This book aims to present a specific scenario related to the thorny question of the epic tradition's historical background, proposing that ‘at least some of the wandering and suffering of Homer's epic heroes in general, and Odysseus in particular, are not out of place when viewed against the larger tapestry of the chaotic transition from the Late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age’ (pp. 1–2). This scenario tightly connects the story of Odysseus’ fictitious maritime raids on Egypt to the exploits of the Sherden, maritime raiders mentioned in Egyptian texts of the thirteenth and early twelfth centuries bce. The argument is that ‘circumstantial evidence allows us to connect them [the Sherden] to polychromatic, fifty-oared galleys of the type described by Homer … Further, their story is extraordinarily similar to the tales that make up Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie’ (pp. 161–2).
The introductory Chapter 1 shows that E. is well aware of the problem of ascribing any part of the Homeric tradition to a unique period, rather than viewing it as a bewildering palimpsest that transcends a specific reality (pp. 2–6). Still, the study compares the text of Od. 14.191–359, 17.424–4 with the iconographic, archaeological and literary evidence related to maritime raiders originating in the thirteenth and early twelfth centuries bce (pp. 6–7), yet not to sources from later periods. Iconographic representations of ships and combat of the Geometric and Archaic periods, which may be seen as somewhat relevant to the understanding of maritime activity in the Homeric epic (e.g. M. Wedde, ‘Pictorial Evidence for Partial System Survival in the Greek Bronze to Iron Age Transition’, in E. Rystedt and B. Wells [edd.], Pictorial Pursuits. Figurative painting on Mycenaean and Geometric Pottery [2006], pp. 255–69), are consciously absent from the book. At first, it may seem that E. uses the wealth of data from the years before and after the collapse of the Late Bronze Age world system to illustrate passages from the Odyssey. Yet, a closer inspection of the main body of the book, Chapters 3–9, shows that it is actually written in two distinct voices: the first is that of a well-informed scholarly study of maritime activity around the ‘crisis years’. This solid study is augmented by a second voice that quite elegantly ventures to connect it to passages in the Odyssey, with some attempts more successful than others.
Chapter 2 deals with the methodology of the research, addressing questions of chronology, the use of ancient texts and ‘pots and people’ as well as the current state of research on the ‘Sea Peoples’.
Chapter 3 discusses questions of trade and piracy in the Late Bronze Age, with an emphasis on the latter, demonstrating the notorious difficulty in defining and categorising types of piracy based on historical sources.
Chapter 4 addresses the difficult question of the connection between the kingdom of Ahhiyawa mentioned in Hittite texts to the Mycenaean world. Special emphasis is placed on the role of maritime raids and captives in both Hittite and Mycenaean texts. The collapse of the Bronze Age world system is then described briefly.
Chapter 5 offers a survey of the ‘Sea Peoples’ in Egyptian sources from the period of Ramses II to that of Ramses III. E. implicitly argues that all these sources are connected with maritime invaders although, according to these sources, hostilities took place both on land and at sea, showing the complexity of interactions between the Egyptians and the ‘Sea Peoples’ (A. Yasur-Landau, The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late Bronze Age [2010], pp. 171–80). The clash in year 5 of Merneptah is entirely terrestrial, as is the land battle of Ramses III, fought against some of the ‘Sea Peoples’ depicted at Medinet Habu. In fact, the only direct evidence of maritime raiders is the sea battle shown at Medinet Habu, while indirect evidence stems from the account of Ramses II's capture of warriors of the Great Green (p. 70), where neither a maritime raid nor a battle is mentioned.
Chapters 6 and 7 discuss aspects of warfare and identity, analysing images from the Aegean and the Levant of warriors wearing ‘hedgehog’ and ‘feather’ hats or helmets, as well as images of oared ships. One argument that deserves special attention (pp. 97–9) is that the ‘hedgehog’ helmets, as well as the invaders to Egypt, originated in Anatolia and the Dodecanese, based on the chronology of iconographic evidence: painted LH IIIC Early kraters from western Anatolia are supposedly earlier than LH IIIC Middle representation in the Greek mainland and in the Medinet Habu reliefs. This argument, however, does not take into account that the stylistic ascription of two twelfth-century bce regional styles on opposite sides of the Aegean Sea is not backed by absolute chronology that connects them to the Egyptian chronology. In fact, these depictions may be contemporary with or even later than the Medinet Habu reliefs. Furthermore, the only physical archaeological remains reminiscent of the ‘hedgehog’ or ‘feathered’ headdress were found in twelfth-century bce tombs in Crete and Achaea and related in style to Italian prototypes (R. Jung, ‘Pirates of the Aegean: Italy – the East Aegean – Cyprus at the end of the second millennium bc’, in V. Karageorghis and O. Kouka [edd.], Cyprus and the East Aegean: Intercultural Contacts from 3000 to 500 BC [2009], pp. 72–93; A. Yasur-Landau, ‘The “Feathered Helmets” of the Sea Peoples – Joining the Iconographic and Archaeological Evidence’, Talanta 44 [2012], 27–40).
Chapter 8, one of the stronger chapters in the book, is an in-depth study of Late Bronze Age Levantine, Egyptian and Aegean ship types and their technical attributes, based on their iconography. E. makes an appealing suggestion that while most ships in the Homeric epic are described as ‘black ship(s)’, Odysseus’ ships are described as ‘red-’ or ‘purple-cheeked’, which would have been more in line with the colourful vessels of the Bronze Age (p. 146).
Chapter 9 presents what may be described as ‘parallel lives’: Odysseus’ fictitious life in Egypt for seven years as a captive is argued to have ‘a remarkable analogue in a very real and very specific group of sea raiders, the … “Sherden of the Sea”’. The written evidence of several Egyptian sources of the 20th Dynasty indeed shows that Sherden mercenaries and captives were put into the service of the pharaoh, yet, gradually they and their descendants were integrated into Egyptian society.
The book concludes rather abruptly with a short paragraph (pp. 160–1) in lieu of fuller conclusions connecting the aim, the research questions and the methodology with the data presented.
This volume joins the steady flow of books and edited volumes dealing with the ‘Sea Peoples’ at the end of the Late Bronze Age (e.g. A. Yasur-Landau [2010], op. cit.; V. Karageorghis and O. Kouka [edd.], On Cooking Pots, Drinking Cups Loom Weights and Ethnicity in Bronze Age Cyprus and Neighboring Regions [2011]; A.E. Killebrew and G. Lehmann, The Philistines and Other “Sea Peoples” in Text and Archaeology [2013]; E.H. Cline, The Year Civilization Collapsed [2014]; P.M. Fischer and T. Bürge [edd.], “Sea Peoples” Up-to-Date [2017], to name a few). The methodology of using ancient texts combined with ship iconography to illuminate technological aspects of maritime activity is a time-honoured tradition beginning with the now-classic works of L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (1995) and S. Wachsmann, Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant (1998). E.’s book is recommended as an up-to-date synthesis of the current status of research on the maritime aspects of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries bce, especially regarding the topics of maritime technology and naval warfare. The question of the connection of the Sherden maritime invaders to the Homeric epic remains unresolved.
