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Description
In 1928, archaeologists digging around the desolated ruins of Ugarit found a hastily scribbled letter written by the city's king, Ammurapi, begging desperately for help from his allies in Cyprus. Because, as he wrote, "the enemy's ships are coming, and have been burning my cities and doing evil in my land". He could not deal with this menace himself, because his "troops and chariots are in the land of Hatti, and all my ships in the land of Lukka" dealing with a similar if not directly related onslaught. The message would never arrive, or even be sent. The archaeologists found it still in the kiln, surrounded by burnt ruins and a sea of arrowheads. This is one of the few direct accounts we have of the end of the world… in 1180 BCE at least. This was the period of history which we call the Bronze Age Collapse. This was a complete and total disruption of a once thriving society of wealthy, literate, and interconnected nations, brought down by any number of theories ranging from climate change to internal strife to economic collapse or a combination of all these things. Damn, that sure does sound like a shitty time for everyone. I'd sure hate to live through a time like that. Haha ha ha… haauuughhh…

I've made this joke already though so let's put my existential crises aside like I do every morning and focus in on one of the more charismatic causes of the Bronze Age Collapse: the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples were sadly not a race of merfolk emerging from the depths to way waste to the surface-dwellers. I mean maybe they were, I guess I can't stop you from believing that. No, instead the Sea Peoples were a mysterious confederation of many different tribes and cultures from across the Mediterranean world who took to raiding the wealthy kingdoms of yore under one black flag. In other words, pirates, one of the first pirate societies in the world to have an impact on a large geographical area, in fact. It's not clear if the Sea Peoples were the actual cause of the Collapse, or if they were victims of it desperate enough to band together and take their share by force before the apocalypse really set in, though most scholars today lean towards the latter. These mysterious marauders destroyed Ugarit, brought down the entire Hittite Empire, and nearly took Egypt with it. Only the Pharaoh Ramesses III was able to fend them off, a feat which he liked to make a big deal of bragging about. Indeed, Egyptian records are the only place we get something of a list of nations the Sea Peoples counted among their ranks, and each one is an absolute nightmare to identify conclusively. So let's go through each and see what we can glean from these people who disappeared just as swiftly as they arrived.

Let's start with the easy ones: the Peleset and the Lukka. The Lukka are identified in other texts as hailing from the region in Anatolia we now call Lycia. The people here were speakers of Luwian, an Indo-European tongue which was related to the language that would've been spoken at the historical Troy. Indeed, both the historical Troy and the Luwians were vassals of the larger Hittite Empire, who made frequent complaints about how the Mycenaeans kept wrecking all their shit. More on that later.

The Peleset meanwhile are not as conclusive, but everyone and their dog agrees that they're the same people as the Biblical Philistines, as depictions of the Peleset in Egyptian art are near spitting images to the way the Philistines depict themselves. In scripture, the Philistines are remembered as being the biggest bullies on the block, constantly harassing the Israelites until their top dog Goliath was brought down a few pegs by a little punk named David. While little can be said on the historical veracity of that particular narrative, the historical Philistines have a rich archaeological footprint. Originally, they hailed from somewhere in the Aegean, as evidenced by the fact that Philistine pottery is identical to Mycenaean pottery, and their very pig-heavy diets were much the same too. The Biblical narrative also tells us that the Philistines came to the Levant from "Caphtor", often identified with the island of Crete, further lending credence to an Aegean origin. There's a good chance that Ramesses III himself resettled the Peleset into the Levant after defeating them. Evidently he realized that it's much better for one's health if you have Sea Peoples literally anywhere but where you are at this moment.

The Sherden, the Karkiya, and the Ekwesh are the three Sea Peoples whom we're relatively sure about their identities, but lack the evidence to be as conclusive. The Karkiya are probably from Caria, simple enough. The Sherden meanwhile show up in Egyptian records as renowned mercenaries at least as far back as the 14th century BCE, and for a few centuries after the Bronze Age Collapse itself. Most people today will tell you that the Sherden were probably seasoned seamen (ha) from ancient Sardinia. The similar names are pretty strong clues in themselves, but depictions of the Sherden in Egyptian art also match fairly well with features of the Nuragic Culture who ruled Sardinia until at least the Roman period. There may even be a Nuragic site settled by Sea Peoples in Israel called El-Ahwat, which heavily resembles the enormous fortified towers which define Nuragic culture. It is possible the Sherden may instead be linked to the Anatolian city of Sardis, but these theories seem to always need to explain away the Sherden's striking resemblances to Sardinian culture. It's not impossible, but we simply don't know.

The Ekwesh are a little trickier. Usually, they're identified with the Mycenaean Greeks, specifically the Achaeans mentioned in the works of Homer. Assuming this is correct, they could be the same people that Hittite records call the "Ahhiyawa", infamous for their raids against Luwian settlements like Troy. While this is a tempting match, it's not perfect. For one, the Egyptians already had a name for the Mycenaeans: "Tanaju", and this is confirmed through Egyptian lists of known Mycenaean cities in the Peloponnese. They could have multiple names for the same people, sure, but it becomes unlikely when the two names are used in the same documents as if they're separate groups. The Ekwesh are also explicitly referenced as being circumcised, which is an extremely un-Greek practice. There aren't really any better theories out there, though, so for now we'll just check the Ekwesh off as "uhh… maybe Greek?"

The Denyen are pretty much in that same category. The most common theory is that they're related to Homer's "Danaoi", a term which he uses to denote Greeks more broadly. This would line up much better etymologically with the term "Tanaju" mentioned earlier. Not everyone is convinced though. Some propose the Denyen are instead related to the people of Adana, located in southern Anatolia, while a more fringe take proposes that the Denyen are actually the Tribe of Dan mentioned in the Bible. This last theory is really flimsy, as it pretty much just argues well in the Bible it says the Tribe of Dan came from boats and the Sea People had boats so… checkmate, I guess?

The last four Sea Peoples are really anyone's guess. The Tjeker are referenced by the Egyptian statesman Wenamun as being settled in the Canaanite city of Dor, but that doesn't really help us narrow down where they came from. The Shekelesh are often guessed to have origins in Sicily, but the evidence is flimsy. Similarly, the Weshesh have most scholars shrugging and guessing "Trojans maybe?" since the native name for the city of Troy is "Wilusa". And lastly, the Teresh are just all over the map. Some people argue they were also Trojans, while others say they were Etruscan peoples sailing in from the Tyrrhenian Sea. I've even seen it proposed that they actually had some connection to the semi-legendary Iberian civilization of Tartessos, but this theory is clearly off its rocker. We humans have a nasty habit of lumping things we don't understand into one basket, but the sad truth is we just don't have the evidence to draw clearer conclusions from. The Sea Peoples could be a mix of all these identities, or none of them. We'll never know, as they never wrote anything down themselves, and their entire existence in the historical record amounted to showing up, breaking everyone's shit, and disappearing into the seas from which they came. Maybe they were mermaids afterall.

Design notes, this one was really difficult, because obviously the Sea Peoples were not one unified culture or state. Each individual wore different styles of armor, garments, and decoration befitting their respective origins. Originally I was tempted to try and come up with designs for each faction of Sea Peoples, but even I have my limits. There's just not that many reference images to be able do that anyways. Maybe some day, but not today. Ultimately, I whittled it down to the most common silhouettes you'll see the Sea Peoples depicted with. I also obviously went all in on the whole sea part of the Sea Peoples. I wanted their armor to have a sort of coral or clamshell vibe. That's probably completely ahistorical, as I doubt the real Sea Peoples gave half a rat's ass about branding when the world was coming to an end, but that's why they have me 3000 years later. I also have to admit, I 100% stole those horseshoe crab shoulder pads on the elite from the Aegean Pirate armor in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I couldn't help myself, I just thought that was such a neat idea. The helmet is kinda inspired from the same set, but I tried to make it more closely resemble Nuragic helmets with a bit of a cephalopod twist. I'm not entirely happy with how this all turned out, and it's due for a redo at some point, but for now it serves its purpose, and I have an excuse to talk about Sea Peoples.

Description
In 1928, archaeologists digging around the desolated ruins of Ugarit found a hastily scribbled letter written by the city's king, Ammurapi, begging desperately for help from his allies in Cyprus. Because, as he wrote, "the enemy's ships are coming, and have been burning my cities and doing evil in my land". He could not deal with this menace himself, because his "troops and chariots are in the land of Hatti, and all my ships in the land of Lukka" dealing with a similar if not directly related onslaught. The message would never arrive, or even be sent. The archaeologists found it still in the kiln, surrounded by burnt ruins and a sea of arrowheads. This is one of the few direct accounts we have of the end of the world… in 1180 BCE at least. This was the period of history which we call the Bronze Age Collapse. This was a complete and total disruption of a once thriving society of wealthy, literate, and interconnected nations, brought down by any number of theories ranging from climate change to internal strife to economic collapse or a combination of all these things. Damn, that sure does sound like a shitty time for everyone. I'd sure hate to live through a time like that. Haha ha ha… haauuughhh…

I've made this joke already though so let's put my existential crises aside like I do every morning and focus in on one of the more charismatic causes of the Bronze Age Collapse: the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples were sadly not a race of merfolk emerging from the depths to way waste to the surface-dwellers. I mean maybe they were, I guess I can't stop you from believing that. No, instead the Sea Peoples were a mysterious confederation of many different tribes and cultures from across the Mediterranean world who took to raiding the wealthy kingdoms of yore under one black flag. In other words, pirates, one of the first pirate societies in the world to have an impact on a large geographical area, in fact. It's not clear if the Sea Peoples were the actual cause of the Collapse, or if they were victims of it desperate enough to band together and take their share by force before the apocalypse really set in, though most scholars today lean towards the latter. These mysterious marauders destroyed Ugarit, brought down the entire Hittite Empire, and nearly took Egypt with it. Only the Pharaoh Ramesses III was able to fend them off, a feat which he liked to make a big deal of bragging about. Indeed, Egyptian records are the only place we get something of a list of nations the Sea Peoples counted among their ranks, and each one is an absolute nightmare to identify conclusively. So let's go through each and see what we can glean from these people who disappeared just as swiftly as they arrived.

Let's start with the easy ones: the Peleset and the Lukka. The Lukka are identified in other texts as hailing from the region in Anatolia we now call Lycia. The people here were speakers of Luwian, an Indo-European tongue which was related to the language that would've been spoken at the historical Troy. Indeed, both the historical Troy and the Luwians were vassals of the larger Hittite Empire, who made frequent complaints about how the Mycenaeans kept wrecking all their shit. More on that later.

The Peleset meanwhile are not as conclusive, but everyone and their dog agrees that they're the same people as the Biblical Philistines, as depictions of the Peleset in Egyptian art are near spitting images to the way the Philistines depict themselves. In scripture, the Philistines are remembered as being the biggest bullies on the block, constantly harassing the Israelites until their top dog Goliath was brought down a few pegs by a little punk named David. While little can be said on the historical veracity of that particular narrative, the historical Philistines have a rich archaeological footprint. Originally, they hailed from somewhere in the Aegean, as evidenced by the fact that Philistine pottery is identical to Mycenaean pottery, and their very pig-heavy diets were much the same too. The Biblical narrative also tells us that the Philistines came to the Levant from "Caphtor", often identified with the island of Crete, further lending credence to an Aegean origin. There's a good chance that Ramesses III himself resettled the Peleset into the Levant after defeating them. Evidently he realized that it's much better for one's health if you have Sea Peoples literally anywhere but where you are at this moment.

The Sherden, the Karkiya, and the Ekwesh are the three Sea Peoples whom we're relatively sure about their identities, but lack the evidence to be as conclusive. The Karkiya are probably from Caria, simple enough. The Sherden meanwhile show up in Egyptian records as renowned mercenaries at least as far back as the 14th century BCE, and for a few centuries after the Bronze Age Collapse itself. Most people today will tell you that the Sherden were probably seasoned seamen (ha) from ancient Sardinia. The similar names are pretty strong clues in themselves, but depictions of the Sherden in Egyptian art also match fairly well with features of the Nuragic Culture who ruled Sardinia until at least the Roman period. There may even be a Nuragic site settled by Sea Peoples in Israel called El-Ahwat, which heavily resembles the enormous fortified towers which define Nuragic culture. It is possible the Sherden may instead be linked to the Anatolian city of Sardis, but these theories seem to always need to explain away the Sherden's striking resemblances to Sardinian culture. It's not impossible, but we simply don't know.

The Ekwesh are a little trickier. Usually, they're identified with the Mycenaean Greeks, specifically the Achaeans mentioned in the works of Homer. Assuming this is correct, they could be the same people that Hittite records call the "Ahhiyawa", infamous for their raids against Luwian settlements like Troy. While this is a tempting match, it's not perfect. For one, the Egyptians already had a name for the Mycenaeans: "Tanaju", and this is confirmed through Egyptian lists of known Mycenaean cities in the Peloponnese. They could have multiple names for the same people, sure, but it becomes unlikely when the two names are used in the same documents as if they're separate groups. The Ekwesh are also explicitly referenced as being circumcised, which is an extremely un-Greek practice. There aren't really any better theories out there, though, so for now we'll just check the Ekwesh off as "uhh… maybe Greek?"

The Denyen are pretty much in that same category. The most common theory is that they're related to Homer's "Danaoi", a term which he uses to denote Greeks more broadly. This would line up much better etymologically with the term "Tanaju" mentioned earlier. Not everyone is convinced though. Some propose the Denyen are instead related to the people of Adana, located in southern Anatolia, while a more fringe take proposes that the Denyen are actually the Tribe of Dan mentioned in the Bible. This last theory is really flimsy, as it pretty much just argues well in the Bible it says the Tribe of Dan came from boats and the Sea People had boats so… checkmate, I guess?

The last four Sea Peoples are really anyone's guess. The Tjeker are referenced by the Egyptian statesman Wenamun as being settled in the Canaanite city of Dor, but that doesn't really help us narrow down where they came from. The Shekelesh are often guessed to have origins in Sicily, but the evidence is flimsy. Similarly, the Weshesh have most scholars shrugging and guessing "Trojans maybe?" since the native name for the city of Troy is "Wilusa". And lastly, the Teresh are just all over the map. Some people argue they were also Trojans, while others say they were Etruscan peoples sailing in from the Tyrrhenian Sea. I've even seen it proposed that they actually had some connection to the semi-legendary Iberian civilization of Tartessos, but this theory is clearly off its rocker. We humans have a nasty habit of lumping things we don't understand into one basket, but the sad truth is we just don't have the evidence to draw clearer conclusions from. The Sea Peoples could be a mix of all these identities, or none of them. We'll never know, as they never wrote anything down themselves, and their entire existence in the historical record amounted to showing up, breaking everyone's shit, and disappearing into the seas from which they came. Maybe they were mermaids afterall.

Design notes, this one was really difficult, because obviously the Sea Peoples were not one unified culture or state. Each individual wore different styles of armor, garments, and decoration befitting their respective origins. Originally I was tempted to try and come up with designs for each faction of Sea Peoples, but even I have my limits. There's just not that many reference images to be able do that anyways. Maybe some day, but not today. Ultimately, I whittled it down to the most common silhouettes you'll see the Sea Peoples depicted with. I also obviously went all in on the whole sea part of the Sea Peoples. I wanted their armor to have a sort of coral or clamshell vibe. That's probably completely ahistorical, as I doubt the real Sea Peoples gave half a rat's ass about branding when the world was coming to an end, but that's why they have me 3000 years later. I also have to admit, I 100% stole those horseshoe crab shoulder pads on the elite from the Aegean Pirate armor in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I couldn't help myself, I just thought that was such a neat idea. The helmet is kinda inspired from the same set, but I tried to make it more closely resemble Nuragic helmets with a bit of a cephalopod twist. I'm not entirely happy with how this all turned out, and it's due for a redo at some point, but for now it serves its purpose, and I have an excuse to talk about Sea Peoples.