Medinet habu: Oxcarts, ships, and migration theories

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 59, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 161-190

  Drews, Robert ^a  

^a VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 60950348604     PISSN: 00222968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/468830     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. And the oxcarts and ships at Medinet Habu have invariably served as the vehicles for this "migration of the Sea Peoples. " For a typical presentation, see John Wilson's The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago, 1951). According to Wilson (p. 245), "the relentless surge of wave after wave of Sea Peoples shows one great folk-wandering. " In the eighth year of Ramesses III, "there came south a great wave of Sea Peoples, moving by land and sea. . . . They overran Anatolia, Cilicia, Cyprus and northern Syria, ending the Hittite empire, and set up a camp somewhere in the northern Syrian plain, preparatory to invading Egypt. Those on the sea had boats with an abruptly turned-up end and a sharp ramming point. Those on land moved in ox-drawn carts, which were loaded with their household goods and accompanied by their wives and children" (p. 259)
2. R. O. Faulkner's account is similar in CAH, vol. 2, pt. 2, pp. 242-43: Having destroyed the Hittite empire they advanced into Amurru and apparently halted for a while to rest and concentrate their forces. Thereafter the confederates continued their march down the Syrian coast with their women and children in ox-carts, for this was an invasion to occupy and settle in the lands overrun, not merely to raid on a large scale, while offshore a considerable fleet escorted the march. To deal with this threat Ramesses mobilized his garrisons in Palestine with orders to bar the way of the advancing horde and hold them as much as possible while he got his main army into action, and in the event the invasion by land was effectively stopped. Meanwhile the hostile fleet was trapped by the Egyptian ships in a harbour or an estuary, probably in one of the mouths of the Nile, and utterly destroyed. . . . The danger from the Peoples of the Sea was thus averted on the very threshold of Egypt. The migration bulks even larger in Donald Redford's Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton, 1992): "It is no exaggeration to claim that the movement of the Sea Peoples, to anticipate a term to be coined for them in Egypt, changed the face of the ancient world more than any other single event before the time of Alexander the Great. . . . In Egypt, the obvious goal of the movement, the effect proved negligible when compared with what the movement of these migrants wrought in Palestine and Syria" (pp. 243-44). Although in the past both Egypt and the Levant had suffered from military invasions, neither place had hitherto experienced "an outright invasion of peoples from the Aegean, intent on settling down. " But that is what occurred in Ramesses' eighth year, when "from their camp in Amurru-that is, in the Eleutheros Valley-the confederacy trundled south, women and children in oxcarts, while the ships kept pace off the coast" (pp. 250 and 255).
3. For argument, and for references to the evolution of Maspero's speculation, see my The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B. C. (Princeton, 1993), pp. 48-72
4. See, for example, F. Chabas, Etudes sur I'anliquité historique d'après les sources égyptiennes et les monuments réputés préhistoriques (Paris, 1872), pp. 255 and 319-20. Eduard Meyer likewise initially supposed that barbarians from Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, the Aegean, and Anatolia gravitated toward Egypt: "Mit Weib und Kind Ziehen sie einher, theils zu Lande auf Ochsenkaren, theils zur See in groβen offenen Ruderschiffen. "
5. See Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, Vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1893), pp. 210-11.
6. The invention of Völkerwanderungen was charted long ago by Elias Bickerman, "Origines Gentium," Classical Philology 47 (1952): 65-81. On the broader question, and the degree to, which nations are constructs of nationalism
7. see Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1990).
8. See my article "Canaanites and Philistines," JSOT 81 (1998): 39-61.
9. End of the Bronze Age, pp. 51-52
10. Medinet Habu I (Plates 1-54): Earlier Historical Records of Ramses III (Chicago, 1930)
11. and Medinet Habu II (Plates 55-130): Later Historical Records of Ramses III (Chicago, 1932). In the present article, all references to "plates" will be to the plates as numbered in these two volumes.
12. William Edgerton and John Wilson, Historical Records of Ramses III: The Texts in Medinet Habu Volumes I and II (Chicago, 1936). Unless otherwise noted, translations of the Medinet Habu texts will be taken from this volume.
13. Nelson, "The Epigraphic Survey 1928-1931," Oriental Institute Communications (OIC) no. 10 (1931): 27-29. Barbara Cifola, "The Terminology of Ramses Ill's Historical Records with a Formal Analysis of the War Scenes," Or. , n. s. , 60 (1991): 14, n. 17, also concludes that the "Asiatic campaign" celebrated in the Medinet Habu reliefs and inscriptions was not historical and "can probably be explained by Ramses Ill's wish to emulate his more famous predecessors, in particular Ramses II. " On the mythical character of Egyptian "historical" reliefs and inscriptions
14. see John Wilson, "The Royal Myth in Ancient Egypt," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 100 (1956): 439-42.
15. Medinet Habu II, pls. 94, 96, and 98.
16. Leonard Lesko, "Egypt in the 12th Century B. C. ," in William Ward and Martha Joukousky, eds. , The Crisis Years: The 12th Century B. C. (Dubuque, Iowa, 1992), p. 153, finds the Syrian campaign "highly questionable. " For a full analysis of the reliefs depicting "the so-called Syrian campaign,"
17. see G. Gaballa, Narrative in Egyptian Art (Mainz, 1976), pp. 126-29. Gaballa found the reality of the Syrian campaign "extremely doubtful. " It appears that at least two-thirds of the cultic or calendar scenes at Medinet Habu are copies, many almost identical, of scenes ordered by Ramesses the Great; on this
18. see C. F. Nims, "Rames-seum Sources of Medinet Habu Reliefs,"
19. in J. H. Johnson and E. F. Wente, eds. , Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes (Chicago, 1976), pp. 169-75.
20. Wilson, "The Language of the Historical Texts Commemorating Ramses III," OIC no. 7 (1930): 25.
21. Lesko, "Egypt," pp. 152-53.
22. Gaballa, Narrative in Egyptian Art, p. 100, suggested that military realism was an innovation in Egyptian art during the Ramesside period. Recently, however, two monumental battle reliefs have been identified as coming from the reigns of Thutmose III or Amenhotep II
23. see Peter Brand, "Thutmoside Battle Relief," in N. Thomas, ed. , The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt (Los Angeles, 1995), pp. 170-71.
24. Wilson, "Royal Myth," p. 441
25. Cf. Henriette Groenewegen-Frankfort, Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the Representational Art of the Ancient Near East (London, 1951), p. 33
26. I have not seen Kitchen's "Historical Observations on Ramesside Nubia," in Erika Endesfelder et al. , eds. , Ägypten und Kusch, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des alten Orients, vol. 13 (Berlin, 1977), pp. 224-25, but note the acceptance of his arguments by Cifola, "Terminology," p. 14, n. 17. Cifola suggests that Ramesses III did conduct some kind of Nubian campaign precisely because there was no need for one: "it had the role of asserting Pharaoh's power over the South, since it was one of those facile military campaigns that a justly enthroned king undertook as a proof of his valour. "
27. Of the ninety-nine "historical" records in the first two volumes of Medinet Habu, more than a third celebrate one or another "Libyan" achievement of Ramesses (pls. 13 through 28, in the first volume, and pls. 68 through 86 in the second).
28. Edgerton and Wilson, Historical Records, pl. 22, lines 4-11.
29. Nelson, Medinet Habu I, p. 2, n. 16.
30. Pls. 27-28, lines 51-56; the translation given here is as revised by Wilson for J. B. Pritchard, ed. . Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. (Princeton, 1969), p. 263 (hereafter ANET).
31. Cifola, "Ramses III and the Sea Peoples: A Structural Analysis of the Medinet Habu Inscriptions," Or. , n. s. , 57 (1988): 283 and especially p. 297: "The coalition is a recurring topos too, in that it serves to portray the enemy as a coward who joins with others in order to attack solitary Egypt more easily. "
32. See also idem, "Terminology," pp. 52-53.
33. Line 22 of the Year 8 inscription boasts that "those who reached my frontier, their seed is not," and these unfortunates are evidently distinct from "those who came forward together on the sea" in line 23.
34. A relief above the high door at Medinet Habu depicts six captives, kneeling and bound, and accompanying inscriptions identify the six as (1) a Hittite, (2) an Amurru prince, (3) "the commander of the enemy tkr," (4) "šrdn of the sea," (5) a Sha[su] chief, and (6) "Irš of the sea. " For a line-drawing of the relief (pl. 600B in Medinet Habu VIII), see Ed Noort, Die Seevölker in Palästina (Kampen, The Netherlands, 1994), pp. 88-89 (fig. 26). The Papyrus Harris likewise includes Sardinians among those annihilated by Ramesses. See Wilson's translation of this passage of the papyrus in ANET, p. 262: "I extended all the frontiers of Egypt and overthrew those who had attacked them from their lands. I slew the Denyen in their islands, while the Tjeker and the Philistines were made ashes. The Sherden and the Weshesh of the Sea were made nonexistent, captured all together and brought in captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore. "
35. See the discussion in Noort, Seevölker, pp. 84-91.
36. Wilson, "The Language of the Historical Texts Commemorating Ramses III," p. 32
37. See also Cifola, "Terminology," p. 10.
38. For the references in the Onomasticon of Amenope and on the statuette of Pa-di-Eset, see Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford, 1947), Vol. 1, nos. 257-60 (hereafter AEO); and
39. G. Steindorff, "The Statuette of an Egyptian Commissioner in Syria," JEA 25 (1939): 30-33.
40. See my article "Canaanites and Philistines," pp. 46 ff.
41. When writing End of the Bronze Age, I did not yet see how this could be. Thus my erroneous dismissal of the possibility, at p. 52, n. 13 of that book. For arguments in favor of the thesis that Tjeker has something to do with the name "Sicily," see Elmar Edel, "Die Sikeloi in den ägyptischen Seevölkertex-ten," Biblische Notizien 23 (1984): 7-8. As proponents of the identification, Edel cites only H. R. Hall and W. F. Albright, but we should also include Mas-pero, who chose to vocalize the name as Zakkala. In Struggle of the Nations, p. 464, he noted that "the Zakkala . . . are thought to have been a branch of the Siculo-Pelasgi whom Greek tradition represents as scattered at this period among the Cyclades and along the coast of the Hellespont. " Although Pelasgians appear in Greek myths, "Siculo-Pelasgi" do not, and that "Greek tradition" represented "the Siculo-Pelasgi" as one-time residents in the Aegean is therefore a distortion.
42. Cifola, "Terminology," p. 47, n. 87: "According to the Egyptian view, the distinction between countries and their inhabitants is very thin as the designation of a place often coincides with that of its people; cf. Gardiner, AEO, Vol. 1, no. 206. " Edel, "Die Sikeloi," p. 7.
43. See Wilson's translation of "The Journey of Wen-Amon to Phoenicia," ANET, pp. 25-28, for references to Tjeker as the masters of Dor and of a fleet.
44. See n. 35 for Maspero s vocalization of the name as Zakkala.
45. The exceptions are the Year 8 and the Year 12 inscriptions, the latter on the South Stela (pl. 107). In both of these inscriptions the scribes may have exerted themselves to come up with as many names as possible for the great "coalition" that Ramesses crushed and so did not scruple at including alternative renderings of the same ethnonym.
46. Edel, "Die Sikeloi," pp. 7-8, concluded that Egyptian T3-k3-r-y "paβt in seinem Konsonantismus so perfekt zu Sikalāyu daβ diese Gleichung nunmehr als so sicher gelten darf wie die Gleichung Prst = Philister. "
47. For the tablet, found at Ras Shamra in 1973, and its significance, see G. A. Lehmann, "Die Šikalājūein neues Zeugnis zu den 'Seevölker'-Heerfahrten im späten 13. Jh. v. Chr. (RS 34. 129)," Ugarit-Forschun-gen 11 (1979): 481-94.
48. For the arrival of Aegean or Near Eastern architecture at Thapsos, see R. Ross Holloway, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily (New York, 1991), p. 34: "sometime after 1400 B. C. The simple village of huts on the site of Thapsos was joined by a group of buildings that were unlike anything seen before in Sicily. " Finds from Scoglio del Tonno indicate that a similar transformation occurred at a site near Taranto, in southern Italy.
49. Eric H. Cline, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: International Trade and the Late Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford, 1994), p. 92, suggests that "possibly Italian and Sardinian merchants and vessels" shared the trade routes with easterners in the LH IIIB period but does not mention Sicilians.
50. Stern, "The Many Masters of Dor," Biblical Archaeological Review 19 (1993): 28, says that although he first dated the wall to the MB period, "we found 12th-century pottery all the way to the bottom of the wall. We were forced to conclude that this entire massive fortification was built in the 12th century. It is the strongest fortification from this period discovered in Palestine. " On p. 26 Stern notes that because the excavations in other areas of the site have not yet reached twelfth-century levels "we are almost completely in the dark as to the material culture of the Sikils, who occupied the area of Dor. " See also Stern's Dor - Ruler of the Seas: Twelve Years of Excavations at the Israelite-Phoenician Harbour Town on the Carmel Coast (Jerusalem, 1994).
51. J. H. Breasted, ed. . Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, Vol. 4 (Chicago, 1906), par. 403.
52. After a lengthy review of the problem, Bernal, Black Athena: The Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. 2 (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1991), p. 423, concluded that "there is virtually no doubt that when Egyptians used the ethnic names Tin3y, Tanaya, D3-in, Dene and Denyen, they were referring to Greeks. "
53. For arguments see O. Carruba, "La Grecia e l'Egitto nel II millennio," Rendiconti dell' Istituto Lombardo, Classe di lettere e scienze morali e storiche 129 (1995): 148-51. Cline, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, pp. 114-16, presents the five hieroglyphic texts (A. 32 through A. 37 in his catalogue) that refer to Tanaja.
54. While Argeioi could stand at the opening of a hexameter line and Achaioi at the end, Danaoi could only stand somewhere in between.
55. Carruba, "La Grecia e l'Egitto," p. 149.
56. Egyptian imports have not been found in LH contexts in Attica; see Cline's Table 64 in Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, pp. 259-62.
57. Gardiner, "The Ancient Military Road between Egypt and Palestine," JEA 6 (1920): 108, concluded that the Migdol of Ramesses III was Magdolo and that "for that town the only location possible seems to be at Tel el-Hêr. " See his map opposite p. 114. Tell el-Hêr is seven miles from Pelusium.
58. The controversy over the location of Pi-Ramesses has been settled in favor of Qantir, 3 km northeast of Tell ed-Daba; see Manfred Bietak, Avaris the Capital of the. Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Daba (London, 1996), p. 3. Ramesses III also had a palace at Tell el-Yahudiyah, still further upstream on the Pelusiac branch but for at least part of the year evidently still kept his court at Pi-Ramesses, where he did considerable building and which he called "Pi-Ramesses Rich in Provisions for Egypt. "
59. See A. J. Peden, The Reign of Ramesses IV (Warminster, 1994), pp. 8 and 10.
60. For definition of "Djahi," see Wolfgang Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Wiesbaden, 1962), p. 274.
61. As the Epigraphic Survey saw it, in Year 8 Ramesses faced a double assault by "the Sea Peoples," one attack coming by sea and the other by land. In order to deal with the land assault, he assembled an army and marched into Djahi, where he defeated it. The sea assault he then defeated in the eastern Delta. Accordingly, the Survey put "the Sea Peoples" into the titles of many plates, although the texts do not speak of "the Sea Peoples. " In the 1920s, long before Ventris's decipherment of Linear B, many scholars supposed that "the Greeks" had invaded Greece ca. 1200 B. C. and that Ramesses' troubles were a result of the Greek Volks-wanderung. In his introduction to Medinet Habu I, Harold Nelson wrote (p. 4) that the temple's reliefs "disclose to us Europe emerging from darkness as a military and political force. . . '. In the north the tide of invasion-due largely to the incoming of the barbarian Greeks-rolling down from unknown regions beyond the Mediterranean was breaking up the political structure of the second pre-Christian millennium. "
62. Both sttyw and gmw; each of which occurs often in the Medinet Habu texts, are conventionally translated as "Asiatics. " For sttyw, see, for instance, the opening of the Year 8 inscription (pl. 46); for gmw see the important text at pl. 44, which seems to sum up what Ramesses thought of himself as having accomplished: Words spoken by Amon-Re, Lord of Heaven: "Welcome in peace! For thou hast taken captive him who assailed thee and has slain him who violated thy frontier. My sword was with thee, overthrowing for thee the lands. Thou hast cut off the heads of the Asiatics (gmw). " Any translation of these toponyms or ethnonyms, of course, is something of an anachronism on the lips of ancient Egyptians. But we might, as Redford suggests (Egypt, Canaan, and Israel, p. 100), think of "speakers of a West Semitic tongue" as a rough equivalent of gmw.
63. In the Eighteenth Dynasty battle relief in Brand, "Thutmoside Battle Reliefs," pp. 170-71, chariot horses are trampling kilted Syrian runners who are bearded and wear no helmets. Panel VII at Medinet Habu shows that the runners employed by Ramesses III wore kilts and that although some were bearded and helmetless, others were clean-shaven and wore either feathered or horned helmets. For a detailed analysis of the headgear worn by barbarians, whether fighting for or against Ramesses III, see
64. Medinet Habu II, pl. 98.
65. After a structural analysis of the various texts supposedly relevant to this "land battle against the Sea Peoples," Cifola, "Ramses III and the Sea Peoples," p. 303, notes "the absence of even the slightest description of the encounter, and a description of the enemy so vague that it implies that the enemy force was not a coherent body. All this leads us to think that the encounter related in the text of year 8 is probably nothing but the narrative condensation of a continuous long-lasting process, consisting of small skirmishes and rebuffs. " Papyrus Harris, pl. 76, lines 9-11 (Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. 4, par. 404). Breasted headed this paragraph, "Edomite War. "