Re: THE SEA PEOPLE AND THEIR MIGRATION
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 11:14 am
CONCLUSION
Many controversial theories have flourished about why the Bronze Age collapsed. Here we have surveyed a few such as drought leading to crop failure, resulting in famine, and earthquakes that have been thought to have contributed to the ruins of the Bronze Age and emigration of the Sea Peoples. I have not tried to argue who the Sea People were in some essentialist sense or have become; those theories from other scholars who have had more time to ponder have been presented here. I believe that the evidence left behind which was presented in chapter one, and the fine scholarship that I have discussed in chapter two, having attempted to identify the Sea Peoples ethnicities and locations represent significant contributions to solving the mystery of the Sea Peoples.
Chapter three pieces together the different names of the Sea Peoples and where they are said to have migrated or lingered. Chapter four digs in the dirt for their trail of broken pottery and theorizes with the help of scholars of our day what areas they occupied domestically or left their mark upon with trade. Chapter five goes on to ask how they traveled when migrating. Barako has gone into detail in his PhD dissertation whether they traveled by Sea or by land. I happen to think both on the basis of the Egyptian evidence showing ships as well as ox carts carrying families. Chapter six asks why they left their home-land. The answer lies in the climate changes felt in the last period of the Late Bronze Age. The theory is that many large earthquakes were set off along a fault system resulting in what is called an earthquake storm. Geologic time is measured in greater lengths than human time and fifty or one hundred years is a small period to encompass on this grand scale. One earthquake triggers another which devastates whole regions. This can be in the form of earthquakes or tsunamis which are set off by undersea quakes, both destroyed unreinforced masonry which was the basis for buildings in this time period. This thesis has been brought up in part in the past and was repeatedly refuted for lack of evidence. Evidence has been found dating to 1225-1175 BC.381 It is now believed that earthquakes probably struck at Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Thebes, Pylos, Kynos, Lefkandi, the Menelaion, Kastanas, Thessaly, Korakou, Profitis Elias, Troy, Karaoglun, Hattusa, Ugarit, Alalakh, Megiddo, Ashdod and Akko.382 This massive ruination led to staggering population losses and Mediterranean-wide migrations. This thesis has been brought up in part in the past and was repeatedly refuted for lack of evidence. Schaffer lost his reputation on a theory of earthquake damage. He did not have archaeoseismology, paleoseismology or dendochronology to supplement his finds. Our modern breakthroughs in science ought to be highlighted. Science has come a long way since the Egyptians carved the story of the Sea Peoples in stone.
Chapter seven reiterates their conclusion in favor of a famine which led to migration for greener pastures, mineral wealth, and trade. We also have Tigris’ and Euphrates’ diminishing river levels and other emerging climatic changing knowledge. Drought is shown in retreating glaciers. That brings up the point in which I have the floating hypothesis of earthquake destruction and the previously formed drought hypothesis. These theses look at both as factors in an evolving erratic weather pattern. Both have evidence that comes back again and again. I have cited many different ancient cultures that recorded these food shortages in their epigraphical records. It was an abnormal time and was left behind in records for future generations to learn from. With the earthquake hypothesis, many prominent archaeologists and specialists have put forth speculation that in, at least, 50 different sites of the eastern Mediterranean, earthquakes and sometimes secondary fires were the cause of their ruin. We now know of the phenomena of earthquake storms. The story is in the layers of earth we try to read for clues to the past more studies in paleoseismology must be done and published.
The long time enigma of the Sea Peoples and their mark left on the Late Bronze Age has puzzled scholars for millennia, myself catching the hunger to study them. The desperate lengths a people will go to sustain their families is remarkable and these tribes left wide sweeping changes for us to study. Somehow this confederation of tribes has touched our lives, as we try to glimpse the past and fill in the unwritten pages of their life story for future generations who may well be curious about what really happened to move these tribes through life-threatening hard-ships to reach the wealthy lands of Egypt and the Levant. No one will ever really know for sure unless a firsthand account from the tribes themselves is found. We have never found evidence of their side of the story, just the foreign perspective. Therefore we are left with their story written from the enemies’ perspective. The missing piece of the puzzle may still be buried somewhere, hidden from modern historians who have to trust their gut instincts to relay theories on how these people moved and lived. I could only wish for more time and evidence to study this perplexing and enigmatic group. Here I close my study, once again to cover with dust until the next scholar opens the never ending story of the Sea Peoples.
Many controversial theories have flourished about why the Bronze Age collapsed. Here we have surveyed a few such as drought leading to crop failure, resulting in famine, and earthquakes that have been thought to have contributed to the ruins of the Bronze Age and emigration of the Sea Peoples. I have not tried to argue who the Sea People were in some essentialist sense or have become; those theories from other scholars who have had more time to ponder have been presented here. I believe that the evidence left behind which was presented in chapter one, and the fine scholarship that I have discussed in chapter two, having attempted to identify the Sea Peoples ethnicities and locations represent significant contributions to solving the mystery of the Sea Peoples.
Chapter three pieces together the different names of the Sea Peoples and where they are said to have migrated or lingered. Chapter four digs in the dirt for their trail of broken pottery and theorizes with the help of scholars of our day what areas they occupied domestically or left their mark upon with trade. Chapter five goes on to ask how they traveled when migrating. Barako has gone into detail in his PhD dissertation whether they traveled by Sea or by land. I happen to think both on the basis of the Egyptian evidence showing ships as well as ox carts carrying families. Chapter six asks why they left their home-land. The answer lies in the climate changes felt in the last period of the Late Bronze Age. The theory is that many large earthquakes were set off along a fault system resulting in what is called an earthquake storm. Geologic time is measured in greater lengths than human time and fifty or one hundred years is a small period to encompass on this grand scale. One earthquake triggers another which devastates whole regions. This can be in the form of earthquakes or tsunamis which are set off by undersea quakes, both destroyed unreinforced masonry which was the basis for buildings in this time period. This thesis has been brought up in part in the past and was repeatedly refuted for lack of evidence. Evidence has been found dating to 1225-1175 BC.381 It is now believed that earthquakes probably struck at Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Thebes, Pylos, Kynos, Lefkandi, the Menelaion, Kastanas, Thessaly, Korakou, Profitis Elias, Troy, Karaoglun, Hattusa, Ugarit, Alalakh, Megiddo, Ashdod and Akko.382 This massive ruination led to staggering population losses and Mediterranean-wide migrations. This thesis has been brought up in part in the past and was repeatedly refuted for lack of evidence. Schaffer lost his reputation on a theory of earthquake damage. He did not have archaeoseismology, paleoseismology or dendochronology to supplement his finds. Our modern breakthroughs in science ought to be highlighted. Science has come a long way since the Egyptians carved the story of the Sea Peoples in stone.
Chapter seven reiterates their conclusion in favor of a famine which led to migration for greener pastures, mineral wealth, and trade. We also have Tigris’ and Euphrates’ diminishing river levels and other emerging climatic changing knowledge. Drought is shown in retreating glaciers. That brings up the point in which I have the floating hypothesis of earthquake destruction and the previously formed drought hypothesis. These theses look at both as factors in an evolving erratic weather pattern. Both have evidence that comes back again and again. I have cited many different ancient cultures that recorded these food shortages in their epigraphical records. It was an abnormal time and was left behind in records for future generations to learn from. With the earthquake hypothesis, many prominent archaeologists and specialists have put forth speculation that in, at least, 50 different sites of the eastern Mediterranean, earthquakes and sometimes secondary fires were the cause of their ruin. We now know of the phenomena of earthquake storms. The story is in the layers of earth we try to read for clues to the past more studies in paleoseismology must be done and published.
The long time enigma of the Sea Peoples and their mark left on the Late Bronze Age has puzzled scholars for millennia, myself catching the hunger to study them. The desperate lengths a people will go to sustain their families is remarkable and these tribes left wide sweeping changes for us to study. Somehow this confederation of tribes has touched our lives, as we try to glimpse the past and fill in the unwritten pages of their life story for future generations who may well be curious about what really happened to move these tribes through life-threatening hard-ships to reach the wealthy lands of Egypt and the Levant. No one will ever really know for sure unless a firsthand account from the tribes themselves is found. We have never found evidence of their side of the story, just the foreign perspective. Therefore we are left with their story written from the enemies’ perspective. The missing piece of the puzzle may still be buried somewhere, hidden from modern historians who have to trust their gut instincts to relay theories on how these people moved and lived. I could only wish for more time and evidence to study this perplexing and enigmatic group. Here I close my study, once again to cover with dust until the next scholar opens the never ending story of the Sea Peoples.