fallen of the Hattite empire,to carry such distractions in the mediteranean, and even threaten Egypt. SHARD'EN: PEOPLE FROM THE REBEL HEARTS THAT NO ONE CAN DEFEAT (ramssess ||).
@Xrey Frrrick Can't just hide behind the accusation, though. Sometimes Nationalistic garbage turns out to have some kind of basis in truth, regardless of how poor fools seek to abuse this truth for their own sense of self-importance or worth. Have to dig into the material and present sources and a coherent argument for why he is full of shit.
Historians and archeologists across the world after hundreds of years of study: “We’re still not quite sure who the sea people exactly were” RU-vid commenter: “tHe SeE PeePle wErE fRuM heRe YaLL dUm AF”
It was the Cycladians i think. Even today Cycladian ship captains have a woldwide reputation as Aces on tough conditions and that's because traveling in open sea was the only option for their surviving since ever and until today.Its the landscape that defines which skills will be developed.
ok this is strange; our family name is yequash, we are circassians from the black sea region, northwest caucasus, and our ancestors and our neighbours were known to be pirates
Just perhaps all those smaller nations were tired of being used a handy source of everything bigger stronger nations needed or wanted and decided to join together and fight back.
I agree, from all I've read it sounds more like they were tired of being bullied and formed a coalition of different ppl and islands to scare the bigger nations and take revenge. I'm sure other factors and variables played a role too. For so many different small nations who didn't really love one another to come together to fight against a bigger nation as the earliest coalition in human history (of such scale) it had to have been dictated by desperation imo
The Sea people did to ancient Egypt the exact same thing the Barbarians did to the Romans. They frightenned the borders of the Kingdom the same way the Barbarians kind of destroyed the Empire limits. The difference is that they never got the kingdom but the babarians finnally took over the Roman Empire. The Sea people were mainly coming from the ocean maybe that's what made it easier the ancient Egyptians to defend their lands and territory against them. Most of the battles were taking place around the Nile Delta and that surely never was a problem for the ancient Egyptians who reinforced this natural border and did everything they could to mastered sea warefare and battles around the shores. The Barbarian were people coming from the east (middle-Asia) but already established on the main land and continent. They learned from their past defeats and kept on coming over and over. The romans stood their grounds for a very long period of time but the empire ended-up collapsing with most of the threaths coming from the inside. The main thing we can learn from this : No empire last for ever, like they say.
Not all forms of invasions are military. Some of them are political, cultural, financial, religious, economical or else. Think about Troy. Most of the time there are not planned from the beginning to the end. But historians see them like it and name them like invasions when studying them. Some time it's about the same people with the same roots and culture but with slightly different points of view and foreigners have nothing to do with it. Or those foreigners who have settled for long time become insiders and end-up modifying and transforming the structures and the foundations of the empire or place where they are living which is technicaly not really an invasion. Some other time it is simply the consequences of imperialism. The same empire or kingdom that wants to conquer, dominate, get more power, space and territory ends-up being conquered itself and collapsing in the end..... or doesn't by simply adapting itself to the new reality. As said no empire last for ever. Just the story of mindkind.
Why no mention of the Phoenecians? I notice that Lukka and Peleset in your images are both holding fenestrated axes, just like the one held by a Phoenecian god (son of Baal). Phoenecia had multiple colonies even before the Bronze Age Collapse, on Sardinia, in Spain, in Libya, etc etc. And they are major players in the Levant. They're also the creator of modern language. I feel like they have a role in this.
I propose the people on the outskirts and dependant of Atlantis. Sunken, they had no more economy and had to move on. Wild. Desperate. Having seen the worse. Of course, this is speculative and not prooven at all. Although it is reported that they answered that their land is sunken, when asked by egyptians about the reason of their invasions. But this could be from the black sea, where the ground is full of sunken villages and cities.
Really love your videos and I have a tendency of rewatching them occasionally too, especially this one. On a sidenote, what's the music you used in the background? Really lovely tune and it vaguely reminds me of some old game but I can't put my finger on which one.
The Philistines from the Bible are Mycinean Greeks I believe who settled in modern day Israel during this period. The timeline in the Old Testament Bible confirms this.
Yes , they are very War like these Philistines and the pottery is similar. Even in the Old Testament Bible which is Chronological, during the book of Judges (The time of the Bronze Age Collapse), the Philistines are not mentioned.. then after the Book of Judges (the aftermath of the Bronze Age Collapse) the Philistines suddenly appear... Addiotnally in the Book of Judges , in the story of Gideon, a famous Bible story (The time of The Bronze Age Collapse) the Midionites came out of the desert and were pillaging Isreal. I believe they came out during this time of the Collapse because of famine, which at the time was a big factor in the Bronze Age Collapse, It all makes sense.
On a separate note, even the Hittites were mentioned in the Bible and The Western world had no idea who they were, until more recently. Because of the Jewish people’s oral tradition, The Bible can be used as a credible historical source.
@@EpimetheusHistory Ok, I guess i will get that book. There are many Osprey books on that subject. For example, Bronze Age Greek Warrior, Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, and others. I assume you mean the latter.
Correct again...and I got both of those excellent little books. Have a small mountain of Osprey books I began buying when I was around 15 when I got my first paycheck from working at a coffee shop.
What I learned from history that what makes us (Egyptians) stands and strong is not our army nor weapons but our ability to assimilate and to accept everyone in our lands thus they became our friends
Very good video, exept when you said Egypt and Hebrew in the same phrase, it gave me Vietnam flashbacks, if you know what, or rather, who I'm referring to ;)
@@mysticmagicsmurfdarklord6844 his newer videos have sources, but the older ones doesn't. i think he just forgot about them, or they are in his patreon
In the ancient book of Jasher a large section is dedicated to claims that the Hebrews, otherwise known as Israelites', defeated the "sea people" when they attacked the Egyptians. ( the Egyptian army dispersed and fled while the recruited Israelite contingent decimated the sea people)
His brother, basically. Prometheus in Greek means "fore-thinker" (with foresight), Epimetheus, his brother, "after-thinker" (with hindsight), which makes Epimetheus a very apt name for a history channel.
odds are pretty good that the sea people invasion resulted from a general civilization collapse that was already happening, and the real trigger was some kind of ecological problem, like we know for sure that the Indus Valley civilization's collapse was ecological but there is ample evidence of unrest and barbarism that resulted from it, which makes sense if you think about it
All the sea peoples were decimated, they brought women and children and their belongings with them, sounds like a symptom of the age and sheer desperation amidst the bronze age collapse of the world
Thanks man! Just watched your awesome Ironclad video...would have been pretty stunning to have witnessed the Monitor and the Merrimack ricocheting cannonballs off each other
@@huskyfaninmass1042 One is correct, the other isn't. Unique means, one of a kind, thus "very unique" is a redundancy. The Armchair Historian (I inspired to call myself that with my own channel before he was a thing, but I didn't get around to it) is attempting to add vigour to his words, and is actually saying "this topic is exceedingly special/fascinating/intriguing", as it only qualifies as unique in that it is a specific arch in chronological time; but then so to is everything in history; indeed, every person and organism is unique - so is every sub-atomic particle, if you get technical. A figure of speech and an example of how poorly language attests to our thoughts and emotions. What puzzles me more is his use of a preterite or simple past tense in "(I) Loved" with the word "always", which is a Continous adverb in the same clause. Not least of all given that this is a re-watchable video and not an experience limited to memory.
@Thorekk you clearly don't know what the term "semitic" encompasses. You just insulted Arabs, Jews, Mandaeans, Samaritans, and Assyrians/Syriacs and called them destroyers of civilization which, with the current majority religion in mind, I wouldn't disagree with. When it comes to the progression of civilization however, Jews easily take the cake - while the rest ferment in their institutions so corrupted by nepotism that no real progress can be made other than for choosing who - other than themselves - takes the blame for the situation they put themselves in. Trust me, it isn't this tiny minority called Jews, it's the narrow-minded, bigoted and stale majority of the muslim fath. Grow up and take responsibility for your own shit instead of blaming it on someone else.
The ancient Assyrians wrote about "Yawnaya" (Ionian) pirates who would raid the Mediterranean coasts. The Assyrians even referred to Alexander as Alexander Yawnaya (the Ionian), likely because he spoke the same or similar language to these Ionian pirates and was thus associated with the pirates. Food for thought
Yavan (from Ionian) is also the word used in Sanskrit for Greeks and mentioned in many Sanskrit texts. There were Greek kingdoms in Bactria (modern day Afghanistan), and norht-western India (including today's Pakistan).
Well thats corect but those historians are useles...the hole west balkan was lived by ionian named as illyrian tribes a race of pelasgians and they got spread all over the mediterian.
The greeks were not pirats and they would not destroy them states...the illyrians tribe were pirates...and its 100% sure that the sea people came from the illyrian tribes.
The Mycenaeans were like, "Our kingdoms are collapsing, and it took so long to build them, oh it's *such* a drag to rebuild them... Let's destroy everyone else's instead, so we are even! Who's with me?!"
Before the invasion of Greeks(sea people) there was no Greek and they assimilated the pre-Greek societies (Pelasgians) Ancient Greek writings exactly explains these events clearly
One nation only? No, seven or a dozen! It's "Peoples", plural, for a reason. And they surely even fight each other, else who looted all Greece soon afterwards. I'm sure they were the Weshesh, the Sherden, the Shekelesh and the Teresh.
@@cramMetallic - That depends on context, specific meaning. When we use people as nation or equivalent sub-national or community, it is singular, example: "the Danish are one people" and can and should be pluralized therefore, for example: "the Scandinavian peoples". People is only plural when it's not used to mean a collectivity but a generality of individual persons: "people say...", "the people gathered...", etc.
@@stoferb876 Just saying. Some Vikings wore horned helmets…. It was an inherited thing to do, dating all the way back to Bronze Age. Literally thousands and thousands of men or Gods wearing horns / horned helmets are depicted in Scandinavian petroglyphs and metalwork. There are even men (or Gods) wearing horned helmets depicted on real helmets without horns. It was the belief - probably all over the ancient world - that wearing something from an animal would transfer some of its strength. The Scandinavians of cause didn’t wear horned helmets or (whole) furs from bears / wolfs in battle, it was ONLY during rituals / ceremonies.
If they haven't by now, I imagine Sesame Street would parody the Sea Peoples as Muppets with C's embroidered on their armor and weapons and making all sorts of C-based puns as they go to plunder.
@Manley Nelson// When Dr. Cline told that story about people wearing C's on their attire for a costume contest saying they were Sea Peoples, I thought to myself: "That joke is right up Sesame Street's alley." In the Monsterpiece Theatre on The Old Man and the Sea, we see Grover fishing on a boat, on a big letter C.
The hype for Operation Odysseus has paid off!! Been looking forward to this for some time, and lo and behold Epimetheus releases a video about the Sea People, one of my favourite mysteries of the ancient world. Great video! :)
Bronze Age: We Wuz Kangz! *Mediterranean Vikings: The hell you ain't 😈 (Oh yeah they had horned helmets too, I guess the old Wagnerian depiction of Vikings fit for those guys)
I love it that nowadays there's a revival of interest in ancient history (in this case REALLY ancient) among the younger generation. In my younger days, you couldn't get anybody interested in it. Very good video. Even if these hypotheses can't be proven they OUGHT to be true!
everything started in the middle EAST first king first writings first city first nation first war first Empire and all religions and also first song first story and all Prophets of God were in middle EAST and also Cyrus The Great
Sea peoples are the name given by ancient archaeologists and historians of the Middle East in the 19th century to a group of ancient peoples that migrated through the Mediterranean sea and attacked the kingdoms that were located east of the Mediterranean basin, Egypt as well as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Anatolians in Anatolia. The attacks of sea people led to the fall of the Hittitese mpire and the weakening of the Pharaonic Kingdom of Egypt for a long time, and the destruction of many cities of the eastern Mediterranean, such as Ogarit. The sea people , most importantly the Palestinians (Philistines) , have taken control of large areas of the southern coast of Canaan. There are also theories that the emigration of sea peoples is a migratory migration, as they returned to their original homeland Palestine, after they established kingdoms in Greece. The earliest mention of the sea people dates back to the end of the 13th century BC, where Pharaoh Merneptah lists the peoples he has won, among them "foreign sea people " as he described in his letters. 20 years later, Pharaoh Ramses III mentions another attack of these peoples on Egypt and boasts that he defeated them despite their power that led to the defeat of the Hittites and other nations . Some historians doubt the credibility of Ramses III's report, and believe that he attributed Merenptah's victories to himself. BTW jews don't like them because they defeated them many times.
Greeks, Sardinians, and Sicilians. They're a very interesting confederation of different European people with a common goal: to go Viking before the Vikings!
:) HAHAHAHA yes I agree. But I don't think that at this time these people saw themselves as European. But this is possible that they shared some linga franca
Of course, they also create a big state in Central Asia (The greco bactrian kingdom) who existed during 200 years. But at the time of this event, this state had been subjuged to Yuezhi
@Woiller- Relic Vikings were not aggressive as the pop culture suggests. They were farmers, not warlike as the sea people. Unlike the sea people, vikings tend to raid and retreat, not wanting to fight pitched battles.
These videos are really great for keeping things in perspective quickly and easily as I have been bouncing around your related videos. Grasping time spans (Egypt...ugh!), and understanding interactions with neighboring cultures is so much easier to grasp the way you condense things. Thank you!👍
Dude, been thinking about who they were for the past several days! Had to insta-like and insta-comment before watching the video! Cheers y'all, and thanks again Epimetheus for your amazing content, dedication to research and spreading knowledge onto the common folk like myself! Thanks again brother
Just found you, I’m INSTANTLY a fan!! I absolutely love history and your way of retelling the story is awesome, well researched and unique! New sub rite here! Begin video binge now!
The Berbers or Imazighen actually do appear in the video but only very occasionally. Not really fair because the Libu (from Cyrenaica) and the Meshwesh (Amazigh, later known as Mazyes, from Tripolitania and Southern Tunisia) were very important in all the Sea Peoples' attacks against Egypt. In fact the Meshwesh would come to conquer Lower Egypt and kept it under control for the Second Intermediate Period. However there's more stuff going on in later periods: the famous Numidians that show up once and again in the Punic Wars (and the related Yugurthine War) were also Berbers, probably akin to modern Kabyles. Further West they were called Mauri (from which Moor, Moorish) and had their own kingdom(s), which gradually were absorbed by the Roman Empire.
A great introduction to a still not fully understood event in the bronze age. Although Ramses II (1213-1279 BCE) had fairly small battles with the Sherden, Lukka and Karkisha.who may have been mercenaries for the ever annoying Libyans, records show the Sherden particularly were also used by the Egyptians as mercenaries too. Merenptah (1213-1204 BCE , son of Ramses and later Ramses III (1187-1156 BCE) felt the full brunt of the Sea Peoples invasion. Both times the Peoples brought their families shown by Oxen driven carts in inscriptions. Merenptah records attack by the Libyans, Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden, and Shekelesh. The Meshwesh appear later in the text as do the Ekwesh and Teresh and not grouped with the sea peoples. Later in the document the numbers of the dead and valuables taken from the invaders list 742 dead from the Ekwesh with the figures not shown for the other groups. Ramses III denotes the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh were among the Sea Peoples he defeated. I would caution transliterating Egyptian names for these peoples into our knowledge of who they are. Because the subtraction of vowels may lead us to assume similar sounding names today can be wildly wrong and scholars still fiercely debate their original locations. The only agreed name are the Peleset who are believed to be the Philistines of the Bible. If you think today, we call the country Germany, the French say Allemagne, the Swedish say Tyskland, none are even close to what they call themselves-- Deutschland as examples of how one people can be called many names by their neighbors.
To be fair though, comparing the name of a nation state with that of a tribe is not accurate since, during that time, peoples existed, not nations. For example, the French name for Germany- Allemagne- clearly originates from the Latin word Alemannia which means "the land of the Alemanni", Alemanni being the Germanic tribe living roughly in the areas of Bavaria and Alsace. Although it is debated if they were a single tribe or a tribal confederation- although the French usage of the world would make even more sense if it referred to a confederation of tribes. Anyways, other countries use the transliteration of the same Latin word to refer to Germans such as the Spanish- Alemania, Portuguese- Alemanha, Welsh- Yr Almaen, Arabic- Almania, Turkish- Almanya, Persian- Alman. Western Europeans states continued to use the terms because of the Romance languages they use while the Eastern states used the term clearly either because of their interactions with the continuing Roman Empire in the East or because of the later interactions with the Franks during the crusades.
So let me see if I got this right. The Sea Peoples were a loose conglomeration of pirates who came together to raid cities along the Mediterranean coastlines and help advance the Bronze age collapse? Outside of Lukka they had no country of their own and probably only had a string of conquered port cities they used to trade their booty and sell slaves. A federation of sorts. Also, 'the islands of Sardinia in the west and Crete in the east were convenient bases where they could rest, hide out, and plan their next raid. They relied on fast raids with small groups of fierce warriors instead of large armies to do battle. .Sounds a lot like the Vikings of the 9th century.
