The Philistines and Sea Peoples Cultures Research Papers (original) (raw)

The intrusive nature of the Philistine material culture, which suddenly appears in southern coastal Canaan in the first half of the twelfth century BCE, has never been in doubt. Moreover, it is widely acknowledged that the origin of this... more

The intrusive nature of the Philistine material culture, which suddenly appears in southern coastal Canaan in the first half of the twelfth century BCE, has never been in doubt. Moreover, it is widely acknowledged that the origin of this material culture is to be found in the Aegean/Mycenaean world, which, by the end of the thirteenth century, encompassed much of the eastern Mediterranean region. Precisely how the Philistines transported themselves and their material culture from their original to their adoptive homeland, however, has never been adequately explained.
A cursory glance at a map quickly reveals that travel from most proposed Philistine homelands (i.e., mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Crete, Cyprus) to southern coastal Canaan require travel by sea; however, travel from two others (i.e., coastal Asia Minor, Cilicia) do not. A large-scale, overland migration from these latter regions, although possible, would have been extremely difficult because of the geographic barriers present along this route. More telling is the pattern of sites that have produced the so-called, Sea Peoples material culture: they are all located on or near the coast, thus strongly suggesting that the settlers of these sites arrived by sea.
An examination of the excavation and survey data relating to southern coastal Canaan at the time of the Philistine settlement indicates the influx of a large, foreign population. The question remains, however, was maritime capability ca. 1200 BCE commensurate to the task of transporting a great number of people across considerable distances? Evidence contained in texts, iconography, and the results of underwater
archaeology pertaining to Late Bronze Age seafaring indicates that, indeed, it was.
A secondary source of data for the Philistine migration is later, better documented, seaborne migrations, such as the Greek colonization of the western Mediterranean. Contemporary histories combined with extensive excavation of the settlement regions provide a clearer picture of most aspects of these later migrations by sea than is available for the Philistines. Finally, the application of migration principles generated in other social scientific fields to the context of the Philistine settlement leads to a broader understanding of the process of the Philistines’ migration.