Most of the biblical stories that mention the Philistines are found in the Old Testament books of Judges and 1 Samuel. Who were these enigmatic people? Where did they come from? Were the biblical Philistines related to the Sea People invaders mentioned in the Egyptian histories of the period? Some Egyptian court records of the twelfth century B.C. mention the Philistines specifically as part of a group of invaders from the sea who were repulsed and then were settled in Canaan. Were the Egyptians referring to the same people we read about in Judges and 1 Samuel?

These questions will be addressed by first examining the Egyptian records concerning the Sea People invaders to see if we can determine from them the origins of the Philistines. After having done so, we will look at the intriguing plague account in 1 Samuel 5 and 6 and compare it with a parallel account in the Iliad, book 1. The ritual ascribed to the Philistines in the 1 Samuel account may provide another clue to their origins. In addition, our investigation will lead us to the Aegean, to Anatolia, to Egypt, and to Cyprus to examine ancient Near Eastern literature and archaeological remains.

According to the Egyptians, the Philistines were just one tribe of a confederation of tribes who invaded Egypt and settled on the coastal plain south of Mount Carmel. They evidently became the dominant group in this confederation, because the writers of the Old Testament seem to use the word Philistine as a generic term to describe all the people who were moving onto the coastal plain at the time that the Israelites were carving a niche for themselves in the hill country of Canaan under Joshua and the succeeding judges.

The Egyptians tell of two great movements against them of people scholars have dubbed "the Sea Peoples." The Egyptians themselves do not use the phrase Sea Peoples, however, nor do they have a single generic name for all of the invaders, as found in the Bible. Instead, they refer to the invaders as "foreigners from the sea" coming from the "northern countries" or "their islands" beyond the sea, that is, the Mediterranean. The first invasion, recorded at Karnak in Upper Egypt, was in the fifth year of Pharaoh Merneptah, during the final third of the thirteenth century B.C. (See pp. 90-91 for an explanation of this dating.) The Karnak record lists five specific groups as part of that invasion (Barnett 1975, 366-69):

Other spelling/

pronunciation

1. A-qi-ya-wa-sa/ A-qi-wa-sa/ Ekwesh

(`-k-w'-s')

2. Ta-ru-sa (Tw-rw-s'/ Tw-ry-s') Tursha

3. Rw-ku (Rw-kw)

4. Sa-ra-d-n/ Sa-ar-di-na (S'-r'd-n) Sherden

5. Sa-k(a)-ru-su (s'-r'-rw-s') Sheklesh

Not all scholars agree about the relationships that exist between these names and known sociopolitical groups or places, but let us focus on the more popular, probable, and accepted associations. The first name is generally linked to the Homeric Achaeans, the second to the Trojans, the third to the Lukka/Lycians of southwest Anatolia, the fourth to settlers from Sardis in western Anatolia who moved to the area of Akko north of Mount Carmel and eventually to Sardinia in Italy, and the fifth to the Sheklesh who may have moved later to Sicily. This Karnak list does not include the Philistines, who are named some forty years later in a record of a second attack on Egypt.²

This second attack of the Sea Peoples by land and sea occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III, years five and eight, around 1175 B.C. The battle scenes and names of the invaders are recorded at Medinet Habu, near Thebes in Upper Egypt (Pritchard 1969, hereafter ANET, 262):

Other spelling/

pronunciation

1. Pe-ra-sa-ta/ Peleset (Pw-r-s-ty) Philistine

2. Tjikar (T-k-k[-r]) Tjekker

3. Sa-k(a)-ru-su Sheklesh

4. Danuna (D-y-n-yw-n) Danaoi

5. Wasasa (W-s-s) Weshesh

The first on the list are the Philistines; the second are the Tjekker, who may have settled on Cyprus at the end of the thirteenth century B.C. and who later settled in Dor, south of Mount Carmel on the Palestinian coast, according to a late twelfth- and an eleventh-century b.c. Egyptian document; the third are also in the Merneptah list and are the only ones to be mentioned in two records; the fourth are the Homeric Danaans; and the fifth possibly are Carians of western Anatolia.³ All the Sea Peoples, according to Albright, came from the Aegean orbit (1975, 508). At Medinet Habu the Philistines and the names of the other Sea Peoples occur together, probably because the Egyptians knew them to be related geographically. The following words on the walls at Medinet Habu attest to the Sea People alliance:

The reliefs on the temple walls at Medinet Habu give us excellent portrayals of civilian and combatant dress, weaponry, ships, chariots, wagons to move people and supplies, and military tactics. This depiction of the Sea Peoples has much in common with descriptions of the Aegean peoples from other sources. For example, the Philistines at Medinet Habu are pictured wearing "feathered headdresses" very similar to those pictured on the Phaistos Disk, a round, baked clay disk discovered on Crete at Phaistos and dated to the Middle Minoan IIIB period, circa 1600 B.C. The disk was found with a tablet inscribed with Linear A, which is the earliest form of writing found on Crete and is not yet deciphered. The clay and firing of the disk are not similar to what is generally found on Crete; it is possibly an import from Caria or Lycia in southwest Anatolia (Barnett 1975, 362-63; Pendlebury 1965, 170).

The feathered headdresses, according to Herodotus and a late Assyrian text, are typical of Caria and Lycia during the Bronze Age. Later, the same style of headdress is also worn by "Ionian and Karian warriors in an Assyrian relief, and by a Lycian contingent in Xerxes' fleet" (Burn 1930, 143). Herodotus states that "the Greeks are indebted to them [Carians] for three inventions: fitting crests on helmets, putting devices on shields, and making shields with handles" (Rieu 1954, 82). The Iliad, however, does not describe a feathered helmet similar to that of the Sea Peoples, though it describes various other types of helmets.

The feathered headdress also appears on a ceramic, anthropoid coffin uncovered at Beth-shean in Israel. The coffin may date to approximately 1040 B.C., roughly the time of King Saul's reign and his death in the area by Philistine hands (T. Dothan 1982a, 274-76). According to 1 Samuel 31:10, Saul's body was hung by the Philistines at Beth-shean. Anthropoid coffins have been found at other sites associated with Egyptian rule in both Egypt and Canaan. In addition, feathered headdresses appear on Sea People warriors pictured on a twelfth-century ivory game box and on a conical seal from Cyprus. The distinctive feathered headdress clearly seems to belong to the Sea Peoples, the Philistines in particular.

In addition to showing feathered headdresses, the Phaistos Disk links Crete and Anatolia in other ways. The disk also pictures beehive-type structures (probably huts), which have features similar to those of Lycian architecture in southwest Anatolia. As well as mentioning the huts, Pendlebury cites the type of bow pictured on the disk as having an Asiatic origin (1965, 170). He believes that Anatolia played an important role on Crete in both the Early Minoan (before 2000 B.C.) and Middle Minoan (ca. 1800 B.C.) periods (1965, 53, 121-22). Nearly five hundred years separate the Phaistos Disk and the Egyptian reliefs at Medinet Habu (T. Dothan 1982a, 13), pointing to long-standing ties between Crete and Anatolia.

Other arms pictured at Medinet Habu, such as long, tapered swords, spears, javelins, shields, and corselets, are similar to those described in the Iliad (Wainwright 1956, 203). "It will be noted that in spite of differences in detail, the general resemblance of the Achaean equipment to that of the Shardena and Pulesati [Philistines] is marked" (Lorimer 1950, 201). Further, the ships of the Sea Peoples at Medinet Habu and on the Phaistos Disk are similar to those shown on a Mycenaean Greek vase found on Skyros, an island in the Aegean between Athens and Anatolia (Raban and Stieglitz 1991, 38-39; T. Dothan 1982a, 7, 11; Barnett 1975, 373). The kilts worn by the Philistines at Medinet Habu also have Anatolian affinities: "such a tasselled kilt is worn by a Southern Anatolian god on a stele from near Cagdin" (Barnett 1975, 372). In addition, the chariots of the Sea Peoples contain three men with spears, following the Hittite, rather than the Egyptian custom of only two men with bows. Also, the wagons and hump oxen of the Sea Peoples pictured on the reliefs are strictly Anatolian (T. Dothan 1982a, 5-13; A. Mazar 1990, 302-6; Sandars 1978, 121-31; Yadin 1963, 2:249-51).

The scholars referred to above make numerous other comparisons between the Sea Peoples pictured on the Medinet Habu reliefs and the Greeks from the Mycenaean and Anatolian world. These comparisons of modes of dress, weapons, and means of travel cannot be considered as conclusive evidence that the Sea Peoples, of which the Philistines were a part, were from the Aegean and from Anatolia, since these various modes could have been adopted through travel and trade. However, any study of these characteristics will reveal that the Sea People, including the Philistines, have much in common with the Mycenaean world and with Anatolia, especially the west and southwest sector.

As Ramesses III prepared for battle, according to the reliefs at Medinet Habu, he stated, "the Peleset (Pw-[r']-s'-t) are hung up, [ -- ] in their towns . . ." (Breasted 1906, 4:41). It would appear that some of the Peleset/Philistines were in Palestine even before Ramesses III defeated them. Perhaps some of the Sea Peoples had settled at a few sites in Canaan as conquerors or as Egyptian mercenaries, and due to a problem with them, Ramesses III put down their towns (Albright 1975, 511; Stiebing 1980, 14). It is possible that there was a pre-Ramesses III settlement of Sea Peoples at Ekron, according to T. Dothan, but not at Ashkelon, according to Stager (see pp. 97-101). Ramesses III used his warships, troops, and chariotry to overpower the invasion on both land and sea:

Ramesses III boasted that he not only defeated the Peoples of the Sea, but also forced them to settle in citadels in what today we call Palestine or Israel (see also B. Wood 1991, 44-52, 89-90).

Ramesses even recorded that the vanquished Peleset/Philistines said to him, "Give us the breath for our nostrils thou King, son of Amon" (Sandars 1978, 132). That is to say that, according to Ramesses, the Philistines recognized him as a god, for the gods give life, give breath.

The reign of Ramesses III at the beginning of the twelfth century coincided with the period of the judges in the Bible. Ramesses boasted that he settled the Peoples of the Sea in Palestine, and their presence there is also noted in another Egyptian document, the Onomasticon of Amenope, which dates to the end of the twelfth century. This document lists the Sea Peoples living in Canaan within the Egyptian sphere of influence: the Sherden, the Tjekker, and the Philistines. It also mentions the Philistine cities on the coast: Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Gaza. These cities were on the Egyptian line of defense, according to the Egyptian record. As will be detailed in later chapters, the material culture of the Philistines at Ashdod, Ekron, and other sites clearly displays Egyptian influence, corroborating the written evidence (A. Mazar 1990, 305; T. Dothan 1982a, 3-4; 1982b, 26).

Two earlier lists, which have not yet been mentioned, are also significant to our study: first, the list from Pharaoh Ramesses II of the Hittite allies that fought against him and, second, the Hittite list of the Assuwa League of allies (in western Anatolia) who struggled against them.

Pharaoh Ramesses II fought against the Hittite king Hattusili III at Kadesh of the Orontes in northern Syria around 1285 B.C. He recorded the names of the Hittite allies who opposed him; among them are the following: 1) Pi-da-sa, 2) Da-ar-d(a)-an-ya, 3) Ma-sa, 4) Qa-r(a)-qi-sa, 5) Ru-ka, and 6) Arzawa. The first name has been associated with Pedasos in Mysia of the Troad south of Troy, the second with the Dardanoi of the Troad, the third with southwest Anatolia, the fourth with Caria, the fifth with Lukka/Lycia, and the sixth with Arzawa in western Anatolia (Barnett 1975, 359-62; Breasted 1906, 3:123ff.; Gardiner 1961, 262ff.).

The Assuwa League was defeated by the Hittites around 1250 B.C. It had been formed to fight against the collapsing Hittite empire. The list of its members contains the names of twenty-two allies from western Anatolia. Three of these names are immediately familiar: Luqqa (Lycia), Ta-ru-i-sa (Troy), and Karkija (Caria). Also mentioned are Wilusiya (Ilios) and Warsiya (Lycia) (Albright 1950, 169; Gurney 1952, 56-58; Stubbings 1975, 349-50). A few years after the defeat of the Assuwa League by the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV, Lycia, Caria, and possibly a few others showed up among the Trojan allies fighting against the Achaeans, according to the Iliad.

There is some disagreement among scholars about the identities of the members of the Assuwa League. Garstang and Gurney agree that Wilusiya is probably Ilios (Troy) and that Warsiya may be associated with Lukka (Lycia). However, they do not equate Luqqa with Lukka (Lycia), for that would put the Assuwa League both north and south of Arzawa, in west central Anatolia. For them, the Assuwa League was strictly in northwest Anatolia, stretching north of Arzawa to the Troad (1959, 105-7). It should also be noted that Homer in the Iliad seems to refer to two Lycias. In book 2.876-77 and book 5.479, Sarpedon is a leader of the Lycians from "distant Lycia" by the river Xanthus in southwest Anatolia. Pandarus is another leader of Lycians, but they are from the region of the Anatolian Mount Ida near Troy (2.824ff. and 5.105, Rieu 1950, 61, 95). Lycians are also mentioned in the royal Egyptian Amarna letters of the fourteenth century B.C. as raiders of Alashiya (Cyprus or parts of it) and Egypt; the king of Alashiya is said to have sent out ships to watch for their approach.

The chart on page 64 demonstrates how names on the Egyptian and Hittite lists just described compare with the Trojan and the Achaean groups and allies named in the Iliad. Note especially the similarities between the names of the Sea Peoples, on Ramesses III's and Merneptah's lists, and of the allies of the Trojans. Most Near Eastern scholars agree that the Sea Peoples came from the Aegean-Anatolian orbit (Stiebing 1980, 14). As can be seen from the list of Ramesses III, the Egyptians considered the Philistines to be one of these invading Sea Peoples. It appears then that the Philistines can be associated with the Trojans of western Anatolia and with the Achaeans. The best areas to search for the specific point of origin of the Philistines seem to be western Anatolia, Crete, and the Greek peninsula in the locale of Athens and Mycenae.

The Near East of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C. witnessed the decline and near collapse of the Egyptian and Hittite empires. The Aegean world was also in turmoil. Countless cities besides Troy were sacked, and the Sea Peoples migrated as a result of the economic, environmental, social, and political upheaval in the Aegean at this time (Stiebing 1980, 15). Greek writers such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, and Thucydides spoke along with Homer of the revolutions and ferment of the thirteenth century B.C., which, as we have seen, seem to have provided the momentum for the Sea Peoples' attacks on Egypt.

Are there passages in the Bible which contribute to the search for the origins of the Philistines? Origins of peoples is not a focus of the Bible, but Genesis 10 with its "Table of Nations" is a unique document and gives us a starting point. The Philistines are named and linked in verses 13 and 14 to Egypt and a place called Caphtor: "Mizraim [Egypt] begot . . . the Pathrusim, the Casluhim, and the Caphtorim, from whom the Philistines descended" (Speiser 1964, 64, 68-69; see also NRSV). The list linking Egypt to the Caphtorim/Philistines might not indicate Philistine filial relationship with Egypt, but it could refer to a geographical relationship. The Israelites were familiar with the Philistines on the coastal plain to the west; therefore, this information was added to inform the reader that the Philistines, associated with the Egyptians, were originally from Caphtor.

The reason the Anchor Bible Commentary (Speiser 1964) and the New Revised Standard Version placed the phrase "from whom the Philistines descended" after the word Caphtorim, differing from the Revised Standard Version and the New International Version, is that both Jeremiah 47:4 and Amos 9:7 make it clear that the Philistines are from Caphtor (see also Bromiley 1979, hereafter ISBE, 1:610).

It is also interesting to note here that the Philistines are not listed with the pre-Israelite nations in Canaan in Abraham's time (Gen. 15:19-21). If the text reflects a tradition that goes back to the Mosaic period, this is logical to expect, since the Philistines were not "settled" by Pharaoh Ramesses III on the coast of southern Canaan before the time of Moses.

Therefore, if the Caphtorim were the ancestors of the Philistines (Stiebing 1980, 14) and the Philistines of Medinet Habu did not arrive in Canaan before the time of Ramesses III, then Deuteronomy 2:23 may also give us an approximate time for the coming of the Philistines into Canaan. There, Moses reviews the chronology of events after leaving Egypt and states, "As for the Avvim, who had lived in settlements in the vicinity of Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place." Moses does not use the term Philistines, though Joshua does. The southern coast of Canaan, including Gaza, is the territory Joshua associated with the Philistines. The passage from Deuteronomy 2 supports Joshua 13:2-3, which clarifies the boundaries of the Philistine territory yet to be conquered, territory which formerly belonged to the Avvites, who were Canaanite: "This is the land that remains: all the regions of the Philistines and Geshurites: from the Shihor River on the east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north, all of it counted as Canaanite (the territory of the five Philistine rulers in Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron -- that of the Avvites) . . . " (NIV).

Part of the same territory is also said to be home to the Cherethites or Cretans (1 Sam. 30:14 and Stiebing 1980, 14), who with the Pelethites became David's personal, professional Philistine military force. The Cherethites/Cretans and the Philistines are linked in Ezekiel 25:15-17 and in Zephaniah 2:4-7 in the prophecies against Philistia. The name Pelethite may be an adaptation of the name Philistine (ISBE 1:610; 3:736-37; Douglas 1962, 207-8); if so, then we have another link between Caphtor/Crete and the Philistines.

Let us look further at the Cherethites, who composed part of David's bodyguard. First Samuel 30:14 speaks of the "Negeb of the Cherethites/Cretans." It is easy to see from the Hebrew why scholars equate Cherethite with Cretan. Cherethite is kereti. Hebrew script is consonantal, and notice that kereti has the same consonants as in the name Crete (McCarter 1980, 435; Albright 1975, 512; Stiebing 1989, 175-76). One biblical reference to the Cherethites though, 2 Samuel 20:23, reads kari rather than kereti; therefore, this reference could be translated as Carians rather than Cherethites. However, it may be concluded that at least some of the Philistines/Sea Peoples came from Crete.

As we have seen, the coastal area of Canaan became home to Caphtorites, Cherethites (Cretans), Pelethites, Carians, and others (Gittites of Gath, for example, who will be discussed later). Somehow the Philistines, who appeared in the Egyptian records early in the twelfth century, seem to have absorbed the others and become the dominant force, since the Bible refers primarily to Philistines (Albright 1975, 511). A similar example of a mixture of peoples being called by one name comes out of the exodus from Egypt, when Israel was joined by "rabble" (Num. 11:4), making it a "mixed crowd" (Exod. 12:38) with "aliens" (Josh. 8:35). The entire group came to be called Israel or the Israelites, since the descendants of Jacob were dominant. This, I believe, is true for the Philistines as well.

Most biblical scholars agree that the location for Caphtor is the island of Crete and its environs. During the first half of the second millennium B.C., Crete evidently controlled much of the Aegean and its coastline, which included western Anatolia, and traded throughout the region. During parts of the second half of this millennium, the Late Bronze Age, Crete was controlled by the Mycenaean Greeks of mainland Greece; this lasted up to the thirteenth century B.C. when Knossos, the major city on Crete, was destroyed, as were numerous cities in the Aegean. The Mycenaean Greeks not only controlled or traded with Crete and western Anatolia, but also had extensive trade with the entire eastern Mediterranean, including the area along the coast south of Mount Carmel, which came to be known as Philistia by the twelfth century B.C.

On the northern coast of Canaan opposite the island of Cyprus lie the ruins of Ugarit, a city-state destroyed about the time that the Sea Peoples were moving through the area towards Egypt. From these ruins a text was found speaking of a ship from "Kapturi." Another text from Ugarit speaks of a place called "Kptr," but no specific location is given in either case. However, Egyptian records of the Late Bronze Age speak clearly of four localities on Crete or "Keftiu" (Kftyw), which could also be translated "Caphtor" in the Egyptian language (T. Dothan 1982a, 13, 21, and footnotes; Stiebing 1989, 175). There is almost universal agreement that the Egyptian "Kftyw" refers to Crete (Macqueen 1986, 162 n. 30). We have noted that the Bible says the Philistines came from Caphtor, which, when examined with other biblical passages, appears to be Crete. It would be reasonable to conclude that extrabiblical sources, too, seem to equate Caphtor with Crete.

No doubt, as the Bible states, some of the Philistines had their origins in Caphtor/Crete. However, remember that in our examination of the Egyptian records for the Sea People invaders, during the reigns of Merneptah (ca. 1215 B.C.) and Ramesses III (ca. 1185 B.C.), we noted an Aegean -- and especially a western Anatolian -- origin for the invaders. In order to determine the heritage of the people the Bible refers to as the Philistines, I believe that we must expand the scope of our search beyond Crete to encompass the entire Aegean. With a further examination of biblical and extrabiblical material, I believe that we are even able to place part of this "Philistine" confederation on the Troad at the time of the Trojan War in the thirteenth century B.C.

A coalition of five city-states and their lords like that of the Philistines (Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron) was common to Bronze Age Greece, and such a coalition is evident in the Iliad (2.484ff., Lattimore 1951). The Bible uses the word seranim or its singular form seren twenty-one times for the lords or rulers of the five Philistine cities (e.g., 1 Sam. 5:8; 6:4, 16-18). This word appears to have been borrowed from the Philistines and may be related to the Greek word tyranos (tyrant) (T. Dothan 1982a, 18-19; A. Mazar 1990, 306; Achtemeier 1985, 790; ISBE 3:842; Buttrick 1962, 3:792). In reading the plague story of 1 Samuel 5 and 6, as well as the account of the Philistine lords disagreeing among themselves and telling Achish to send David back to Ziklag (1 Sam. 29), it becomes clear that no one lord had absolute power over military affairs. This is analogous to the situation in the Iliad where Agamemnon was the overlord of the kings of the other city-states, yet Achilles could oppose him vehemently with impunity (1.121-87, Rieu 1950; M. Wood 1986, 145).

The names Achish and Goliath are not Semitic, and parallels to these names may be found on Crete and in western Anatolia (Achtemeier 1985, 790; Buttrick 1962, 3:792; Albright 1975, 513). The biblical Achish may have had the same name as the Dardanian Anchises, the father of Aeneas from the Troad (Buttrick 1962, 3:792; T. Dothan 1982a, 22-23; Wainwright 1959, 77). The Dardanians were also on the list by Ramesses II of Hittite allies (see p. 64). Some sources, when discussing the origins of the Philistine names in the Bible, will mention the Luwian language. The Luwian language, according to extrabiblical material, was used in western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age, the end of which witnessed the movement of the Sea Peoples (A. Mazar 1990, 306; Mendenhall 1973, 107; Barnett 1975, 440). Among the people who spoke Luwian were the Lukka/Lycians, mentioned in ancient lists (p. 64) as Hittite allies, as Trojan allies, and later as one group among the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt (Barnett 1975, 440-41; Stiebing 1989, 176).

We presently possess few examples of Philistine writing, but some tablets, associated with Philistine pottery, were found at Deir Alla in the Jordan Valley. The script has not yet been deciphered, but it is believed by some scholars to be related to scripts used in the Aegean. They point specifically to a Cretan script called Linear A, which has a "purely phonetic syllabary, analogous to the Cypriot and in part to the Carian [emphasis mine]" (Albright 1975, 510; see also Stieglitz 1982a, 31 with picture, and Raban and Stieglitz 1991, 40). George Mendenhall suggests that the tablets are closer to the western Anatolian language Luwian (1973, 161).

The Phaistos Disk mentioned earlier was found on Crete but may have been an import from Caria in southwest Anatolia. Miletus, in Caria, may have been settled first by Cretans, then taken over by the Mycenaeans. According to the Iliad, Miletus was in Carian hands by the time of the Trojan War (2.867-68, Rieu 1950, 62; Cook 1975, 794-95; Huxley 1960, 13-14). The ties of the biblical Philistines to Crete and western Anatolia seem to be strong.

Further, the Cretans had definite associations with the allies of the Trojans (the Carians and the Lycians), and these allies were later among the Sea Peoples. Crete had also sent a contingent to Troy as an ally to the opposing Achaeans (Iliad 2.645-52, Lattimore 1951; Stubbings 1975, 349). There is even a legend that Troy was settled by Cretans.

The chart on page 64 demonstrates that some of the peoples listed were associated with one another for more than one hundred years, and this association included the Achaeans, who entered the scene along with the Sea Peoples. The "Philistines," as named in the Bible and discussed above, had more than just a passing acquaintance with Crete, the Troad, and western Anatolia; we must conclude that they originated in these regions.

An additional clue concerning the origins of the Sea Peoples may be available from an examination of rectangular chamber tombs at Tell el-Far`ah in southern Israel (Waldbaum 1966, 332-40; T. Dothan 1982a, 260f., 294; A. Mazar 1990, 300, 326-27; B. Wood 1991, 51-52). This site is located about fourteen miles south of Gaza and around sixteen miles west of Beersheba on the trade route linking Egypt and Mesopotamia (Negev 1986, 137). Jane Waldbaum presents a case for relating these tombs to Mycenaean chamber tombs at Mycenae and other Mycenaean areas. There are two different series of tombs at Tell el-Far`ah relevant to our study. The first is the group of tombs from cemetery 900, which is dated to the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age IA in the late thirteenth and early twelfth century B.C. The artifacts in these tombs date from the Ramesses II period down to Ramesses IV. Waldbaum ascribes the cemetery 900 tombs to an earlier wave of Sea Peoples who may have become Egyptian mercenaries stationed at Tell el-Far`ah. This is possible, since the Sheklesh (Sa-k(a)-ru-su), mentioned both in the Merneptah and Ramesses III lists as invaders, were also mercenaries on the side of Ramesses III in his battle against the Sea People invaders. The Sheklesh already had been mercenaries for the Egyptians in the time of Ramesses II in the thirteenth century B.C. Waldbaum states that these rectangular chamber tombs "lend strong support to the theory that the Philistines had more than casual connections with Mycenaean civilizations" (1966, 332).

The second series of tombs is in cemetery 500 and dates to the second half of the twelfth and into the eleventh century. Philistine grave goods are plentiful in these tombs, which also contain anthropoid coffins. The Aegean origin of those buried in the tombs is clear based on the tomb architecture and the artifacts (T. Dothan 1985, 171). Therefore, Waldbaum's study of the Tell el-Far`ah cemeteries also brings the Philistine origins into the Aegean orbit.

It is known from Egyptian records that the attacks on the Egyptians by the Sea Peoples from the Aegean occurred during the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the twelfth century b.c. Again, in the Bible this is the period of the judges, which ends with Samuel in the eleventh century. Our examination of the Bible thus far has concentrated on specific verses and words which have helped answer our questions about who the Philistines were and where they came from. The Bible also contains a story which can be used to examine the relationship between the Philistines, the Aegean, and western Anatolia and even suggests that some of the Philistine forebears may have been Mycenaean Greeks present on the plains of Troy in that classic battle for Troy between the Achaeans and the Trojans in the second half of the thirteenth century b.c.

First Samuel 4-6 records the capture of the ark of the covenant by the Philistines due to the incorrect assumption on the part of the Israelites that taking the ark into battle guaranteed the presence of God on their side. The Lord God of Israel caused great consternation and death by means of a plague among the Philistines while the ark was in their hands, and so the Philistine lords joined together to plan how to return the ark to Israel. The ritual used by the Philistines to return the ark in 1 Samuel 6 has an older and parallel account in the Iliad, book 1, and to a lesser extent, is similar to a Hittite/Arzawan ritual. I believe that the similarities between the ritual used in the Iliad, book 1, and the ritual used later by the Philistines in 1 Samuel 6 provide us with evidence that some of the biblical Philistines were Achaean. It is logical to assume that the Sea Peoples, when they migrated from the Aegean and from western Anatolia and the plains of Ilium to Egypt and Palestine, carried with them the stories and rituals of their culture.

The parallel accounts are listed in the order they occur in their narratives.

Some biblical commentators see two separate afflictions recorded in the Samuel account: a plague of boils or tumors and a plague of mice or rats. The Philistines themselves may have seen two disconnected afflictions, not associating the rats with the tumors. However, since boils are a symptom of the bubonic plague and the plague is frequently carried by the fleas on rats, most authorities identify what is described in 1 Samuel as the bubonic plague, a malady endemic to the Near East during this Late Bronze/Iron period (Gaster and Frazer 1969, 452; Mendenhall 1973, 107). By making golden models of the rats and sending them away out of their cities with the ark, the Philistines were reacting to the plague from Yahweh with a practice standard in the worship of their own gods (Gaster and Frazer 1969, 452; Wainwright 1959, 77-78).

Absent from the Iliad account is the driving of the oxen on the road. However, even if this were part of their ritual, the Achaeans would have been prevented from carrying it out, since the priest of Apollo Smintheus, whom they had offended, lived on the island of Tenedos, off the coast of Anatolia southwest of Troy, and it was to this island that the girl had to be returned along with holy offerings. They did, however, put cattle for an offering on board the ship to Tenedos.

East of the Troad lived the Hittites who, during the Late Bronze Age, developed an empire that rivaled Egypt. Among the religious rituals that the Hittites used to rid themselves of the plague was one of driving animals down the road away from the community:

In performing this ritual the Hittites followed the advice of an Arzawan priest. Arzawa was a political entity and was already a rival of the Hittites beginning early in the sixteenth century B.C. Arzawa continued to be a rival throughout the Late Bronze Age, obliging the Hittite kings to repeatedly campaign against it. At times Arzawa was independent, and we know from a fourteenth-century B.C. letter addressed to the king of Arzawa that an Arzawan daughter was given in marriage to the pharaoh of Egypt (Mercer 1939, 1:183-85).

Arzawa, south of Troy, apparently included the area where Ephesus is located (Macqueen 1986, 37-39; M. Wood 1986, 179-81) and was a neighbor of Caria and Lycia, one or the other of whom is mentioned in every list on the chart on page 64. It became an ally of its rival the Hittite empire against Egypt (Barnett 1975, 360). Because Arzawa, Lycia, and Caria used the same or similar Luwian dialects (Gurney 1952, 130; Albright 1975, 513),¹¹ the possibility exists that the ritual of the Arzawans (and Hittites) could also have been an accepted ritual of the Carians and the Lycians, who were allies of the Trojans and were among the Sea Peoples that invaded Egypt.

Now let us return to the "mouse god" of the Iliad on the island of Tenedos. Apollo has numerous epithets, but in the Iliad, book 1, he is called Smintheus, the mouse god. Smintheus shrines have been found only in the northwest sector of Anatolia, one of the possible places of origin for the Philistines. "The chief shrine was at Chyrsa on the coast of the Troad . . . in which temple mice were kept, and in which a mouse was carved at the foot of the statue of Apollo. There was also a temple dedicated to Apollo Smintheus on nearby Tenedos, and here as Smintheus he was the ruling divinity" (R. Miller 1939, 34-35; M. Wood 1986, 234 has similar information).

Apollo also had a temple on Chios, a large island south of Troy, and there were sites with Smintheus as part of their name on the Troad south of Troy (Cook 1974, 37-40) and on the island of Rhodes. The island of Chios is directly off the coast of Izmir/Smyrna near Mount Sipylus, which is the region where George Mendenhall matches the word Philistine (Peleset) with a Greek dedicatory inscription (Mendenhall 1974). The area around Mount Sipylus was probably part of Arzawa, with the Carians and Lycians to the south. The Greek geographer Strabo (late first century B.C. to early first century A.D.) quotes the Greek poet Kallinos, who claimed that Troy was colonized by Cretans. Smintheus may be a Cretan word, though it has also been identified as western Anatolian (Mysian) (Leaf 1923, 240; R. Miller 1939, 35; M. Wood 1986, 180). The nth sound of Smintheus, according to A. R. Burn, is characteristic of Cretan, Carian, and southern Aegean (1930, 89). Whether the movement of culture and language was from Crete to western Anatolia or vice versa cannot be determined, and places in both regions sharing similar names are common and widespread. For example, Mount Ida in the Troad shares its name with the sacred mountain in Crete. Thus, many ties have been demonstrated between the Troad and Crete.

Presently there is not much archaeological evidence for Late Bronze and early Iron Age (fourteenth-eleventh centuries B.C.) settlements in western Anatolia, especially in the southwest, in Lycia and Caria (Cook 1974, 37-40). Too little archaeology has been done in this large area, and of what has been done, little seems to have been dug below the layers of the Classical Age. Another problem in excavating Lycia and other places in western Anatolia is the silting up of rivers along the Anatolian coast. Ephesus, a little further north, is a prime example of an area being buried in silt. Currently, the archaeological evidence is somewhat inconclusive as to precisely which sites in western Anatolia the biblical Philistines might have come from, but hopefully more work can be done in Turkey to match the extensive excavations in Israel.

Apollo Smintheus was recognized in the Iliad, book 1, as being the sender of and the averter of the plague, and the mouse symbol was used to counteract the force of the plague. The Philistines saw the Lord God of Israel as the sender of and the averter of the plague, and they made the models of the mice and tumors to appease this god. G. A. Wainwright, using Strabo, mentions that the Tjekker, one of the Sea Peoples accompanying the Philistines in the attack on Egypt (see p. 64), were from the Troad, where Apollo Smintheus was revered (1959, 77-78). It is certain that the Tjekker settled just north of the biblical Philistines at Dor on the coast on the Plain of Sharon south of Mount Carmel (Wainwright 1959, 78; Negev 1986, 118; M. Dothan 1989, 64). Wainwright would like to link David's Philistine city, Ziklag (1 Sam. 27, 30), with the Tjekker name, Zakkal (1959, 78).

Another epithet for Apollo was the "Lycian god" (Iliad 4.101, Rieu 1950, 79), and his mother, Leto, was also considered to have been from Lycia of southwest Anatolia. Apollo and the Semitic god Dagon, whom the biblical Philistines adopted, were both associated with agriculture (more about Dagon in chap. 4; see also 1 Sam. 5). In any case, it is unlikely that the biblical Philistines were unaware of Apollo Smintheus.

The plague account in 1 Samuel 5-6 follows the plague account in the Iliad, book 1, very closely, and we have found no other account that is similar to them. It is improbable that the two arose independently of each other. Rather than being only the result of transference by means of trade, this resemblance between the two accounts is probably a result of direct cultural transmission through the migration of the Sea Peoples from the Aegean world to Palestine. Archaeological and textual data -- including Greek legends -- show that Cretan, Mycenaean, and western Anatolian history are tightly interwoven in the Late Bronze Age of the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C. In spite of this evidence, the paucity of recent excavated sites in western Anatolia that go back to the Late Bronze Age makes it difficult to state unequivocally that the biblical Philistines came from western Anatolia.

One major exception to this lack of archaeological excavation in western Turkey is Troy. It is to this site I wish to go next. I believe that the Trojan War was indicative of the upheavals in the latter half of the thirteenth century B.C. that led to the movement of the Sea Peoples through western Anatolia, Cyprus, and the east coast of the Mediterranean, and down into Egypt, where they were repulsed to settle in Canaan, later referred to as Palestine. We also know from the lists on page 64 that some of the Trojans' allies during the Trojan War were Sea Peoples. What then does the mound of Troy tell us about the events up to and following the legendary Trojan War?

"She has climbed the great Tower of Ilium."

Troy! A generation ago only a few students of the Bible would have imagined that the legendary battle on the plains around Troy would have any connection with the battles of the biblical judges and Saul and David with the Philistines. Today, due to instant transcontinental communication and jet travel, we say that the world is getting smaller. Now too, because of the refinements in archaeological method and the explosion in the number of excavations, we are beginning to realize that what were once thought of as different and distant worlds, the world of the Israelites and the world of the Aegean, clashed in the Valley of Elah with the contest between David and Goliath (1 Sam. 17).

One very important tool for archaeologists is pottery typology. Consider this: modern soda and beer containers have changed in composition, size, shape, label design, and how they open over the past century; we would be able to set up a bottle/can chronology, dating each piece according to its characteristics. The archaeologist is able to set up such a chronology with the pottery of the ancient world. Chapter 4 will detail how this chronology works, but suffice it to say for now that enough artifacts have been recovered at Sea People/Philistine sites on Cyprus and in Israel that archaeologists have been able to set up a chronology of their particular ceramic forms.

Before the ancient Near Eastern empires of the Hittites and the Egyptians broke up in the second half of the thirteenth century B.C., countless sites along the eastern Mediterranean coast traded ceramic forms referred to today as Mycenaean IIIB imports. This designation refers to ceramic vessels that were made in Mycenae or its environs and filled with goods to be traded throughout the Near East. These well-crafted, beautiful vessels are immediately identified by any veteran excavator. The thirteenth-century B.C. breakup of the empires in the Near East and Greece brought a halt to this far-reaching trade. All seasoned archaeologists excavating near the seacoast in Israel or on Cyprus look for an end to Mycenaean IIIB imports, signaling the break between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. At numerous sites on Cyprus and in Israel, the pottery that follows this break is a locally made imitation of the imports and is referred to as monochrome Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery. At a few sites in Israel, this locally made imitation pottery is followed by a bichrome "Philistine" pottery (see pp. 40-41 for details).

Since the 1930s scholarly debate about the mound of Troy has focused on which stratigraphic level of the mound holds the city of Priam and Hector. Is it the level known as Troy VI or the level known as VIIA? To answer this question, I have focused my research on the pottery. Can we find the same pottery sequence at Troy as on Cyprus and in Israel: the Mycenaean IIIB imports (which would cease presumably after the destruction of Troy by the Mycenaeans), followed by locally made IIIC:1b pottery?

The Iliad and the Odyssey make it very clear that there was trade between Troy and the Mycenaean cities in Greece. Helen was taken during one such trip to the Achaean mainland. Would the thirteenth-century Mycenaean IIIB pottery imports have ceased while the Mycenaeans were besieging Troy? If the city was sacked as Homer states and resettled by poor survivors, did the new inhabitants make the local Mycenaean IIIC pottery? These are the questions that need to be considered.

Beginning in 1870, the first excavator of Troy was the famed Heinrich Schliemann, followed by Wilhelm Dšrpfeld. They both believed that Troy VI was the city that Homer wrote about, since it was "well built" and "finely towered" (Vermeule 1972, 275; M. Wood 1986, 113). Due to the findings of Carl Blegen's seven seasons at Troy from 1932-1938, several scholars of ancient Greek history came to believe that Troy VIIA was the Troy of Priam recounted in the Iliad. "Troy VIIa was then Priam's city, and VIIb 1 was built on its ruins by those who survived" (Desborough 1964, 164-65). "It [Troy VIIA] was smaller and more rubbly than before [Troy VI] . . . and in spite of its shoddy aspect is generally felt to be the city Homer sang about" (Vermeule 1972, 276; see also Chadwick 1976, 184-85). Blegen and those who came after him using his excavation reports recognized that Troy VI was a "great city." But they were troubled by the fact that Troy VI seemed to end around 1300 B.C. with an earthquake and by the fact that they saw no evidence of fire, counter to Homer's epic (Vermeule 1972, 273; see Cottrell 1963, 200ff. for Blegen's words). According to Vermeule, Troy VI could have witnessed the earlier raid by the Achaeans mentioned in the Iliad -- the one led by Heracles, who raided not only Troy but went further inland as well, into Hittite territory (1972, 275-76; M. Wood 1986, 164).

When I first began my research about Troy in the 1960s, I too became convinced that Troy VIIA was Priam's city, in spite of the fact that it was Troy VI that had the "wide streets, beautiful walls and great gates just as the Iliad had told" (M. Wood 1986, 91). It was Troy VI that had the luxury goods. One holdout for Troy VI at that time, I remember, was O. R. Gurney, whose words about Troy VI as well as the evidence that the practice of cremation was widespread there, fit well with the demise of numerous heroes depicted in the Iliad (Gurney 1952, 168-69; M. Wood 1986, 168).

However, the pottery chronology that we utilize in our work in Israel made me reinvestigate my earlier conclusion. If Troy had Mycenaean imports, at which level did these imports end? Secondly, what type of pottery followed the imports? Blegen appears to agree to the sequence of pottery in our chronology, "but," he cautions, "to convert it into a specific year B.C. is another matter on which one finds no close agreement among the specialists" (1975, 163).

Imported Mycenaean pottery and other imported goods have been found throughout Troy VI (M. Wood 1986, 91). The luxury imports on this level other than ceramics are of such a quantity that Blegen, too, believed that trade of this extent implied a direct route between Mycenae and Troy. But such trade between Mycenae and other cities ceased around 1250 B.C. (M. Wood 1986, 164). Therefore, I agree with Blegen concerning the date for the demise of Priam's Troy -- circa 1250 B.C. -- but I believe that Priam's city was Troy VI, not VIIA (Blegen 1975, 163). Troy VIIA was, as Vermeule describes it, small, rubbly, and shoddy, with a shantytown, and as M. Wood states, it had "no imported luxuries, and few (if any) sherds from imported pots -- mainly poor imitations of Myceanaean wares [emphasis mine]" (1986, 115). The shantytown, with its locally made Mycenaean imitations, fell around 1180 B.C. (M. Wood 1986, 224).

Wood goes on to answer the earthquake question posed by Blegen. Troy VIIA appears to have had no royalty. None of the great or royal houses appear to have been utilized in accordance with their original function, thus pointing to an earthquake destruction of Troy VI. In its weakened state Troy VI was attacked, its royal house was killed or enslaved, and the succeeding Troy VIIA became a squatter town. Wood also cites evidence that Troy VI was indeed burned, as the earlier excavator Dšrpfeld documented (M. Wood 1986, 91). Weapons of war were recovered as well (M. Wood 1986, 227-28; see also Blegen's words on the fire in Troy VI in Cottrell 1963, 201). The dates of 1250 B.C. for the downfall of Troy VI and then 1180 B.C. for the destruction of Troy VIIA fit in well with the movement and destruction of the Sea Peoples as they migrated through western and southern Anatolia towards Cyprus and Egypt.

One further question about Troy VI is significant to this discussion. What did the Trojans trade? The Iliad mentions the horses of Troy, and the quantity of horse bones found in Troy VI bears witness to this. The extensive artifacts associated with textiles suggest another means of support. A third item of export seems to have been ceramics known as Grey Minyan ware, or Trojan ware (Blegen 1975, 161-63; M. Wood 1986, 165-66). This type of pottery was common throughout the region at the time; therefore, it is difficult to come to any definite conclusions about where it was produced. To my knowledge, neutron activation tests on it have not been completed. Grey Minyan ware/Trojan ware has been found at other sites in Palestine, Syria, and Cyprus, and we have recovered such sherds at Tel Miqne-Ekron dating to the second half of the thirteenth century B.C. This pottery will be discussed further in chapter 4 (M. Wood 1986, 71-72, 86-87, 165-66; Buchholz 1974, 175-87).

Already in book 1 of the Iliad, Achilles and Agamemnon argue over booty gathered while raiding and sacking cities. The sacking of cities for booty was not unusual during the Late Bronze Age; according to the Iliad, to be called a "Sacker of Cities" was evidently an honor (Tritsch 1974, 233-39; M. Wood 1986, 159-61). The Odyssey records the numerous adventures, wanderings, and sackings of cities throughout the Near East (including raids on Egypt) by Odysseus, as well as by other survivors of the Trojan War. If Troy VI was the city of Priam and Hector and the wanderings of Odysseus followed, then the destruction of Troy VI around 1250 B.C. would have happened just prior to the raids on Egypt against Pharaoh Merneptah. The Peoples of the Sea continued to sack cities.

However, there is a difference in the raiding and sacking at the end of the Bronze Age, circa 1200 B.C. About this time Israel was moving into the Promised Land in the hill country of Canaan, and large numbers of families from the Aegean were also on the move to their promised lands. Whereas earlier groups of men from the Sea Peoples had traveled as mercenaries for the Hittites or the Egyptians, at the end of the Bronze Age Sea People men were moving with their household goods and entire families. They were raiding not only for booty, but to establish new settlements. It was not just Troy VIIA, the squatter city that followed Troy VI, that was destroyed by the Sea Peoples; a number of major population centers throughout Mycenaean Greece were devastated (Bright 1981, 115; Desborough 1964, 217-57; Stiebing 1980, 8; Vermeule 1972, 269-74; M. Wood 1986, 222-23). Knossos, on Crete, was sacked at some point during the thirteenth century B.C., but then the pace of destruction increased, and by the end of thirteenth or early twelfth century Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns, and numerous other cities had been destroyed. The Hittite and Egyptian empires collapsed; that this was due solely to the Sea Peoples is doubtful, but both empires were definitely weakened by them. The Sea Peoples' path of destruction can be traced along the southern coast of Anatolia to Cyprus, to Syria, and then down the coast of Canaan to Egypt.

So by the beginning of the twelfth century, Troy and many Mycenaean city-states had been destroyed, and the survivors had moved on. From Troy, we will pick up the story of the Sea Peoples on Cyprus, for Cyprus apparently became a staging area for further moves of these people east and south and eventually into the Bible stories of Joshua, the judges, and others.

Cyprus has been mentioned repeatedly in our study thus far. Experts in ancient Near Eastern history do not dispute the theory that the Sea People invaders of the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries mentioned in contemporary Egyptian texts were from western Anatolia and the Aegean. In order for them to have gotten to Egypt, they probably would have passed by or through the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean; therefore, that is a logical place to search for evidence of Sea People/Philistine activity.

In the Bible, Cyprus is first mentioned in Genesis 10:4-5 as Kittim (ISBE 3:45; Elwell 1988, 1:563). Here it is viewed as a staging area for the coastland peoples. The next scriptural reference to Kittim or Cyprus is found in Numbers 24:23-24. This passage is part of Balaam's final oracle, and in one translation of these verses (following Albright, in part), Balak finally receives satisfaction through Balaam's prediction that the Philistines (Kittim/Kition, explained below) would overpower the Hebrews (Eber) before they themselves would be subdued.

Eber is Abraham's ancestor, according to Genesis 10:21-25 and 11:14-26 (Achtemeier 1985, 233-34; Elwell 1988, 1:648). However, not all scholars are agreed that Eber equals Hebrew (Hebrew is consonantal, and both words have the same consonants). In Numbers 24 the word could mean simply "region beyond" (ISBE 2:8; Achtemeier 1985, 233-34). Nor are all scholars agreed that Numbers 24:24 refers to the Sea Peoples. If it does and if the dating of the Sea People/Philistine attacks in the Egyptian records of Pharaohs Merneptah and Ramesses III is applied here, an approximate date for the Numbers 24 passage could be established, since all translations of verse 24 read in the future tense: "But ships shall come from Kittim." In any case, Cyprus is described again here as a staging area, and it is believed widely that the Sea Peoples did depart from there for Canaan and Egypt beginning late in the thirteenth century B.C.

The island of Cyprus is only 43 miles from the shores of Anatolia to the north, 76 miles from the Syrian coast to the east, 264 miles from Egypt in the south, and 500 miles from Athens in the west. The Late Bronze Age, especially the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries, was a prosperous period for Cyprus. Crete had previously been using the island as a convenient trading stop when going to and from the Palestinian coast. Then, in the fourteenth century B.C., the Mycenaeans replaced the Cretans, probably due to the downfall of Knossos on Crete. Imported Mycenaean pottery has been found at numerous Late Bronze Age sites on Cyprus. But the island had another advantage besides its convenient geographic location -- its abundant supply of copper. Copper plus tin are the major ingredients for bronze, and this was, after all, the Bronze Age. Cyprus became a focal point for trade going east and west between Greece and Mesopotamia and north and south between Anatolia and Egypt.

Shortly after the mid-thirteenth century B.C., Cyprus went through a drastic change because of the destruction of numerous centers in Mycenaean Greece and Anatolia, including Troy. Some of the survivors of those defeats moved on and evidently settled on Cyprus; others became plunderers throughout the region, according to records from Ugarit (Karageorghis 1984, 21), a major trading port on the Palestinian coast opposite Cyprus. In response, new settlements were constructed on Cyprus strictly for defensive purposes; among them were two sites named Pyla-Kokkinokremos (Pyla for short) and Maa-Palaeokastro (Maa for short) on the southeastern and western coasts. The artifacts that were uncovered at both sites, as well as the finely cut ashlar block masonry used for some of the construction, show that the builders and inhabitants were from Crete, Greece, and Anatolia. (Ashlar construction was known at Troy VI but not on mainland Greece. See also Raban and Stieglitz 1991, 37-38.) Both Pyla and Maa were destroyed in 1210 B.C. or shortly thereafter. Pyla had no good source of water, no agriculture. It existed strictly for military purposes, and after its 1210 destruction, the inhabitants did not return. They may have moved instead to Kition, seven miles away. Maa was resettled, and its pottery, Mycenaean IIIC:1b, gives us a clue about the new inhabitants. Following the familiar pattern, this pottery was locally made, imitating the Mycenaean pottery of the Greek mainland. Specimens of this local pottery were the first artifacts I picked up off the surface during my visit to Maa. After excavating Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery for several seasons at Ekron in Israel, I was excited at finding identical pottery at this site on Cyprus.

According to Dr. Karageorghis, the excavator, both Pyla and Maa were military outposts originally built by invaders, possibly Sea Peoples, at previously uninhabited sites. Then after its 1210 B.C. destruction, Maa was inhabited by a new wave of Sea Peoples from the Peloponnese or the Greek islands off southwest Turkey, the Dodecanese. Dr. Karageorghis has concluded that these new invaders were Achaeans who were somehow related ethnically to the other Sea Peoples.

The Late Bronze Age on Cyprus had witnessed a great deal of trade and coexistence between peoples, including people from the Mycenaean orbit, until the mid-thirteenth century B.C. Other interesting finds which can be traced to the earlier mid-thirteenth-century wave of invaders at Pyla include a large amount of Late Minoan (Cretan) pottery as well as stone "horns of consecration" like those made famous at Knossos. Grey Minyan ware (Trojan ware) has also been recovered at various Cypriot sites, indicating contact with Anatolia.

The sequence of events at Maa and Pyla was apparently duplicated at Sinda and Enkomi, sites to the north of Pyla. The Sea People invaders often destroyed Late Bronze Age settlements on Cyprus such as at Enkomi and Kition (called Larnaca today, but the old name may also be the source of the biblical Kittim; see Achtemeier 1985, 532-33), only to rebuild them utilizing ashlar block construction in part. The rebuilt defensive wall at Maa as well as other walls at Kition, Sinda, and Enkomi are sometimes called "Cyclopean," because they call to mind the great boulder walls in the Peloponnese at Mycenae and Tiryns.

There are two finds that provide a direct link between Cyprus and the Philistine Sea Peoples. The first is a stamp seal of the late thirteenth century, which was found sealed below a floor at the southern end of a megaron at Enkomi, a site that had been destroyed and rebuilt by the Sea Peoples. A megaron is an Aegean-style palace, a long building with a central hall, a hearth, side rooms, and an open-faced porch. The seal shows a warrior crouched behind a shield in a defensive position. The warrior's headgear includes the feathered headdress characteristic of the Philistine invaders of Egypt pictured on reliefs at Medinet Habu during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses III. It is suggested that the seal represents an enemy invader, due to his unheroic pose behind the shield.

The other artifact, also from Enkomi and this time from a tomb, is a beautiful ivory game box. The rectangular box with legs holds the pieces needed to play the game. The side of the box has a hunting scene carved into it: The wheeled chariot depicted is pulled by horses and bears a charioteer and a hunter carrying a drawn bow. On foot are two men wearing the feathered headgear. One of these men is spearing an animal, and the other, standing behind the chariot, is bearing an ax. His headgear is very clear, as is his kilt with its pointed tassel. This second man especially resembles some of the Philistines who attacked Ramesses III early in the twelfth century B.C. The men on the seal and on the game box are all bearded. Whereas most of the Philistines pictured at Medinet Habu are clean-shaven, a few of them are bearded.

In addition, bovine scapulae, both incised and non-incised, have been found at Tel Miqne-Ekron in Israel. Such scapulae have also been found at Kition and elsewhere on Cyprus, in the stratigraphic context of Late Cypriot IIIA (1225 B.C. and later). Scapulomancy is a divination technique that may have been used on Cyprus (Webb 1986), whereby priests tried to determine future events by studying the natural features of bovine shoulder blades. The incisions or notches must have played a role, since the incisions present on some of the scapulae at Ekron and on Cyprus appear not to have occurred naturally, but to have been cut into the bone. However, their purpose is not known. Scapulomancy was practiced elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, but at present it is impossible to explain how or if these incised scapulae were used in cultic practices on Cyprus and at Ekron. There are other possible explanations for the presence of numbers of bovine scapulae. Oxen were common sacrificial animals on Cyprus, and of course the Old Testament also specifies the ox as one of the sacrificial animals to be used by the Israelites (e.g., Exod. 20:24; 24:5).

To summarize, Sea People settlers came to Cyprus (Maa, Pyla, Sinda, Enkomi, Kition, and other sites) late in the thirteenth century B.C., after the Trojan War, from Crete, Greece, and Anatolia. At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth centuries more Sea People settlers arrived, this time Achaeans from the Peloponnese or from the islands off western Anatolia, according to Dr. Karageorghis, and one of their distinguishing features was their Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, made locally. Mycenaean IIIB imports ceased, and the new Sea Peoples evidently became the ruling class at Enkomi, Kition, and other sites. As will be demonstrated in later chapters, the sequence of events on Cyprus was reflected in findings about the Philistine sites in Canaan. Cyprus seems to have been the bridge between the Aegean and Canaan. The presence of the Sea Peoples is evident at various sites on Cyprus, and from these sites they launched their attacks on the Eastern Mediterranean coast and down into Egypt, to be repulsed first by Pharaoh Merneptah and finally by Ramesses III.