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Civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean-in Greece, Egypt, and the Near East-abruptly collapsed in 1177 bc. But were the mysterious marauding 'Sea Peoples' to blame?
Across the river from Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile near King Tuts tomb, is Medinet Habu, site of the mortuary temple of Ramses III. On one wall of the temple, chiseled into the blocks, is a huge picture with an accompanying inscription. The text records that in the eighth year of Ramses's reign, 1177 bc, the Egyptian pharaoh faced a coalition of invaders in a double battle-one by land and one by sea. ? Depictions of the battles are so detailed that scholars have published analyses of individual people and even their boats. One panorama shows foreigners and Egyptians engaged in a chaotic naval battle; some casualties are floating upside down and clearly dead, while others are still fighting fiercely from their boats. The invaders wear no uniforms, no polished outfits. The ancient images portray one group with feathered headdresses and others sporting skullcaps, horned helmets, or bare heads. Some have short pointed beards and are dressed in kilts, either bare-chested or wearing tunics; others have no facial hair and wear skirt-like garments. Armed with sharp bronze swords, wooden spears with metal tips, and bows and arrows, they come on boats but also on wagons oxcarts, and chariots, accompanied by their families.
The Egyptians won both the land and sea battles, which is why Ramses recorded this on the walls of his temple, as well as in other documents:
The foreign countries made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms, from Khatte, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya on, being cut off at [one time]. A camp [was set up] in one place in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Danuna, and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting.
The places reportedly overrun by...