name	Ramesses III
alt	Also written Ramses and Rameses
nomenhiero	C2-ms-z:z-HqA-q-iwn
Nomen	''Ramesse Hekaiunu'' Ra bore him, Ruler of Heliopolis
prenomenhiero	ra-wsr-mAat-i-mn:n:N36
Prenomen	''Usermaatre Meryamun'' Powerful one of Ma'at and Ra, Beloved of Amun
reign	1186–1155 BC
predecessor	Setnakhte
successor	Ramesses IV
dynasty	20th Dynasty
father	Setnakhte
mother	Tiy-Merenese
spouse	Iset Ta-Hemdjert, Tiye
children	Ramesses V, Ramesses VI, Ramesses VIII, Amun-her-khepeshef, Meryamun, Pareherwenemef, Khaemwaset, Meryatum, Montuherkhopshef, Pentawere, Duatentopet (?)
died	1155 BC
burial	KV11
monuments	Medinet Habu | }}

Usimare Ramesses III (also written Ramses and Rameses) was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty and is considered to be the last great New Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt. He was the son of Setnakhte and Queen Tiy-Merenese. Ramesses III is believed to have reigned from March 1186 to April 1155 BC. This is based on his known accession date of I Shemu day 26 and his death on Year 32 III Shemu day 15, for a reign of 31 years, 1 month and 19 days. (Alternate dates for this king are 1187 to 1156 BC).

Tenure and chaos

During his long tenure in the midst of the surrounding political chaos of the Greek Dark Ages, Egypt was beset by foreign invaders (including the so-called Sea Peoples and the Libyans) and experienced the beginnings of increasing economic difficulties and internal strife which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Twentieth Dynasty. In Year 8 of his reign, the Sea Peoples, including Peleset, Denyen, Shardana, Meshwesh of the sea, and Tjekker, invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles. Although the Egyptians had a reputation as poor seamen they fought tenaciously. Rameses lined the shores with ranks of archers who kept up a continuous volley of arrows into the enemy ships when they attempted to land on the banks of the Nile. Then the Egyptian navy attacked using grappling hooks to haul in the enemy ships. In the brutal hand to hand fighting which ensued, the Sea People were utterly defeated. The Harris Papyrus state:

Ramesses III claims that he incorporated the Sea Peoples as subject peoples and settled them in Southern Canaan, although there is no clear evidence to this effect; the pharaoh, unable to prevent their gradual arrival in Canaan, may have claimed that it was his idea to let them reside in this territory. Their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states in this region such as Philistia after the collapse of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Ramesses III was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns in Egypt's Western Delta in his Year 6 and Year 11 respectively.

The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypt's treasury and contributed to the gradual decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. The severity of these difficulties is stressed by the fact that the first known labor strike in recorded history occurred during Year 29 of Ramesses III's reign, when the food rations for the Egypt's favoured and elite royal tomb-builders and artisans in the village of Set Maat her imenty Waset (now known as Deir el Medina), could not be provisioned. Something in the air (but not necessarily Hekla 3) prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground and also arrested global tree growth for almost two full decades until 1140 BC. The result in Egypt was a substantial inflation in grain prices under the later reigns of Ramesses VI-VII whereas the prices for fowl and slaves remained constant. The cooldown, hence, affected Ramesses III's final years and impaired his ability to provide a constant supply of grain rations to the workman of the Deir el-Medina community.

These difficult realities are completely ignored in Ramesses' official monuments, many of which seek to emulate those of his famous predecessor, Ramesses II, and which present an image of continuity and stability. He built important additions to the temples at Luxor and Karnak, and his funerary temple and administrative complex at Medinet-Habu is amongst the largest and best-preserved in Egypt; however, the uncertainty of Ramesses' times is apparent from the massive fortifications which were built to enclose the latter. No Egyptian temple in the heart of Egypt prior to Ramesses' reign had ever needed to be protected in such a manner.

Ramesses' two main names transliterate as wsr-m3‘t-r‘–mry-ỉmn r‘-ms-s–ḥḳ3-ỉwnw. They are normally realised as Usermaatre-meryamun Ramesse-hekaiunu, meaning "Powerful one of Ma'at and Ra, Beloved of Amun, Ra bore him, Ruler of Heliopolis".

Conspiracy against the king

Thanks to the discovery of papyrus trial transcripts (dated to Ramesses III), it is now known that there was a plot against his life as a result of a royal harem conspiracy during a celebration at Medinet Habu. The conspiracy was instigated by Tiye, one of his two known wives (the other being Iset Ta-Hemdjert), over whose son would inherit the throne. Iset's son, Ramesses (the future Ramesses IV), was the eldest and the successor chosen by Ramesses III in preference to Tiy's son Pentaweret.

The trial documents emphasize the extensive scale of the conspiracy to assassinate the king since many individuals were implicated in the plot. Chief among them were Queen Tey and her son Pentaweret, Ramesses' chief of the chamber, Pebekkamen, seven royal butlers (a respectable state office), two Treasury overseers, two Army standard bearers, two royal scribes and a herald. There is little doubt that all of the main conspirators were executed: some of the condemned were given the option of committing suicide (possibly by poison) rather than being put to death. According to the surviving trials transcripts, 3 separate trials were started in total while 38 people were sentenced to death. The tombs of Tiy and her son Pentaweret were robbed and their names erased to prevent them from enjoying an afterlife. The Egyptians did such a thorough job of this that the only references to them are the trial documents and what remains of their tombs.

Some of the accused harem women tried to seduce the members of the judiciary who tried them but were caught in the act. Judges who took part in the carousing were severely punished. Historian Susan Redford speculates that Pentawere, being a noble, was given the option to commit suicide by taking poison and so be spared the humiliating fate of some of the other conspirators who would have been burned alive with their ashes strewn in the streets. Such punishment served to make a strong example since it emphasized the gravity of their treason for ancient Egyptians who believed that one could only attain an afterlife if one's body was mummified and preserved — rather than being destroyed by fire. In other words, not only were the criminals killed in the physical world; they did not attain an afterlife. They would have no chance of living on into the next world, and thus suffered a complete personal annihilation. By committing suicide, Pentawere could avoid the harsher punishment of a second death. This could have permitted him to be mummified and move on to the afterlife.

It is not known if the assassination plot succeeded. Ramesses III died in his 32nd year before the summaries of the sentences were composed. His body shows no obvious wounds. who might well have used poison. Some have put forth a hypothesis that a snakebite from a viper was the cause of the king's death but this proposal has not been proven. His mummy includes an amulet to protect Ramesses III in the afterlife from snakes. The servant in charge of his food and drink were also among the listed conspirators, but there were also other conspirators who were called the snake and the lord of snakes.

In one respect the conspirators certainly failed. The crown passed to the king's designated successor: Ramesses IV. Ramesses III may have been doubtful as to the latter's chances of succeeding him since, in the Great Harris Papyrus, he implored Amun to ensure his son's rights.

Legacy

The Great Harris Papyrus or Papyrus Harris I, which was commissioned by his son and chosen successor Ramesses IV, chronicles this king's vast donations of land, gold statues and monumental construction to Egypt's various temples at Piramesse, Heliopolis, Memphis, Athribis, Hermopolis, This, Abydos, Coptos, El Kab and other cities in Nubia and Syria. It also records that the king dispatched a trading expedition to the Land of Punt and quarried the copper mines of Timna in southern Canaan. Papyrus Harris I records some of Ramesses III activities:

More notably, Ramesses began the reconstruction of the Temple of Khonsu at Karnak from the foundations of an earlier temple of Amenhotep III and completed the Temple of Medinet Habu around his Year 12. He decorated the walls of his Medinet Habu temple with scenes of his Naval and Land battles against the Sea Peoples. This monument stands today as one of the best-preserved temples of the New Kingdom.

The mummy of Ramesses III was discovered by antiquarians in 1886 and is regarded as the prototypical Egyptian Mummy in numerous Hollywood movies. His tomb (KV11) is one of the largest in the Valley of the Kings.

Chronological dispute

Some scientists have tried to establish a chronological point for this pharaoh's reign at 1159 BC, based on a 1999 dating of the "Hekla 3 eruption" of the Hekla volcano at Iceland. Since contemporary records show that the king experienced difficulties provisioning his workmen at Deir el-Medina with supplies in his 29th Year, this dating of Hekla 3 might connect his 28th or 29th regnal year to circa 1159 BC. A minor discrepancy of 1 year is possible since Egypt's granaries could have had reserves to cope with at least a single bad year of crop harvests following the onset of the disaster. This implies that the king's reign would have ended just 3 to 4 years later around 1156 or 1155 BC. A rival date of "2900 BP" or c.1000 BC has since been proposed by scientists based on a re-examination of the volcanic layer. However, no Egyptologist dates Ramesses III's reign to as late as 1000 BC.

File:Ramses III mummy head.png|Ramesses III's mummy File:KhonsuTemple-Karnak-Incredible.jpg|Finely painted reliefs from Ramesses III's Khonsu temple at Karnak File:Medinet Habu Ramses III. Tempel 02.JPG|Ramesses III's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. File:SFEC-2010-MEDINET HABU-052.JPG|A painted ceiling of Nekhbet at Ramesses III's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu.

References

External links

Timna: Valley of the Ancient Copper Mines

Category:1155 BC deaths Category:Pharaohs of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt Category:Ancient Egyptian mummies Category:Sea Peoples Category:Year of birth unknown

ar:رمسيس الثالث ca:Ramsès III cs:Ramesse III. da:Ramses III de:Ramses III. es:Ramsés III eu:Ramses III.a fa:رامسس سوم fr:Ramsès III hr:Ramzes III. it:Ramesse III he:רעמסס השלישי hu:III. Ramszesz arz:رمسيس التالت nl:Ramses III pl:Ramzes III pt:Ramsés III ro:Ramses al III-lea ru:Рамсес III sr:Рамзес III sh:Ramzes III fi:Ramses III sv:Ramses III vi:Ramesses III yo:Ramesses III zh:拉美西斯三世

name	Cleopatra VII Philopator
imgw	200px
succession	Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt
reign	51 BC - 13 January 47 BC(4 years)(alongside Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator)
predecessor	Ptolemy XII Auletes
successor	Herself(alongside Ptolemy XIV of Egypt)
succession1	Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt
reign1	13 January 47 BC - 44 BC(3 years)(alongside Ptolemy XIV)
predecessor1	Herself(alongside Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator)
successor1	Herself(alongside Caesarion)
succession2	Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt
reign2	2 September 44 BC - 12 August 30 BC()(alongside Caesarion)
predecessor2	Herself (alongside Ptolemy XIV)
successor2	None (Egypt annexed by Rome)
full name	Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator
spouse	Ptolemy XIII Theos PhilopatorPtolemy XIVJulius CaesarMark Antony
issue	Caesarion, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor CaesarAlexander HeliosCleopatra Selene, Queen of MauretaniaPtolemy XVI Philadelphus
royal house	Ptolemaic Dynasty
father	Ptolemy XII Auletes
mother	Unknown, but believed to be Cleopatra V of Egypt
birth date	69 BC
birth place	Alexandria, Egypt
death date	12 August 30 BC (aged 39)
death place	Alexandria, Egypt
place of burial	Unknown }}

{{infobox hieroglyphs |title	Cleopatra VII
name	q:rw-i-wA-p-A-d:r-t-A-H8
name transcription	Cleopatra''Qlwpdrt''
Name in cartouche	yes
Name2	wr:r-nb-nfr-nfr-nfr-H2:x-O22
Name2 in serekh	yes
Name2 serekh symbol	G5
Name2 explanation	Horus name (1): Wer(et)-neb(et)-neferu-achet-seh'''' ''The great Lady of perfection, excellent in counsel''
Name3	wr*t:r-t:W:t-A53-n:X2*t:z
Name3 in serekh	yes
Name3 serekh symbol	G5
Name3 explanation	Horus name (2): Weret-tut-en-it-es''Wr.t-twt-n-jts'' ''The great one, sacred image of her father''
Name4	q:rw-W:p-d:r:t*H8-nTr-t:H8-R7:t-z:N36
Name4 in cartouche	yes
Name4 transcription	Cleopatra netjeret mer(et) ites''Qlwpdrt mr(t) jts''''The goddess Cleopatra who is beloved of her father''
Image1 description	}}

Cleopatra VII Philopator (Greek, ''Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ''; Late 69 BC – August 12, 30 BC) was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death during the Hellenistic period. The Ptolemies, throughout their dynasty, spoke Greek and refused to speak Egyptian, which is the reason that Greek as well as Egyptian languages were used on official court documents such as the Rosetta Stone. By contrast, Cleopatra did learn to speak Egyptian and represented herself as the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess, Isis.

Cleopatra originally ruled jointly with her father Ptolemy XII Auletes and later with her brothers, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler. As pharaoh, she consummated a liaison with Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne. She later elevated her son with Caesar, Caesarion, to co-ruler in name.

After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, she aligned with Mark Antony in opposition to Caesar's legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later known as Augustus). With Antony, she bore the twins Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios, and another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus. Her unions with her brothers produced no children. After losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian's forces, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed suit, according to tradition killing herself by means of an asp bite on August 12, 30 BC. She was briefly outlived by Caesarion, who was declared pharaoh by his supporters, but he was soon killed on Octavian's orders. Egypt became the Roman province of ''Aegyptus''.

To this day, Cleopatra remains a popular figure in Western culture. Her legacy survives in numerous works of art and the many dramatizations of her story in literature and other media, including William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Antony and Cleopatra'', Jules Massenet's opera ''Cléopâtre'' and the 1963 film ''Cleopatra''. In most depictions, Cleopatra is put forward as a great beauty, and her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men are taken as proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal. In his ''Pensées'', philosopher Blaise Pascal contends, evidently speaking ironically because a large nose has symbolized dominance in different periods of history, that Cleopatra's classically beautiful profile changed world history: "Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed."

Biography

Accession to the throne

The identity of Cleopatra's mother is unknown, but she is generally believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena of Egypt, the sister or cousin and wife of Ptolemy XII, or possibly another Ptolemaic family member who was the daughter of Ptolemy X and Cleopatra Berenice III Philopator if Cleopatra V was not the daughter of Ptolemy X and Berenice III. Cleopatra's father Auletes was a direct descendant of Alexander the Great's general, Ptolemy I Soter, son of Arsinoe and Lagus, both of Macedon.

Centralization of power and corruption led to uprisings in and the losses of Cyprus and Cyrenaica, making Ptolemy's reign one of the most calamitous of the dynasty. When Ptolemy went to Rome with Cleopatra, Cleopatra VI Tryphaena seized the crown but died shortly afterwards in suspicious circumstances. It is believed, though not proven by historical sources, that Berenice IV poisoned her so she could assume sole rulership. Regardless of the cause, she did until Ptolemy Auletes returned in 55 BC, with Roman support, capturing Alexandria aided by Roman general Aulus Gabinius. Berenice was imprisoned and executed shortly afterwards, her head allegedly being sent to the royal court on the decree of her father, the king. Cleopatra was now, at age 14, put as joint regent and deputy of her father, although her power was likely to have been severely limited.

Ptolemy XII died in March 51 BC, thus by his will making the 18-year-old Cleopatra and her brother, the 10-year-old Ptolemy XIII joint monarchs. The first three years of their reign were difficult, due to economic difficulties, famine, deficient floods of the Nile, and political conflicts. Although Cleopatra was married to her young brother, she quickly made it clear that she had no intention of sharing power with him.

In August 51 BC, relations between Cleopatra and Ptolemy completely broke down. Cleopatra dropped Ptolemy's name from official documents and her face appeared alone on coins, which went against Ptolemaic tradition of female rulers being subordinate to male co-rulers. In 50 BC Cleopatra came into a serious conflict with the Gabiniani, powerful Roman troops of Aulus Gabinius who had left them in Egypt to protect Ptolemy XII after his restoration to the throne in 55 BC. This conflict was one of the main causes of Cleopatra's fall from power shortly afterward.

The sole reign of Cleopatra was finally ended by a cabal of courtiers, led by the eunuch Pothinus, removing Cleopatra from power and making Ptolemy sole ruler in circa 48 BC (or possibly earlier, as a decree exists from 51 BC with Ptolemy's name alone). She tried to raise a rebellion around Pelusium, but she was soon forced to flee with her only remaining sister, Arsinoë.

Relations with Rome

Assassination of Pompey

While Cleopatra was in exile, Pompey became embroiled in the Roman civil war. In the autumn of 48 BC, Pompey fled from the forces of Caesar to Alexandria, seeking sanctuary. Ptolemy, only thirteen years old at that time, had set up a throne for himself on the harbour, from where he watched as on September 28, 48 BC, Pompey was murdered by one of his former officers, now in Ptolemaic service. He was beheaded in front of his wife and children, who were on the ship from which he had just disembarked. Ptolemy is thought to have ordered the death to ingratiate himself with Caesar, thus becoming an ally of Rome, to which Egypt was in debt at the time, though this act proved a miscalculation on Ptolemy's part. When Caesar arrived in Egypt two days later, Ptolemy presented him with Pompey's severed head; Caesar was enraged. Although he was Caesar's political enemy, Pompey was a Roman consul and the widower of Caesar's only legitimate daughter, Julia (who died in childbirth with Pompey's son). Caesar seized the Egyptian capital and imposed himself as arbiter between the rival claims of Ptolemy and Cleopatra.

Relationship with Julius Caesar

Eager to take advantage of Julius Caesar's anger toward Ptolemy, Cleopatra had herself smuggled secretly into the palace to meet with Caesar. Plutarch in his Julius Caesar gives a vivid description on how she entered past Ptolemy’s guards rolled up in a carpet. She became Caesar’s mistress, and nine months after their first meeting, in 47 BC, Cleopatra gave birth to their son, Ptolemy Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion, which means "little Caesar."

At this point Caesar abandoned his plans to annex Egypt, instead backing Cleopatra's claim to the throne. After a war lasting six months between the party of Ptolemy XIII and the Roman army of Caesar, Ptolemy XIII was drowned in the Nile and Caesar restored Cleopatra to her throne, with another younger brother Ptolemy XIV as her new co-ruler. Although Cleopatra was 21 years old when they met and Caesar was 52, they became lovers during Caesar’s stay in Egypt between 48 BC and 47 BC. Cleopatra claimed Caesar was the father of her son and wished him to name the boy his heir, but Caesar refused, choosing his grandnephew Octavian instead. During this relationship, it was also rumored that Cleopatra introduced Caesar to her astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, who first proposed the idea of leap days and leap years.

Cleopatra, Ptolemy XIV and Caesarion visited Rome in summer 46 BC, where the Egyptian queen resided in one of Caesar's country houses. The relationship between Cleopatra and Caesar was obvious to the Roman people and it was a scandal, because the Roman dictator was already married to Calpurnia Pisonis. But Caesar even erected a golden statue of Cleopatra represented as Isis in the temple of Venus Genetrix (the mythical ancestress of Caesar's family), which was situated at the Forum Julium. The Roman orator Cicero said in his preserved letters that he hated the foreign queen. Cleopatra and her entourage were in Rome when Caesar was assassinated on 15 March, 44 BC. She returned with her relatives to Egypt. When Ptolemy XIV died – allegedly poisoned by his older sister – Cleopatra made Caesarion her co-regent and successor and gave him the epithets ''Theos Philopator Philometor'' (= ''Father- and motherloving God'').

Cleopatra in the Roman Civil War

In the Roman civil war between the Caesarian party, led by Mark Antony and Octavian, and the party of the assassins of Caesar, led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, Cleopatra sided with the Caesarian party because of her past. Brutus and Cassius left Italy and sailed to the East of the Roman Empire, where they conquered large areas and established military bases. At the beginning of 43 BC, Cleopatra formed an alliance with the leader of the Caesarian party in the East, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who recognized Caesarion as her co-ruler. But soon, Dolabella was encircled in Laodicea and committed suicide (July 43 BC).

Cassius then wanted to invade Egypt to seize the treasures of that country and to punish the queen for her refusal to send him supplies and her support for Dolabella. Egypt seemed an easy target because the land did not have strong land forces and there was famine and an epidemic. Cassius also wanted to prevent Cleopatra from bringing reinforcements for Antony and Octavian. But he could not execute an invasion of Egypt, because at the end of 43 BC Brutus summoned him back to Smyrna. Cassius tried to blockade Cleopatra’s route to the Caesarians. For this purpose Lucius Staius Murcus moved with 60 ships and a legion of elite troops into position at Cape Matapan in the south of the Peloponnese. Nevertheless, Cleopatra sailed with her fleet from Alexandria to the west along the Libyan coast to join the Caesarian leaders, but she was forced to return to Egypt because her ships were damaged by a violent storm and she became ill. Staius Murcus learned of the queen's misfortune and saw wreckage from her ships on the coast of Greece. He then sailed with his ships into the Adriatic Sea.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony

In 41 BC, Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs who ruled Rome in the power vacuum following Caesar's death, sent his intimate friend Quintus Dellius to Egypt. Dellius had to summon Cleopatra to Tarsus to meet Antony and answer questions about her loyalty. During the Roman civil war she allegedly had paid much money to Cassius. It seems that in reality Antony wanted Cleopatra’s promise to support his intended war against the Parthians. Cleopatra arrived in great state, and so charmed Antony that he chose to spend the winter of 41 BC–40 BC with her in Alexandria.

To safeguard herself and Caesarion, she had Antony order the death of her sister Arsinoe, who was living at the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which was under Roman control. The execution was carried out in 41 BC on the steps of the temple, and this violation of temple sanctuary scandalised Rome. Cleopatra had also executed her strategos of Cyprus, Serapion, who had supported Cassius against her wishes.

On 25 December 40 BC, Cleopatra gave birth to twins fathered by Antony, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II. Four years later, Antony visited Alexandria again en route to make war with the Parthians. He renewed his relationship with Cleopatra, and from this point on, Alexandria was his home. He married Cleopatra according to the Egyptian rite (a letter quoted in Suetonius suggests this), although he was at the time married to Octavia Minor, sister of his fellow triumvir Octavian. He and Cleopatra had another child, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

At the Donations of Alexandria in late 34 BC, following Antony's conquest of Armenia, Cleopatra and Caesarion were crowned co-rulers of Egypt and Cyprus; Alexander Helios was crowned ruler of Armenia, Media, and Parthia; Cleopatra Selene II was crowned ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya; and Ptolemy Philadelphus was crowned ruler of Phoenicia, Syria, and Cilicia. Cleopatra was also given the title of "Queen of Kings" by Antonius. Her enemies in Rome feared that Cleopatra, "...was planning a war of revenge that was to array all the East against Rome, establish herself as empress of the world at Rome, cast justice from Capitolium, and inaugurate a new universal kingdom." Caesarion was not only elevated having coregency with Cleopatra, but also proclaimed with many titles, including god, son of god and king of kings, and was depicted as Horus. Egyptians thought Cleopatra was a reincarnation of the goddess Isis, as she called herself ''Nea Isis''.

Relations between Antony and Octavian, disintegrating for several years, finally broke down in 33 BC, and Octavian convinced the Senate to levy war against Egypt. In 31 BC Antony's forces faced the Romans in a naval action off the coast of Actium. Cleopatra was present with a fleet of her own. Popular legend states that when she saw that Antony's poorly equipped and manned ships were losing to the Romans' superior vessels, she took flight and that Antony abandoned the battle to follow her, but no contemporary evidence states this was the case. Following the Battle of Actium, Octavian invaded Egypt. As he approached Alexandria, Antony's armies deserted to Octavian on August 1, 30 BC.

There are a number of unverifiable stories about Cleopatra, of which one of the best known is that, at one of the lavish dinners she shared with Antony, she playfully bet him that she could spend ten million sesterces on a dinner. He accepted the bet. The next night, she had a conventional, unspectacular meal served; he was ridiculing this, when she ordered the second course — only a cup of strong vinegar. She then removed one of her priceless pearl earrings, dropped it into the vinegar, allowed it to dissolve, and drank the mixture. The earliest report of this story comes from Pliny the Elder and dates to about 100 years after the banquet described would have happened. The calcium carbonate in pearls does dissolve in vinegar, but slowly unless the pearl is first crushed.

Death

The ancient sources, particularly the Roman ones, are in general agreement that Cleopatra killed herself by inducing an Egyptian cobra to bite her. The oldest source is Strabo, who was alive at the time of the event, and might even have been in Alexandria. He says that there are two stories: that she applied a toxic ointment, or that she was bitten by an asp on her breast. Several Roman poets, writing within ten years of the event, all mention bites by two asps, as does Florus, a historian, some 150 years later. Velleius, sixty years after the event, also refers to an asp. Other authors have questioned these historical accounts, stating that it is possible that Augustus had her killed.

In 2010, the German historian Christoph Schaefer challenged all other theories, declaring that the queen had actually been poisoned and died from drinking a mixture of poisons. After studying historical texts and consulting with toxicologists, the historian concluded that the asp could not have caused a slow and pain-free death, since the asp (Egyptian cobra) venom paralyses parts of the body, starting with the eyes, before causing death. Schaefer and his toxicologist Dietrich Mebs decided Cleopatra used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium.

Plutarch, writing about 130 years after the event, reports that Octavian succeeded in capturing Cleopatra in her mausoleum after the death of Antony. He ordered his freedman Epaphroditus to guard her to prevent her from committing suicide, because he allegedly wanted to present her in his triumph. But Cleopatra was able to deceive Epaphroditus and kill herself nevertheless. Plutarch states that she was found dead, her handmaiden Iras dying at her feet, and another handmaiden, Charmion, adjusting her crown before she herself fell. He then goes on to state that an asp was concealed in a basket of figs that was brought to her by a rustic, and, finding it after eating a few figs, she held out her arm for it to bite. Other stories state that it was hidden in a vase, and that she poked it with a spindle until it got angry enough to bite her on the arm. Finally, he indicates that in Octavian's triumphal march back in Rome, an effigy of Cleopatra that had an asp clinging to it was part of the parade.

Suetonius, writing about the same time as Plutarch, also says Cleopatra died from an asp bite.

Shakespeare gave us the final part of the image that has come down to us, Cleopatra clutching the snake to her breast. Before him, it was generally agreed that she was bitten on the arm.

Plutarch tells us of the death of Antony. When his armies deserted him and joined with Octavian, he cried out that Cleopatra had betrayed him. She, fearing his wrath, locked herself in her monument with only her two handmaidens and sent messengers to tell Antony that she was dead. Believing them, Antony stabbed himself in the stomach with his sword, and lay on his couch to die. Instead, the blood flow stopped, and he begged any and all to finish him off. Another messenger came from Cleopatra with instructions to bring him to her, and he, rejoicing that Cleopatra was still alive, consented. She wouldn't open the door, but tossed ropes out of a window. After Antony was securely trussed up, she and her handmaidens hauled him up into the monument. This nearly finished him off. After dragging him in through the window, they laid him on a couch. Cleopatra tore off her clothes and covered him with them. She raved and cried, beat her breasts and engaged in self-mutilation. Antony told her to calm down, asked for a glass of wine, and died upon finishing it.

The site of their mausoleum is uncertain, though the Egyptian Antiquities Service believes it is in or near the temple of Taposiris Magna, southwest of Alexandria.

Cleopatra's son by Caesar, Caesarion, was proclaimed pharaoh by the Egyptians, after Alexandria fell to Octavian. Caesarion was captured and killed, his fate reportedly sealed when one of Octavian's advisers paraphrased Homer: "It is bad to have too many Caesars." This ended not just the Hellenistic line of Egyptian pharaohs, but the line of all Egyptian pharaohs. The three children of Cleopatra and Antony were spared and taken back to Rome where they were taken care of by Antony's wife, Octavia Minor. The daughter, Cleopatra Selene, was married through arrangements of Octavian to Juba II of Mauretania.

Character and cultural depictions

Cleopatra was regarded as a great beauty, even in the ancient world. In his ''Life of Antony'', Plutarch remarks that "judging by the proofs which she had had before this of the effect of her beauty upon Caius Caesar and Gnaeus the son of Pompey, she had hopes that she would more easily bring Antony to her feet. For Caesar and Pompey had known her when she was still a girl and inexperienced in affairs, but she was going to visit Antony at the very time when women have the most brilliant beauty." Later in the work, however, Plutarch indicates that "her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her." Rather, what ultimately made Cleopatra attractive were her wit, charm and "sweetness in the tones of her voice."

Cassius Dio also spoke of Cleopatra's allure: "For she was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would be in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne."

These accounts influenced later cultural depictions of Cleopatra, which typically present her using her charms to influence the most powerful men in the Western world.

Ancestry

The high degree of inbreeding amongst the Ptolemies is also evident when one considers Cleopatra's immediate family. Her parents were likely brother and sister and hence she had only one set of grandparents. Those grandparents were uncle and niece again limiting the number of ancestors. The relatively small number of ancestors can be seen from the possible ancestry of Cleopatra VII as shown below.

References

Further reading

Primary sources

Hegesippus, ''Historiae'' i.29–32''.

Lucan, ''Bellum civile ix.909–911, x''.

Macrobius, ''Saturnalia iii.17.14–18''.

Orosius, ''Historiae adversus paganos vi.16.1–2, 19.4–18''.

Pliny, ''Naturalis historia vii.2.14, ix.58.119–121, xxi.9.12''.

Suetonius, ''De vita Caesarum'' ''Iul '' i.35.52, ii.17''.

Modern sources

External links

General

Cleopatra VII (VI) at LacusCurtius – Chapter XIII of E. R. Bevan's ''House of Ptolemy'', 1923

Cleopatra, a Victorian children's book by Jacob Abbott, 1852, Project Gutenberg edition.

James Grout: ''Cleopatra'' part of the Encyclopædia Romana

"Mysterious Death of Cleopatra" at the Discovery Channel

Cleopatra VII at BBC History

Paintings

Sir Thomas Browne: Of the Picture describing the death of Cleopatra (1672)

John Sartain: On the Antique Portrait of Cleopatra (1818)

{{S-ttl|title=Queen of Egypt|years=51–30 BC |regent1=Ptolemy XII, |regent2=Ptolemy XIII, |regent3=Ptolemy XIV and |regent4=Ptolemy XV Caesarion}}

Category:69 BC births Category:30 BC deaths Category:1st-century BC female rulers Category:Ancient Egyptian queens consort Category:Ancient Egyptian women in warfare Category:Deaths due to snake bites Category:Egyptian queens regnant Category:Female Shakespearean characters Category:Pharaohs of the Ptolemaic dynasty Category:Royal suicides in the classical world Category:Women in Hellenistic warfare

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The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty. The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term "the foreign-countries (or 'peoples') of the sea" (Egyptian '''') in his Great Karnak Inscription. Although some scholars believe that they invaded Cyprus, Hatti and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.

Historical context

The Late Bronze Age in the Aegean was characterized by the raiding of migratory peoples and their subsequent resettlement. The identity of the Sea Peoples has remained enigmatic to modern scholars, who have only the scattered records of ancient civilizations and archaeological analysis to inform them. Evidence shows that the identities and motives of these peoples were not unknown to the Egyptians. In fact, many had been subordinate to the Egyptians or in a diplomatic relationship with them for at least as long as the few centuries covered by the records.

Some groups were not included in the Egyptian list of Sea Peoples, as they operated primarily on land. Among them were the 'prw (Habiru) of Egyptian inscriptions, or 'apiru of cuneiform ("bandits"). Sandars uses the analogous name "land peoples." Some people, such as the Lukka, were included in both categories. It has been suggested that one of the groups of Habiru were the Hebrews., but the modern scholarly conclusion is that "the plethora of attempts to relate ''apiru'' (Habiru) to the gentilic (i.e. biblical word) ''ibri'' are all nothing but wishful thinking." Select groups, or members of groups, were used as mercenaries by the Egyptians.

Documentary records

Byblos obelisk

The earliest ethnic group later considered among the Sea Peoples is believed to be attested in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Byblos obelisk found in the Obelisk Temple at Byblos in modern day Lebanon. The inscription mentions kwkwn son of rwqq-( or kukun son of luqq), transliterated as Kukunnis, son of Lukka, "the Lycian". The date is given variously as 2000 or 1700 BC.

Early Amarna age

The Lukka appear much later and also the Sherden in the Amarna Letters, perhaps of Amenhotep III or his son Akhenaten, around the mid-14th century BC. A Sherden man is an apparent renegade mercenary, and three more are slain by an Egyptian overseer. The Danuna are mentioned in another letter but only in a passing reference to the death of their king. The Lukka are being accused of attacking the Egyptians in conjunction with the Alashiyans, or Cypriotes, with the latter having stated that the Lukka were seizing their villages.

Reign of Ramesses II

Records or possible records of sea peoples generally or in particular date to two campaigns of Ramesses II, a pharaoh of the militant 19th Dynasty: operations in or near the delta in Year 2 of his reign and the major confrontation with the Hittite Empire and allies at the Battle of Kadesh in his Year 5. The dates of this long-lived pharaoh's reign are not known for certain, but they must have comprised nearly all of the first half of the 13th century BC.

In his Second Year, an attack of the Sherden, or Shardana, on the Nile Delta was repulsed and defeated by Ramesses, who captured some of the pirates. The event is recorded on Tanis Stele II. An inscription by Ramesses II on the stela from Tanis which recorded the Sherden raider's raid and subsequent capture speaks of the continuous threat they posed to Egypt's Mediterranean coasts: : "the unruly Sherden whom no one had ever known how to combat, they came boldly sailing in their warships from the midst of the sea, none being able to withstand them."

The Sherden prisoners were subsequently incorporated into the Egyptian army for service on the Hittite frontier by Ramesses. Another stele usually cited in conjunction with this one is the "Aswan Stele" (there were other stelae at Aswan), which mentions the king's operations to defeat a number of peoples including those of the "Great Green". It is plausible to assume that the Tanis and Aswan Stelae refer to the same event, in which case they reinforce each other.

The Battle of Kadesh was the outcome of a campaign against the Syrians and allies in the Levant in the pharaoh's Year 5. The imminent collision of the Egyptian and Hittite empires became obvious to both, and they both prepared campaigns against the strategic mid-point of Kadesh for the next year. Ramesses divided his Egyptian forces, which were then ambushed piecemeal by the Hittite army and nearly defeated. However, some Egyptian forces made it through to Kadesh, and the arrival of the last of the Egyptians provided enough military cover to allow the pharaoh to escape and his army to withdraw in defeat; leaving Kadesh in Hittite hands.

At home, Ramesses had his scribes formulate an official description, which has been called "the Bulletin" because it was widely published by inscription. Ten copies survive today on the temples at Abydos, Karnak, Luxor and Abu Simbel, with reliefs depicting the battle. A poem, the "Poem of Pentaur", describing the battle survives also.

The poem relates that the previously captured Sherden were not only working for his majesty, but were also formulating a plan of battle for him; i.e., it was their idea to divide Egyptian forces into four columns. There is no evidence of any collaboration with the Hittites or malicious intent on their part, and if Ramesses considered it, he never left any record of that consideration.

The poem lists the peoples which went to Kadesh as allies of the Hittites. Amongst them are some of the sea peoples spoken of in the Egyptian inscriptions previously mentioned, and many of the peoples who would later take part in the great migrations of the 12th century BC.

Reign of Merneptah

The major event of the reign of the Pharaoh Merneptah (1213 BC–1203 BC), 4th king of the 19th Dynasty, was his battle against a confederacy termed "the Nine Bows" at Perire in the western delta in the 5th and 6th years of his reign. Depredations of this confederacy had been so severe that the region was "forsaken as pasturage for cattle, it was left waste from the time of the ancestors."

The pharaoh's action against them is attested in four inscriptions: the Great Karnak Inscription, describing the battle, the Cairo Column, the Athribis Stele (the last two of which are shorter versions of the Great Karnak), and a stele found at Thebes, called variously the Hymn of Victory, the Merneptah Stele or the Israel Stele. It describes the reign of peace resulting from the victory.

The Nine Bows were acting under the leadership of the king of Libya and an associated near-concurrent revolt in Canaan involving Gaza, Ashkelon, Yenoam and Israel. Exactly which peoples were consistently in the Nine Bows is not clear, but present at the battle were the Libyans, some neighboring Meshwesh, and possibly a separate revolt in the following year involving peoples from the eastern Mediterranean, including the Kheta (or Hittites), or Syrians, and (in the Israel Stele) for the first time in history, the Israelites. In addition to them, the first lines of the Karnak inscription include some sea peoples, which must have arrived in the Western Delta or from Cyrene by ship:

Later in the inscription Merneptah receives news of the attack:

"His majesty was enraged at their report, like a lion," assembled his court and gave a rousing speech. Later, he dreamed he saw Ptah handing him a sword and saying, "Take thou (it) and banish thou the fearful heart from thee." When the bowmen went forth, says the inscription, "Amun was with them as a shield." After six hours, the surviving Nine Bows threw down their weapons, abandoned their baggage and dependents, and ran for their lives. Merneptah states that he defeated the invasion, killing 6,000 soldiers and taking 9,000 prisoners. To be sure of the numbers, among other things, he took the penises of all uncircumcised enemy dead and the hands of all the circumcised, from which history learns that the Ekwesh were circumcised, a fact causing some to doubt they were Greek.

Letters at Ugarit

Some Sea Peoples appear in four letters found at Ugarit, the last three of which seem to foreshadow the destruction of the city around 1180 BC. The letters are therefore dated to the early twelfth century. The last king of Ugarit was Ammurapi, or Hammurabi (c. 1191–1182 BC), who, throughout this correspondence, is quite a young man.

The earliest is letter RS 34.129, found on the south side of the city, from "the Great King", presumably Suppiluliuma II of the Hittites, to the prefect of the city. He says that he ordered the king of Ugarit to send him Ibnadushu for questioning, but the king was too immature to respond. He therefore wants the prefect to send the man, whom he promises to return.

What this language implies about the relationship of the Hittite empire to Ugarit is a matter for interpretation. Ibnadushu had been kidnapped by and had resided among a people of Shikala, probably the Shekelesh, "who lived on ships." The letter is generally interpreted as an interest in military intelligence by the king.

The last three letters, RS L 1, RS 20.238 and RS 20.18, are a set from the Rap'anu Archive between a slightly older Ammurapi, now handling his own affairs, and Eshuwara, the grand supervisor of Alasiya. Evidently, Ammurapi had informed Eshuwara, that an enemy fleet of 20 ships had been spotted at sea.

Eshuwara wrote back and inquired about the location of Ammurapi's own forces. Eshuwara also noted that he would like to know where the enemy fleet of 20 ships are now located. Unfortunately for both Ugarit and Alasiya, neither kingdom was able to fend off the Sea People's onslaught, and both were ultimately destroyed. A letter by Amurapi (RS 18.147) to the king of Alasiya—which was in fact a response to an appeal for assistance by the latter—has been found by archaeologists. In it, Ammurapi describes the desperate plight facing Ugarit:

{{bquote|My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka?...Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us. }}

Ammurapi, in turn, appealed for aid from the viceroy of Carchemish—a state which actually survived the Sea People's onslaught—but its viceroy could only offer some words of advice for Ammurapi:

Reign of Ramesses III

Pharaoh Ramesses III, the second king of the 20th Dynasty, who reigned for most of the first half of the 12th century BC, was forced to deal with a later wave of invasions of the Sea Peoples—the best recorded in his eighth year. The pharaoh records the Sea People's activities in several long inscriptions from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple:

No land could stand before their arms

The ends of several civilizations around 1175 BC have instigated a theory that the Sea Peoples may have caused the collapse of the Hittite, Mycenaean and Mitanni kingdoms. The American Hittitologist, Gary Beckman, writes on page 23 of ''Akkadica 120'' (2000):

Ramesses' comments about the scale of the Sea Peoples' onslaught in the eastern Mediterranean are confirmed by the destruction of the states of Hatti, Ugarit, Ashkelon and Hazor around this time. As the Hittitologist Trevor Bryce observes:

This situation is confirmed by the Medinet Habu temple reliefs of Ramesses III which show that:

Checking the onslaught

The inscriptions of Ramesses III at his Medinet Habu mortuary temple in Thebes record three victorious campaigns against the Sea Peoples considered bona fide, in Years 5, 8 and 12, as well as three considered spurious, against the Nubians and Libyans in Year 5 and the Libyans with Asiatics in Year 11. During Year 8 some Hittites were operating with the Sea Peoples.

The inner west wall of the second court describes the invasion of Year 5. Only the Peleset and Tjeker are mentioned, but the list is lost in a lacuna. The attack was two-pronged, one by sea and one by land; that is, the Sea Peoples divided their forces. His majesty was waiting in the Nile mouths and trapped the enemy fleet there. The land forces were defeated separately.

The Sea Peoples did not learn any lessons from this defeat, as they repeated their mistake in Year 8 with a similar result. The campaign is recorded more extensively on the inner northwest panel of the first court. It is possible, but not generally believed, that the dates are only those of the inscriptions and both refer to the same campaign.

In Ramesses' Year 8, the Nine Bows appear again as a "conspiracy in their isles". This time, they are revealed unquestionably as Sea Peoples: the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, which are classified as "foreign countries" in the inscription. They camped in Amor and sent a fleet to the Nile.

The pharaoh was once more waiting for them. He had built a fleet especially for the occasion, hid it in the Nile mouths and posted coast watchers. The enemy fleet was ambushed there, their ships overturned, and the men dragged up on shore and executed ad hoc.

The land army was also routed within Egyptian controlled territory. Additional information is given in the relief on the outer side of the east wall. The land battle occurred in the vicinity of Zahi against "the northern countries". When it was over, several chiefs were captive: of Hatti, Amor and Shasu among the "land peoples" and the Tjeker, "Sherden of the sea", "Teresh of the sea" and Peleset (ancient Greek name for sea people; Pelasgians).

The campaign of Year 12 is attested by the Südstele found on the south side of the temple. It mentions the Tjeker, Peleset, Denyen, Weshesh and Shekelesh.

Papyrus Harris I of the period, found behind the temple, suggests a wider campaign against the Sea Peoples but does not mention the date. In it, the persona of Ramses III says, "I slew the Denyen (D'-yn-yw-n) in their isles" and "burned" the Tjeker and Peleset, implying a maritime raid of his own. He also captured some Sherden and Weshesh "of the sea" and settled them in Egypt. As he is called the "Ruler of Nine Bows" in the relief of the east side, these events probably happened in Year 8; i.e., his majesty would have used the victorious fleet for some punitive expeditions elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

The Onomasticon of Amenope, or Amenemipit (amen-em-apt), gives a slight credence to the idea that the Ramesside kings settled the Sea Peoples in Canaan. Dated to about 1100 BC, at the end of the 21st dynasty (which had numerous short-reigned pharaohs), this document simply lists names. After six place names, four of which were in Philistia, the scribe lists the Sherden (Line 268), the Tjeker (Line 269) and the Peleset (Line 270), who might be presumed to occupy those cities. The Story of Wenamun on a papyrus of the same cache also places the Tjeker in Dor at that time.

Survivors

A few states, such as Byblos and Sidon, survived the Sea Peoples' migrations. Despite Ramesses III's pessimism, Carchemish also survived the Sea Peoples' onslaught. King Kuzi-Teshub I, who was the son of Talmi-Teshub—a direct contemporary of the last ruling Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II—is attested in power there. Kuzi-Tesup and his successors ruled a mini-empire from Carchemish which stretched from "Southeast Asia Minor, North Syria...[to] the west bend of the Euphrates" from c. 1175 BC to 990 BC.

Hypotheses about the Sea Peoples

A number of hypotheses concerning the identities and motives of the Sea Peoples described in the records have been formulated. They are not necessarily alternative or contradictory hypotheses; any or all might be mainly or partly true.

Philistine hypothesis

The archaeological evidence from the southern coastal plain of ancient Palestine, termed Philistia in the Hebrew Bible, indicates a disruption of the Canaanite culture that existed during the Late Bronze Age and its replacement (with some integration) by a culture with a possibly foreign (mainly Aegean) origin. This includes distinct pottery, which at first belongs to the Mycenaean IIIC tradition (albeit of local manufacture) and gradually transforms into a uniquely Philistine pottery. Mazar says:

Sandars, however, does not take this point of view, but says:

Artifacts of the Philistine culture are found at numerous sites, in particular in the excavations of the five main cities of the Philistines: the Pentapolis of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. Some scholars (e.g. S. Sherratt, Drews, etc.) have challenged the theory that the Philistine culture is an immigrant culture, claiming instead that they are an ''in situ'' development of the Canaanite culture, but others argue for the immigrant hypothesis; for example, T. Dothan and Barako.

Minoan hypothesis

Two of the peoples who settled in the Levant had traditions that may connect them to Crete: the Tjeker and the Peleset (Philistines). The Tjeker may have left Crete to settle in Anatolia, and left there to settle Dor. According to the Old Testament, the Israelite God brought the Philistines out of Caphtor. The mainstream of Biblical and classical scholarship accepts ''Caphtor'' to refer to Crete, but there are alternative minority theories. Crete at the time was populated by peoples speaking many languages, among which were Mycenaean Greek and Eteocretan, the descendant of the language of the Minoans. It is possible, but by no means certain, that these two peoples spoke Eteocretan.

Recent examinations of the eruption of the Santorini volcano suggest that it occurred very close (estimated between 1660-1613 BC) to the first appearances of the Sea People in Egypt. The eruption and its aftermath (fires, tsunami, weather changes and famines) would have had wide-ranging effects across the Mediterranean, the Levant and particularly Greece, and could have provided the impetus for invasions of other regions of the Mediterranean.

Greek migrational hypothesis

The identifications of Denyen with the Greek Danaans and Ekwesh with the Greek Achaeans are long-standing issues in Bronze Age scholarship, whether Greek, Hittite or Biblical, especially as they lived "in the isles". If the Greeks do appear as Sea Peoples, what were they doing? Michael Wood gives a good summary of the question and the hypothetical role of the Greeks (who have already been proposed as the identity of the Philistines above):

Wood would also include the Sherden and Shekelesh, pointing out that "there were migrations of Greek-speaking peoples to the same place [Sardinia and Sicily] at this time." He is careful to point out that the Greeks must only have been an element among the peoples, and that their numbers must have been relatively small. His major hypothesis, however, is that the Trojan War was fought against Troy VI and that Troy VIIa, the candidate of Carl Blegen, was sacked by essentially Greek Sea Peoples. He suggests that Odysseus' assumed identity of a wandering Cretan coming home from the Trojan War who fights in Egypt and serves there after being captured "remembers" the campaign of Year 8 of Ramses III, described above. He points out also that places destroyed on Cyprus at the time (such as Kition) were rebuilt by a new Greek-speaking population.

Trojan hypothesis

The possibility that the Teresh were connected on the one hand with the Tyrrhenians, believed to be an Etruscan-related culture, and on the other with Taruissa, a Hittite name possibly referring to Troy, had been considered by the ancient Romans. The Roman poet Virgil refers to this belief when he depicts Aeneas as escaping the fall of Troy by coming to Latium to found a line descending to Romulus, first king of Rome. Considering that Anatolian connections have been identified for other Sea Peoples, such as the Tjeker and the Lukka, Eberhard Zangger puts together an Anatolian hypothesis:

Mycenaean warfare hypothesis

This theory suggests that the Sea Peoples were populations from the city states of the Greek Mycenaean civilization, who destroyed each other in a disastrous series of conflicts lasting several decades. There would have been few or no external invaders and just a few excursions outside the Greek-speaking part of the Aegean civilization.

Archaeological evidence indicates that many fortified sites of the Greek domain were destroyed in the late 13th and early 12th century BC, which was understood in the mid 20th century to have been simultaneous or nearly so and was attributed to the Dorian Invasion championed by Carl Blegen of the University of Cincinnati. He believed Mycenaean Pylos was burned during an amphibious raid by warriors from the north (Dorians).

Subsequent critical analysis focused on the facts that the destructions were not simultaneous and all the evidence of Dorians came from later times. John Chadwick championed a Sea Peoples hypothesis, which asserted that as the Pylians had retreated to the northeast, the attack must have come from the southwest, the Sea Peoples being, in his view, the most likely candidates. He states that they were based in Anatolia and, although doubting that Mycenaeans called themselves "Achaeans", speculates that "... it is very tempting to bring them into connexion." He does not assign the Greek identity to all of the Sea Peoples.

Considering the turbulence between and within the great families of the Mycenaean city-states in Greek mythology, the hypothesis that the Mycenaeans destroyed themselves is long-standing and finds support by the reputable Greek historian Thucydides, who theorized:

The connection of these predations to the fall of Mycenaean Greece and, more widely, to the Sea Peoples is a logical outcome. Although some advocates of the Philistine or Greek migration hypotheses (above) identify all the Mycenaeans or Sea Peoples as ethnically Greek, the cautious Chadwick (founder, with Michael Ventris, of Linear B studies) rather adopts the multiple ethnicity view.

Italian peoples hypotheses

Theories of the possible connections between the Sherden to Sardinia, Shekelesh to Sicily, and Teresh to Tyrrhenians, even though long-standing, are based mainly on onomastic similarities.

The Sardinian architecture produced by the Nuragic civilization was the most advanced of any civilization in the western Mediterranean during the Sea Peoples epoch, including those in the regions of Magna Graecia.

The pre-Roman Sicels are known from a number of locations, including Sicily, presumed named after them. The Tyrrhenian Sea gives some credence to the story of Tyrrhenus mentioned above.

No evidence has been uncovered yet to settle the enigmatic Italian connections of these Sea Peoples. The self-name of the Etruscans, ''Rasna'', does not lend itself to the Tyrrhenian derivation, although linguist Glen Glordon has suggested an earlier form T'Rasena or even T'Lasena which would explain Greek and later Roman names. He has further suggested that T'Lasena contains the pre-Greek Thalassa (Sea) etymology. Assertions in various articles and books that the Sherdens definitely were or were not from Sardis or some ancestor state have no foundation in the evidence. The Etruscan civilization has been studied, and the language partly deciphered. It has variants and representatives in Aegean inscriptions, but these may well be from travellers or colonists of Etruscans during their seafaring period before Rome destroyed their power. The entire Etruscan civilization can scarcely be explained by a few ships of Teresh or even a whole fleet.

Archaeology is equally enigmatic. About all that can be said for certain is that Mycenaean pottery was widespread around the Mediterranean and its introduction at various places, including Sardinia, is often associated with cultural change, violent or gradual. These circumstances appear to be enough for archaeological theorizers. The prevalent speculation is that the Sherden and Shekelesh brought those names with them to Sardinia and Sicily, "perhaps not operating from those great islands but moving toward them." More recent genetic evidence indicates that the populations in those regions are more related to the people of Anatolia than to anywhere else, but this evidence is not event- or period-specific.

Anatolian famine hypothesis

A famous passage from Herodotus portrays the wandering and migration of Lydians from Anatolia because of famine:

Connections to the Teresh of the Merneptah Stele, which also mentions shipments of grain to the Hittite Empire to relieve famine, are logically unavoidable. Many have made them, generally proposing a coalition of seagoing migrants from Anatolia and the islands seeking relief from scarcity. Tablet RS 18.38 from Ugarit also mentions grain to the Hittites, suggesting a long period of famine, connected further, in the full theory, to drought. Barry Weiss, using the Palmer Drought Index for 35 Greek, Turkish, and Middle Eastern weather stations, showed that a drought of the kinds that persisted from January 1972 would have affected all of the sites associated with the Late Bronze Age collapse. Drought could have easily precipitated or hastened socio-economic problems and led to wars. More recently, Brian Fagan has shown how mid-winter storms from the Atlantic were diverted to travel north of the Pyrenees and the Alps, bringing wetter conditions to Central Europe, but drought to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Invader hypothesis

The term invasion is used generally in the literature concerning the period to mean the documented attacks implying a local or unspecified origin. An origin outside the Aegean also has been proposed, as in this example by Michael Grant: "There was a gigantic series of migratory waves, extending all the way from the Danube valley to the plains of China."

Such a comprehensive movement is associated with more than one people or culture; instead, a "disturbance" happens, according to Finley:

If different times are allowed on the Danube, they are not in the Aegean: "all this destruction must be dated to the same period about 1200."

The following movements are compressed by Finley into the 1200 BC window: the Dorian Invasion, the attacks of the Sea Peoples, the formation of Philistine kingdoms in the Levant and the fall of the Hittite Empire, when in fact, those events required at least a few hundred years.

The archaeological evidence is treated in the same way. Robert Drews presents a map showing the destruction sites of 47 fortified major settlements, which he terms "Major Sites Destroyed in the Catastrophe". They are concentrated in the Levant, with some in Greece and Anatolia. The questions of dates and agents of destruction remain for the most part unanswered in detail, without which no single catastrophe or related catastrophes can be postulated beyond the level of pure speculation.

The invaders, that is, the replacement cultures at those sites, apparently made no attempt to retain the cities' wealth but instead built new settlements of a materially simpler cultural and less complex economic level atop the ruins. For example, no one appropriated the palace and rich stores at Pylos, but all were burned up, and the successors (whomever they were) moved in over the ruins with plain pottery and simple goods. This demonstrates a cultural discontinuity.

Whether all the discontinuities were sufficiently contemporaneous to warrant a theory of great waves of invasion another question. Ethnic identities from the Danube and beyond are in short supply in the records.

Serbonian Bog

The name of the Serbonian Bog () applied to the lake of Serbonis (''Sirbonis'' or ''Serbon'') in Egypt relates to the Sea Peoples. When sand blew onto it, the Serbonian Bog appeared to be solid land, but was in fact a bog. The term is now applied metaphorically to any situation in which one is entangled from which extrication is difficult.

The Serbonian Bog has been identified as ''Sabkhat al Bardawil'', one of the string of "Bitter Lakes" to the east of the Nile's right branch. It was described in ancient times as a quagmire, in which armies were fabled to be swallowed up and lost.

The term ''Serbonian'' came from the name of the Sherden (also known as Serden or Shardana) sea pirates, one of several groups of Sea Peoples who appear in fragmentary Egyptian records in the 2nd millennium BC.

Notes

Sources

External links

Philistine Kin Found in Early Israel, Adam Zertal, BAR 28:03, May/Jun 2002.

The Sea Peoples and the Philistines: a course at Penn State

''Egyptians, Canaanites, and Philistines in the Period of the Emergence of Early Israel'', paper by Itamar Singer at the UCLA Near Eastern Languages & Culture site

"Who Were the Sea People?", article by Eberhard Zangger in ''Saudi Aramco World'', Volume 46, Number 3, May/June 1995

PlosOne dating the Sea People destruction of the Levant to 1192-90 BC

''The Origins of the Sea Peoples'', undergraduate paper by Joseph Morris published by Florida State University Classic Department

''The Sea Peoples and Annales: A Contextual Study of the Late Bronze Age'', Master's Thesis of Daniel Jacobus Krüger, published at the University of South Africa site

"The Battle of the Nile - Circa 1190 B.C.", article by I Cornelius in ''Military History Journal'', Vol. 7., No. 4 of the South African Military History Society

Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ancient pirates Category:Ancient Egypt Category:Ancient Levant Category:Iron Age Greece Category:Iron Age Anatolia Category:Ancient Italian history Category:History of the Mediterranean

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