The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

12. PHILISTINES AND PELASGIANS
One of the most significant groups among the Sea Peoples
who attacked Egypt in the fifth and eighth year of
Ramesses III (= 1179 and 1176 BC) is the Peleset. This
ethnonym, which has no earlier occurrence in the Egyptian
sources, has been identified with the Biblical Philistines by
Jean-François Champollion soon after his decipherment of
Egyptian hieroglyphic – an identification which goes unchallenged
up to the present day. 378 Now, the Philistines
are generally considered newcomers in the Levant, settling
in their pentapolis consisting of the towns Asdod, Askelon,
Gaza, Ekron, and Gath at the time of the upheavals of the
Sea Peoples. Thus the Bible informs us that they originated
from Kaphtor, 379 which on the basis of its correspondence
to Akkadian Kaptara and Egyptian Keftiu is plausibly
identified as the island Crete; or they are even straightforwardly
addressed here as Cretans. 380 Moreover, they are
considered an alien race for the fact that, in contrast to the
local Semites, they do not abide to the rite of circumcision.
381 Finally, the Philistines are reported by the Bible to
have replaced the ancient Canaanite population of the Avvim
in their original habitat. 382
This information from the literary sources can be
backed up by evidence from archaeology. It occurs,
namely, that the archaeological culture of Philistia shows
signs of discontinuity in the transitional period from the
Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Asdod, its harbor
Tel Mor, and Askelon are characterized by destruction layers,
383 and Ekron by at least some local destruction at the
time. 384 The level after the destruction at these sites (with
the exception of Tel Mor) contains locally produced
Mycenaean IIIC1b pottery – the hallmark of the settlement
of Sea Peoples – , which subsequently develops without a
break into the so-called Philistine ware. 385 Moreover, the
378 Champollion 1836: 180; cf. Gardiner 1947: 201.
379 Amos 9, 7; Jeremiah 47, 4.
380 Ezekiel 25, 16; Zephaniah 2, 5.
381 Gardiner 1947: 201; Machinist 2000: 63.
382 Deuteronomium 2, 23.
383 Dothan 1982: 36; 43; 35.
384 Bietak 1993: 300.
385 Bietak 1993: 297-8.
95
Egyptian influence which typifies the Canaanite material
culture from before the break does not recur. As it appears,
then, conquerors from the Aegean region (including Cyprus),
where Mycenaean IIIC1b is “en vogue” at the time,
have wasted existing Canaanite sites, driven out most of
the original inhabitants and settled themselves instead.
Considering this close correspondence between literary
and archaeological data, the projection of the Philistines
back in time to the period of the patriarchs probably constitutes
an anachronism. 386
In the Papyrus Harris, Ramesses III claims to have
settled the vanquished Sea Peoples, among which our Peleset
or Philistines, in strongholds bound in his name. This
has induced scholars like Albrecht Alt and William Foxwell
Albright to assume that the settlement of the Philistines
in Canaan took place under Egyptian supervision. 387
Rightly, Manfred Bietak pointed out that the absence of
Egyptian influence in the material culture after the break
indicates otherwise. Nevertheless, the continuity of Egyptian
influence in the hinterland of the Philistine pentapolis
might suggest to us that the Egyptian pharaoh maintained a
nominal claim on the land conquered by the Philistines and
considered them as vassals guarding his frontiers in like
manner as the Frankish kings did with the Normans in the
European Middle Ages (see Fig. 17)! 388
As duly stressed by Ed Noort, the break between the
Canaanite Late Bronze Age and Philistine Early Iron Age
in the region under discussion is not an absolute one: the
continuity of Canaanite pottery in the Philistine sites indicates
that to a certain extent the newcomers from the Aegean
mixed with the local Avvim population. 389 To this
comes that four of the five place names of the Philistine
pentapolis, viz. Gaza, Askelon, Asdod, and Gath, are already
recorded for Egyptian sources from the El-Amarna
period. 390
386 Genesis 21, 22-34; cf. Machinist 2000: 54-5; contra Gordon
1956: 22 and others.
387 Alt 1944; Albright 1975: 509; cf. Singer 1985.
388 Bietak 1993; esp. 295, Fig. 4.
389 Noort 1994.
390 Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopädie, s.v. Philister.