The Sea Peoples, from Cuneiform Tablets to Carbon Dating

Whereas the Sea People event constitutes a major turning point in ancient world history, attested by both written and archaeological (e.g. Ugarit, Enkomi, Kition, Byblos) evidence, our knowledge of when these waves of destructions occurred rests on translation of cuneiform tablets preceding the invasions (terminus ante quem) and on Ramses III's reign (terminus post quem). Here, we report the first absolute chronology of the invasion from a rare, well-preserved Sea People destruction layer (Fig. 2) from a Levantine harbour town of the Ugarit kingdom. The destruction layer contains remains of conflicts (bronze arrowheads scattered around the town, fallen walls, burnt houses), ash from the conflagration of houses, and chronologically well-constrained ceramic assemblages fragmented by the collapse of the town. This stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology, with anchor points in ancient epigraphic-literary sources, Hittite-Levantine-Egyptian kings and astronomical observations, was used to precisely date the Sea People invasion in northern Levant, a decisive episode in a long-term collapse of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world. By confronting historical and science-based archaeology, the data offer the first firm chronology for this key period in human society.

The Sea Peoples are an almost ideal modern invention, because they can operate as a gap filler in so many different eras, that is, assuming one doesn't look too closely or carefully.

[snip Amenhotep II was identified with the king whom an ancient epic poem portrayed as leading an enormous army against the city of Ugarit, only to be pursued to the Sinai Desert. He was further shown to be the alter ego of the Scriptural Zerah, whose enterprise started similarly and ended identically. [/snip]DAG: The Reconstruction of Ancient History by Immanuel Velikovsky
Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History by Immanuel Velikovsky
1. The name of the city Ugarit (Ras Shamra) is probably the equivalent of Euagoras, the Carian-Ionian name of a number of Cyprian kings.
2. The name Nikmed of the Ras Shamra texts is the Ionian-Carian name Nikomed(es).
3. The city of Ras Shamra was destroyed in the days of the King Nikmed by Shalmanassar (in 856 B. C. E). Its destruction is recorded by Shalmanassar and the city is called "the city of Nikdem". A proclamation telling about the expulsion of Nikmed, found in the city, refers to the same event.
4. It is highly probable that King Nikmed (Nikdem) fled to Greece, and that this man of learning there introduced alphabetic writing. Therefore, he might have been Cadmos of the Greek tradition.
5. Minoan inscriptions of the Mycenaean Age may comprise alphabetic writings following in principle the cuneiform alphabet of Ras Shamra Hebrew.
6. The vaults of the necropolis of Ras Shamra and similar vaults in Cyprus are contemporaneous, and not separated by six centuries.
7. The tombs of Enkomi on Cyprus, excavated by A. S. Murray in 1896, were correctly assigned by him to the eighth-seventh century.
8. The time table of the Minoan and Mycenean culture is distorted by almost six hundred years, because it is dependent upon the wrong Egyptian chronology.
9. No "Dark Age" of six centuries duration intervened in Greece between the Mycenaean Age and the Ionian Age of the seventh century.
10. The large buildings and fortifications of Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argive Plain date from the time of the Argive Tyrants, who lived in the eighth century.
11. The Heraion of Olympia was built in the "Mycenaean" age, in the first millennium
12. The so-called Mycenaean ware was mainly of Cypriote (Phoenician) manufacture. It dates from the tenth to the sixth century.
13. The so-called Geometric ware is not a later product than the Mycenaean ware; they were products of the same age.
14. The entire archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean, based upon the assumption that the Mycenaean culture belongs to the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries, is built upon a misleading principle.
Applying the Revised Chronology: Ugarit by Edwin M. Schorr
[snip] The facts are that the Levant did not export painted pottery to seventh-century Greece; LH III shapes and decoration made only a very small impact on the Levantine ceramic industry as a whole} and even in Philistia, LH III C-type pottery did not last as long as it did in Greece itself -- none of which helps the survival theory for the Levant any more than at all the other places suggested over the last century. Bothered by those facts some scholars, who still favor the theory, propose that Near Eastern metalwork, ivory carvings and decorated fabrics kept the designs (if not the pot shapes) alive over those centuries.28 For continuity of decorative ivories and metalware the situation in the Levant presents as big an obstacle as in Greece (and as big a source of consternation), since there is no evidence of either product from ca. 1200 to 900 B.C. [/snip] [note] many authorities have long noted that ninth-seventh-century Phoenician decorated bowls "continue the tradition" of similar bowls from Ugarit of Eighteenth Dynasty date [/note]Applying the Revised Chronology: Other LH III Figural Pottery by Edwin M. Schorr
CE: The Testimony of Radiocarbon Dating by Immanuel Velikovsky
DAG: Seismology and Chronology by Immanuel Velikovsky
ITB: The End of the Early Bronze Age by Immanuel Velikovsky

Whoops, some small style changes:

[snip Amenhotep II was identified with the king whom an ancient epic poem portrayed as leading an enormous army against the city of Ugarit, only to be pursued to the Sinai Desert. He was further shown to be the alter ego of the Scriptural Zerah, whose enterprise started similarly and ended identically. [/snip] -- DAG: The Reconstruction of Ancient History by Immanuel Velikovsky
Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History by Immanuel Velikovsky
1. The name of the city Ugarit (Ras Shamra) is probably the equivalent of Euagoras, the Carian-Ionian name of a number of Cyprian kings.
2. The name Nikmed of the Ras Shamra texts is the Ionian-Carian name Nikomed(es).
3. The city of Ras Shamra was destroyed in the days of the King Nikmed by Shalmanassar (in 856 B. C. E). Its destruction is recorded by Shalmanassar and the city is called "the city of Nikdem". A proclamation telling about the expulsion of Nikmed, found in the city, refers to the same event.
4. It is highly probable that King Nikmed (Nikdem) fled to Greece, and that this man of learning there introduced alphabetic writing. Therefore, he might have been Cadmos of the Greek tradition.
5. Minoan inscriptions of the Mycenaean Age may comprise alphabetic writings following in principle the cuneiform alphabet of Ras Shamra Hebrew.
6. The vaults of the necropolis of Ras Shamra and similar vaults in Cyprus are contemporaneous, and not separated by six centuries.
7. The tombs of Enkomi on Cyprus, excavated by A. S. Murray in 1896, were correctly assigned by him to the eighth-seventh century.
8. The time table of the Minoan and Mycenean culture is distorted by almost six hundred years, because it is dependent upon the wrong Egyptian chronology.
9. No "Dark Age" of six centuries duration intervened in Greece between the Mycenaean Age and the Ionian Age of the seventh century.
10. The large buildings and fortifications of Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argive Plain date from the time of the Argive Tyrants, who lived in the eighth century.
11. The Heraion of Olympia was built in the "Mycenaean" age, in the first millennium
12. The so-called Mycenaean ware was mainly of Cypriote (Phoenician) manufacture. It dates from the tenth to the sixth century.
13. The so-called Geometric ware is not a later product than the Mycenaean ware; they were products of the same age.
14. The entire archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean, based upon the assumption that the Mycenaean culture belongs to the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries, is built upon a misleading principle.
Applying the Revised Chronology: Ugarit by Edwin M. Schorr
[snip] The facts are that the Levant did not export painted pottery to seventh-century Greece; LH III shapes and decoration made only a very small impact on the Levantine ceramic industry as a whole} and even in Philistia, LH III C-type pottery did not last as long as it did in Greece itself -- none of which helps the survival theory for the Levant any more than at all the other places suggested over the last century. Bothered by those facts some scholars, who still favor the theory, propose that Near Eastern metalwork, ivory carvings and decorated fabrics kept the designs (if not the pot shapes) alive over those centuries.28 For continuity of decorative ivories and metalware the situation in the Levant presents as big an obstacle as in Greece (and as big a source of consternation), since there is no evidence of either product from ca. 1200 to 900 B.C. [/snip] [note] many authorities have long noted that ninth-seventh-century Phoenician decorated bowls "continue the tradition" of similar bowls from Ugarit of Eighteenth Dynasty date [/note] -- Applying the Revised Chronology: Other LH III Figural Pottery by Edwin M. Schorr
CE: The Testimony of Radiocarbon Dating by Immanuel Velikovsky
DAG: Seismology and Chronology by Immanuel Velikovsky
ITB: The End of the Early Bronze Age by Immanuel Velikovsky

Unsure what you mean by ‘modern invention’.The evidence presented by the researchers seems to support what has been
theorized for some time; that the SP arrive on the scene about the same time as the decline of the Mycenaean and Hittite civilizations. Must dig out my copy of Sandars
from storage..

Abstract

The 13th century BC witnessed the zenith of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean civilizations which declined at the end of the Bronze Age, ~3200 years ago. Weakening of this ancient flourishing Mediterranean world shifted the political and economic centres of gravity away from the Levant towards Classical Greece and Rome, and led, in the long term, to the emergence of the modern western civilizations. Textual evidence from cuneiform tablets and Egyptian reliefs from the New Kingdom relate that seafaring tribes, the Sea Peoples, were the final catalyst that put the fall of cities and states in motion. However, the lack of a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology for the Sea People event has led to a floating historical chronology derived from a variety of sources spanning dispersed areas. Here, we report a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology with anchor points in ancient epigraphic-literary sources, Hittite-Levantine-Egyptian kings and astronomical observations to precisely date the Sea People event. By confronting historical and science-based archaeology, we establish an absolute age range of 1192–1190 BC for terminal destructions and cultural collapse in the northern Levant. This radiocarbon-based archaeology has far-reaching implications for the wider Mediterranean, where an elaborate network of international relations and commercial activities are intertwined with the history of civilizations

“Conventional history claims that the Peoples of the Sea were barbarians who nearly destroyed civilisation before they were defeated by Pharao Ramses III in the 12th century B.C. Velikovsky instead believes that there is enough archaeological and documentary evidence to prove that they were Greek mercenaries and that their allies the Pereset weren’t ancient Philisines but Persians. He argues that Ramses III was Nectanebo I of the Greek historians who lived 800 years later, and he places these events not in the 12th but in the 4th century B.C.

“The peoples of the Sea were thus fourth century mercenaries from Asia Minor and Greece, of the time of Plato. He shows that there was a strong Semitic (Hebrew and Assyrian) influence on the language, religion and art of Egypt in the time of Ramses III and provides much other archaeological and documentary evidence.

“The book includes 16 black & white plates including tiles of Ramses III, bass reliefs of the battles against the Peoples of the Sea, the pylon of the Khonsu Temple and portal of the Ramses III temple at Medinet Habu and artwork from the tomb of Si-Amon at Siwa Oasis. The main text concludes with chronological charts in parallel tables listing Persia, Palestine, the Greek World and Egypt from 550 B.C. to 340 B.C. The supplement on Astronomy and Chronology includes chapters on The Foundations of Egyptian Chronology, Sirius and Venus.

“With Velikovsky’ dazzling erudition, Peoples Of The Sea reads like a detective story. I don’t know to what extent Velikovsky’s alternative chronology has been accepted or convincingly disproved but all his work is fascinating and stimulating to read, as he had the talent for making history come alive.”

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Ages-Chaos-Series-Vol/dp/0385033893

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