The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (1982), 11.4: 291-304

The ships of the Sea Peoples (IJNA, 10.3: 187-220): additional notes

Shelley Wachsmann Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, P.O. Box 586, Jerusalem, Israel 91 004

Since my study of the Sea Peoples’ ships (Wachsmann, 1981) went to press several relevant additional factors have come to my attention. I summarize the main points here.

The textual evidence The Sea Peoples apparently suffered setbacks when they came up against organised military resistance. In a fascinating Ugaritic text brought to my attention by Michael Heltzer some people, termed Sikila (Sikila) were captured by a man of Ugarit. These Sikila are apparently to be identified with the group of Sea Peo les

In the text (RS 34.129; Dietrich & Loretz, 1978), which must date to the latter days of Ugarit, the Hittite king ordered that Lunaduzu, the man responsible for takmg the prisoners, be sent to him so that he might be questioned ‘about matters of the Sikila’ (1 1.25-26). After the questioning LunaduXu would be permitted to return to Ugarit. In defining the Sikila the Hittite king described them as those ‘who live on ships’ (1 1.13-14); it would indeed be difficult to find a definition closer than this for the ethnic groups known collectively to the Egyptians as ‘Sea Peoples’.

This text also shows, if there was any doubt in the matter, that the ‘enemy’ referred to in the Ugaritic kiln texts (Wachsmann, 1981, p. 188) were contingents of the Sea Peoples.

The text has a chronological significance far beyond the minor military encounter with which it deals. The Sekel/Sikila are recorded as taking part in the second attack on Egypt by groups of Sea Peoples repulsed by Ramses 111 in his eighth regnal year c. 1186 BC. Later,

termed Sekels (‘$rw) in the Egyptian texts.[ P 1

c. 1100 BC, Wenamon found them settled in the region of Dor (BAR IV: 565). However, their conspicuous absence in the earlier attempted invasion of Egypt during the reign of Merneptah c. 1220 BC (Sandars, 1978: 105-15) indicates that th~s specific group must have come on to the international scene fairly late. Therefore, if we find them fighting at Ugarit then the final destruction of that city cannot be chronologically very distant from the Sea Peoples’ later attempted invasion of Egypt c . 1186 BC-and probably not earlier than the beginning of the 12th Recently Muhly (1980: 158-9) reached the same con- clusion based on the corrected final date for LH 111 B pottery.

Yet questions remain unanswered. Where does this text fit into the micro-history of Ugarit’s last days as seen through the kiln texts? What relationship (if any) did the captured Sikila have to the seven enemy ships which terrorized Ugarit’s coastal cities (Rs 20.238)? How did LunaduXu capture the Sikila-in a sea battle or on land? One yearns to know more.

In the general picture that we receive from the encounters of the Sea Peoples with the major, literate Late Bronze Age cultures there is much that is reminiscent of Viking raids of the 9th-12th centuries AD. After having studied the Sea Peoples, one sometimes receives a feeling bordering on dpja vu where the Vikings are concerned. In fact, the more enigmatic aspects of the Sea Peoples’ expansion may perhaps be better understood by studying them in the light of the better documented mechanics of the Viking expansion.

Christensen (1972: 165) has written:

0305-1445/82/040291+08 $03.00/0 Q 1982 The Nautical Archaeology T;ust Ltd.

NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 11.4

‘The background of Scandinavian expansion in the Viking Age is complex and not fully explained. Pressure of population at home was considerable, and it is widely accepted that it was chiefly on this account that the Vikings set out on their voyages. A fact that is often overlooked is that a large percentage of the Vikings were peaceful settlers in search of land. The reason for the tactical superiority of those who preferred plunder to tillage, however, is still not clear. Most of the bands were small and often loosely organized. When they met regular Frankish or Anglo-Saxon troops in battle they fre- quently lost the contest. Nevertheless, the Vikings managed to harass the coasts of Europe profitably for two centuries. Their main assets were the ships and the ‘com- mando’ tactics these enabled them to use. Appearing ‘out of the blue’, the shallow- draft vessels would land their crews on any suitable beach to carry out a quick raid and be away before any proper defence could be organized.’

Change only the names and this same text could be used to describe the Sea Peoples at the close of the Late Bronze Age.

The Ugaritic text under discussion indicates that the Sea Peoples, like the later Vikings, were apt to lose when fighting an organized military force rather than a helpless, unarmed coastal settlement.

I have previously discussed the contemporary textual evidence for the ‘commando’ tactics used by the Sea Peoples (Wachsmann, 1981: 188). There can be no doubt that their swift- oared ships were a major asset in this type of warfare, as were those of the Vikings.

Another illuminating similarity is the seasonal aspect of small raids carried out by individual groups. Thus Ringler (1980: 20) pointed out that Viking raiding on a minor scale was almost always relegated to a seasonal activity as may be seen by the practise of Svein Asleifarson, a 1 Zth-century (AD) Orkney chieftain :

‘Every spring Svein was very busy and had a huge amount of seed sown and took a big part in this work himself. But when the work was done he would go out Viking and would raid the Hebrides and Ireland and come home at midsummer. He called this his ‘spring Viking’. Then he would stay at home

till the fields had been reaped and the grain stored away. After this he would go out Viking and not come back till one month of the winter was over, and he called this his ‘autumn Viking’.

In one of the El Amarna texts, the king of Ala3ia seemed to be answering accusations previously made by the Egyptian Pharaoh to the effect that Alaliians took part in attacks on Egyptian territory, made by people of the land of Luki. While denying these charges the AlaBan king complained that he also suffered from similar raids. He wrote that the ‘people of the land of Lukki year by year take a [slmall cit[y] in my land’ (EA 38: 10-12)-anobvious allusion to seasonal raiding by this well known group of Sea Peoples.

Probably in common with the Vikings, the Sea Peoples used a variety of craft for different purposes, although existent evidence is, at present, limited to what appear to be fighting

The warlike, almost barbarian, character of the Sea Peoples as they appear in the textual evidence may be somewhat misleading. Sandars (1978: 83) noted that ‘there is a sense in which literacy actually distorts the archaeological record, for while it illuminates the centers of civilization, it makes the darkness surrounding even darker’. Amihai Mazar pointed out to me that the cultural equipment of the groups of Sea Peoples who settled on the present day Israeli coast at the end of the Late Bronze Age reveals a very high cultural level (Dothan, 1967; Mazar, 1978)-a cultural level that is not apparent from the literary record. Again, this is akin to our understanding of the Vikings who until recently were considered rough bar- barians-mainly on the basis of the literary records of the people upon whom they preyed. Now, however, other less warlike aspects of their culture are being revealed, mainly through the archaeological record.

Of interest in this respect are remains of a ship’s cargo and two large stone anchors which were found and excavated by Kurt Raveh and myself near Kibbutz ha-Hotrim (several kilo- metres north of Atlit) for the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums in October- November 1980 (Wachsmann & Raveh, 1981a, b). There is evidence to suggest that the anchors and the cargo, which consist mainly

ships.

298

S. WACHSMANN: SHIPS OF THE SEA PEOPLES

Figure 1 . Ship N . l . Photograph B. Brand].

of small pieces of scrap metal, all come from a single merchantman.

Since the metal artefacts date to the 13th- 12th centuries BC the ship that jettisoned them may conceivably have belonged to one of the groups of Sea Peoples that settled in this area at that time.

On aspective Egyptian art The impossible manner in which the figure in ship E.l (Wachsmann, 1981: p. 190, fig. 3A) is placed, leaning over the line which is generally understood to be the junction of the gunwale and the screen need not be due to an artist’s error. As Schafer (1974: 134-7) pointed out, in Egyptian art one sometimes receives the impression that part of a person’s body is disappearing behind a structure. At first, this would appear to be drawn according to modern perspective, directly from a mental image. However, this is not always the case. In one example shown by Schafer (p. 137, fig. 117) a man is looking out of the door of a ship’s cabin with half his body projecting-but the body begins at the outside edge of the doorpost. The position of the figure in ship E. l is apparently also due to t h s phenomenon in Egyptian art

Artist’s errors do appear on the represen- tations of a Sea Peoples’ ship at Medinet Habu. Note that the mast mistakenly crosses area AB

in ship N.2 (Wachsmann, 1981: p. 192, fig. 4, p. 194, fig. 8; here Fig. 2) and area AX in ship N.3 (Wachsmann, 1981: p. 194, fig. 9-10; here Fig. 3) although it is correctly portrayed as appearing from behind line A in ships N.1, N.4 and N.5 (Wachsmann, 1981: p. 192, fig. 5, p. 193, figs 6-7; here Figs 1,4-5).

Therefore, in order to be confident that we understand correctly exactly what the Egyptian artist had in mind when representing a ship it is important t o have several independent clues corroborating the same details. Happily, such is the case here (Wachsmann, 1981: 191-5).

On the ship model from Asine In reply to my inquiry as to the exact provenance and date of the terracotta ship model found in the Swedish excavations at Asine (Wachsmann, 1981: p. 208, fig. 23B) Robin Hagg of the Swedish Institute in Athens wrote (letter dated March 3, 1981):

‘To begin with I thought that it would be easy to find the information requested, but I soon found out that the ship model has not been properly published. I could not find it mentioned in the main publication where it should have been included (Asine. Resulrs of the Swedish excavations 1922-1930, by 0 . Frodin, A. W. Person, and A. Westholm, Stockholm, 1938), nor is it mentioned in the chapter Seewesen by D. Gray (Archaeologica

299

NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 11.4

e S M .d

L

300

S. WACHSMANN: SHIPS OF THE SEA PEOPLES

s e E

a c 3 2

301

NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 11.4

Figure 4. Ship N.4. Photograph B. Brandl.

Homerica, Band I, Kapitel G . , Gottingen, 1974) or even in the supplements to this chapter given by S. C. Humphreys in her review in Classical Philology 72, 1911, pp. 347-355 . . .

I have also asked colleagues, Greek and Swedish, who should know something about the finds from Asine, but nobody seems to remember when the model was placed on display in the Nauplion Museum. The date given by Gottlicher is obviously just taken from the indication in the showcase, covering the latter half of the Mycenaean period. Incidentally, most of the finds in the same showcase originate from the so-called House G with the house sanctuary (Asine, pp. 298-310), dated in the IIIC phase (12th century). It is, generally speaking, likely that the model also comes from the late Mycenaean period, but in the absence of excavation data we cannot know. We can only state that practically no early Mycenaean houses were excavated in the ‘Lower City’ of Asine-if, indeed, the model comes from the settlement. This is, however, more likely than that it should have been found in a tomb, since the contents of the chamber tombs were more conscientiously published.’

On downward curving yards in Egyptian art Yards with downcurving tips are not quite as rare in Egypt as has been thought in the past.

Downcurving yards appear on several river boats from the 15th-century Theban toimbs of Rechmire (T. loo), Menna (T. 69), Amenemhet (T. 82) and Sennefer (T. 96B) (Davies, 1943: pls LXI, LXVIII, XCIV; Landstrom, 1970: p. 136, fig. 399, p. 99, fig. 316, p. 101, fig. 319; Mekhitarian, 1978: 80). These however are the exceptions rather than the rule. Furthermore several of these representations may very well be artists’ variations on a single drawing of a ship taken from a common source, or ‘copy- book’, used in the preparation of Thebari tomb decorations. If this is the case then their number could be misleading.

The extreme rarity of the downward curving yard in representations of indigenous ships in Egypt, the country for which we have the best documentation of ship development from among the known Mediterranean Bronze Age cultures, clearly argues against them being in common use there. That this type of yard appears earlier on Egyptian than on !Syrian ships may be explained by the fact that, at present, there are no known representations of Syrian ships ante-dating the reign of Amenhotep 111.

New discoveries During a recent season of excavations at Tel

3 02

S. WACHSMANN: SHIPS OF THE SEA PEOPLES

s 0.

M

0

E c1

f

3 03

NAUTlCAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 11.4

Acco carried out by the University of Haifa under the directorship of Moshe Dothan, several schematic graffiti of ships were found in the area supervised by Mchal Artzi. The graffiti come from a stratum whichis apparently related to the advent of a group of Sea Peoples at that site. The future publication of these graffiti will, no doubt, further enrich our knowledge of the ships used by the Sea Peoples. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Professor Lionel Casson,

Professor Robin Hagg, Dr Michael Heltzer, Dr Amihai Mazar, Professor James I). Muhly and Professor Anson Rainey for- their very constructive comments. My thanks are also due to Professor Moshe Dothan and Dr Michal Artzi for bringing the recently discovered s h p graffiti from Tel Acco to my attention and to Mr Baruch Brandel for kindly permitting publication here of photographs taken by him of the five representations of a Sea Peoples’ ship in the Medinet Habu relief (Figs 1--5).

Notes [ l ] Anson Rainey notes (private communication):

Text RS 34.129 has strong Assyrian linguistic features, i.e. i$-bu-tu-bh-ni 0. 12). As an Assyrianized text, we would expect that signs with I would be used for s. So for !i-ka-la-iu-& (ll. 11 and 21) we could read Sik(k)alayii and for P-ki-la 0. 25) we could read Sik(k)ila. The vowel variation in the second syllable is puzzling but may be due to the presence of a short, indistinct vowel, like Hebrew shewa.

The phoneme in the Egyptian form rkrw (Sekels) can only be samech, never zayin or bade. ‘Therefore, the chance of equating the people in RS 34.129 with that Sea People is quite likely. See also, in relation to this Rainey (in press).

[2] Note, however, that this appearance of the Sikila predates the collapse of the Hittite Empire.

References BAR, Ancient records of Egypt. J. H. Breasted (Ed.), vols I-V. Chicago, 1906-7. Christensen, A. E., 1972, Scandinavian ships from earliest times to the Vikings. In C. F. Bass (Ed.), A history

Davies, N. de G., 1943, The Tomb of Rekh-mi-RZat Thebes, vol. 11. New York. Dietrich, M. & Loretz, O., 1978, Das ‘Seefahrende Volk’ von Sikila (RS 34.129). Ugarit-Forschungen 10: 53-56.

Dothan, T., 1967, The Philistines and their material culture. Jerusalem. (In Hebrew). EA, The Tell el-Amarna Tablets. S . A. B. Mercer (Ed.), 2 vols. Toronto, 1939. Landstrbm, B., 1970, Ships o f the Pharaohs. Garden City, Ncw Jersey. Mazar, A., 1980, Excavations at Tel Qasile: part 1. The Philistine Sanctuary, architecture and cult objects

Mekhitarian, A., 1978, Egyptian painting. New York. Muhly, J. D., 1980, Bronze figurines and Near Eastern metalwork. Israel Exploration J., 30: 148-61. Jlerusalem. Rainey, A. F., in press, Toponymic problems (cont.), Tel Aviv. Ringler, D., 1980, To go a’Viking. Oceans, 13: 18-26. San Diego, California. Sandars, N. K., 1978, The Sea Peoples. London. Schafer, H., 1974, Principals of Egyptian art. Translated by J. Baines. Oxford, Wachsmann, S., 1981, The ships of the Sea Peoples.ZJNA, 10: 187-220. Wachsmann, S. & Raveh, K., 1981a. An underwater salvage excavation near Kibbutz ha-Hotrim, Israel. ZJNA.

Wachsmann, S. & Raveh, K., 1981b. Underwater salvage excavation at ha-Hotrim, 1980, Israel Exploration J.,

of seafaring based on underwater archaeology: 159-180. New York.

Neukirchen-Vluyn, German Federal Republic.

(Qedem 12). Jerusalem.

1 0 160.

31: 116-7 and pl. 24: E. Jerusalem.

304