7th century BCE and not written by Homer), the Tyrrhenians were not above kidnapping gods to sell into slavery. According to the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (c. The Tyrrhenians were the most notorious pirates before the age of Rome who were synonymous with the slave trade. Whoever they were, they either established or developed bases – along the southern coast of Cilicia, in Crete, and elsewhere – which would be used by the pirates who came after them. They were defeated by Ramesses III in 1178 BCE and, afterwards, disappear from the historical record. What is clear is that they were instrumental in the Bronze Age Collapse in the region as well as an increase in piracy and a decrease in trade. Who they were and where they came from remains a mystery. The Sea Peoples are characterized as the first major pirates of the Mediterranean because of the scale of their destruction. 1215-1180 BCE) wrote to the king of Alasiya reporting the Sea People's destruction of his kingdom and how “the enemy's ships came here and my cities were burned and they did evil things in my country” (Bryce, 367). The Sea Peoples devastated the region of Anatolia, at the time controlled by the Hittites, and toppled their empire. Merenptah adds Libyans to the coalition as does Ramesses III. Ramesses II records how they came “all at once” and that “no land could stand before their arms” as they “laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth (Inscription from Ramesses II's Temple at Medinet Habu, Bryce, 367). Of these, only two have been identified in the present day, the Lukka and the Peleset ( Philistines) although the Denyen/Danuna are most likely pirates from the Cilician city of Adana, near Tarsus. The Egyptian texts record the different groups as the Akawasha, Denyen (Danuna), Lukka, Peleset, Dhardana, Shekelesh, Tjeker, Tursha (Teresh), and Weshesh. 1279-1213 BCE), his son and successor Merenptah (r. They are primarily known from the inscriptions of the three Egyptian pharaohs who defeated them: Ramesses II (The Great, r. Maspero used “Sea Peoples” because the reports of them all claim they came from the sea to attack the coastal cities. 1881 CE what they called themselves – if anything – is unknown. Their name is a 19th-century CE designation coined by the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero c. The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of various ethnicities who ravaged the Mediterranean between c. All that is definitely known about them is that they practiced piracy on a regular basis, were sometimes allies and sometimes enemies of the Hittites, and are named as one of the nationalities who comprised the coalition known as the Sea Peoples. They may have been Luwians, one of the earliest tribes inhabiting Asia Minor/ Anatolia, and they are most likely the same as the later Lycians, also associated with piracy. The Lukka controlled an amorphous region of Asia Minor referenced as the Lukka Lands and are known primarily from Hittite and Egyptian accounts.
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