When the Sea Peoples Nearly Broke Egypt

At the end of the Bronze Age, entire civilizations collapsed. Cities burned, trade networks fell apart, kingdoms that had defined the eastern Mediterranean for centuries descended into chaos. Egypt did not, but it came closer than its monuments like to admit. In the early 12th century BCE, Egypt faced a convergence of threats. Invading armies, population movement, economic strain, and a system that was coming apart at the seams. Later, Egypt would carve scenes of victory onto walls. Order is restored, but these stones preserve what a state once remembered, downplaying how fragile that time really was. To understand how close Egypt came to breaking, we have to look at what it built to show its might, My name is David Miano, a historian of the ancient world, and right now I'm taking a group of intrepid explorers along the west bank of the Nile, in the ancient city of Waset, today's Luxor, to look at what Egypt built when its world was under real strain. We're going to Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Ramses III, built in the 20th dynasty, shortly after an invasion of the Sea Peoples, a time when Egypt could no longer assume that power spoke for itself. Strength needed to be asserted, publicly and repeatedly. After that, we're going to draw Abu el-Naga, an elite cemetery from the opening centuries of the New Kingdom, a time when order did not need to be defended so vigorously, because power was assumed and continuity was expected. Seen together, these places let us measure what changed, and how close Egypt came to losing the world it had built. The entrance to Medinet Habu is not a traditional Egyptian pylon. Instead, Ramses III adopted a near-eastern migdol, a fortress-style gatehouse, common in Syria and the Levant. Why? Ramses III may have encountered migdol fortifications directly during military campaigns in the Levant. Migdol gates offered stronger defensive control than standard Egyptian temple entrances. That might be a consideration in a time of heightened insecurity. Foreign military personnel familiar with this kind of fortification system may have been among Ramses III's workforce, influencing architectural design. So here we are at the temple of Ramses III in Medinet Habu, something that's called the Habu Temple. Medinet Habu, the city of Habu, that's the modern name. But originally this was a village called Jannet, but it was considered a sacred site dedicated to Amun, and for that reason several temples were built here. But this is the big one, the one that's the most important of course, that of Ramses III. Not only was it a temple, it was used as a fortress. So we kind of have this interesting migdol, it's called, an ancient fort tower attached to this temple. And yes, the temple rituals were performed here, but this place was used as a place of refuge sometimes. So for example, there was a worker strike at Deir el-Medina. You know, we were there the other day. The workers came here for a refuge while the authorities were deliberating over what to do with them. And then a little bit later in the 25th and 26th dynasties, oh actually even in the 20th dynasty, people came here for refuge when the high priest of Amun was fighting the viceroy of Kush. And then again in the 25th and 26th dynasties, people came here for refuge to get away from the fighting. So it was kind of this fort besides being a temple. Inside the first court, Ramses III appears in Osiride form. The imagery reflects the central function of a mortuary temple, to maintain the king's posthumous existence through continual ritual activity. Attached to this court is a royal palace equipped with a window of appearances. From this elevated position, the king could appear before assembled officials and distribute rewards. In moments of danger, people fled here for protection. And standing inside these walls, it's easy to imagine families huddled together, lifting their eyes to these reliefs, to the king defeating chaos, and feeling at least for a moment that the world was still being held together. What you see behind me is the oldest temple here. This is before the one for Ramses III was built. This is the temple of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. So that's all that was here originally, just this small temple. However, even that may have been built on the grounds of an older temple, which they have not found as far as I know. But this is considered a sacred place. It was believed to be the place where Amun first appeared in the city. And so for that reason, temples continue to be built here. But then Ramses III, when he built the big temple, he just incorporated the older, smaller temple into it. Along the exterior walls of Medinet Habu are some of Egypt's most famous narrative reliefs. This is probably the most famous wall in the temple for the very fact that it has depictions of the the sea peoples. Everyone today is interested in the Bronze Age collapse and all that. And the movements of the peoples of the sea have fascinated many people and capture their imagination. Now Ramses III isn't the only one who talked about the peoples of the sea. We also know that Maremta fought against the peoples of the sea, as they were called. But there are a few original observations on Ramses's account. He has more written about it in the inside. But this is the pictorial, you might say. And this temple was put up approximately in 1174 BCE. But he has here many years telescoped into one. Even in the written account, it makes it seem like everything was happening at the same time. He's talking about the collapse of societies and how the sea peoples and others were ravaging all the lands around the Mediterranean. But that had happened over several decades before he had his encounter. Now you can see right above me, you can see Ramses III over here with his bow. And then right here you see a battle scene. This is the famous battle between him and the sea peoples who were invading Egypt at the time. And apparently they were trying to settle in the land. And they came up the Nile and there was a big battle on the river. And Ramses was able to defeat them through an ingenious method. As their ships were coming up the river, he had men on the sides, on the shore, throwing grappling hooks onto the ships of the invaders and pulling them towards shore. And when they got them close enough, his archers let loose and they showered them with arrows. And this is the way they were able to defeat the sea peoples. Ironically, he captured quite a few of them and then those captured sea peoples ended up settling in Egypt anyway. But at least they were under Egyptian control. Another thing that we get from these pictorial illustrations here is depictions of the various sea peoples. One of the things that Ramses tells us that we don't get from other people is that he mentions that they formed an alliance. It was a bunch of different groups of people from around the Aegean who allied themselves together as a single force in order to be stronger, of course. And the scribes here, even in the written story of the account, they talk about the various tribes and they name the various sea peoples, some of whom we can identify. And we also have images of these people which helps us to place the faces to the names and so forth. Well anyway, the ones that you see here with the feathered headdresses, there actually was more than one tribe that wore these feathered headdresses, but the most famous ones were the Peleshet, as they were called here. And they are identifiable with the Philistines. Have you ever heard of the Philistines? They are mentioned in the Bible as the arch enemies of ancient Israel. They settled in Gaza and set up the country of Philistia. Well, when did this happen? It happened after they failed to take land in Egypt. So sometime after 1174 is when they decided to go elsewhere and they managed to successfully invade Canaan and set up a shop in what is now Gaza. The inscriptions name several groups, including the Peleshet, Jekar, Shekelesh, Denen, and Weshesh, presented not as a single people but as a confederation. These scenes depict not only warriors but families, carts, and possessions, indicating large-scale population movement rather than a limited military raid. By this point, other major eastern Mediterranean states, including the Hittite Empire and Mycenaean palace centers, had already collapsed or were in the process of collapse. The naval battle scenes emphasize coordination and control. Egyptian ships are crowded with archers and marines while enemy vessels are shown tangled, overturned, and overwhelmed. The reliefs present Egypt as possessing intact command structures at a time when many surrounding systems had failed. Nevertheless, I don't feel the confidence of an empire at its peak on these walls. I feel the resolve of a state determined not to fall apart. These scenes are propagandistic but they remain one of the most important primary sources for understanding the Passing through the second pylon marks a transition from public display to increasingly restricted ritual space. Here, scenes of military victory are paired with scenes of offering. Enemies are presented to the gods as proof that chaos has been subdued. This pairing reflects a core principle of Egyptian kingship. The king maintains cosmic order by translating military success into religious obligation. Here, you're surrounded by images of victory. Enemies subdued, chaos defeated, order restored, and they repeat the same message again and again. That repetition feels like reassurance. The state needed to project strength not just outward but inward to its own people. The thickness of the walls, the scale of the reliefs, the insistence of the imagery, all of it feels like a response to pressure. This is Egypt saying, we are still here. The gods still stand with us. Order still holds. The hypostyle hall originally had a roof and light would have entered primarily through higher clear story windows, forcing the eye forward and inward toward the temple's axis. Offerings were presented here and the king's mortuary cult was sustained through repeated priestly ceremonies. Side chapels dedicated to associated cults show that the temple was a multifunctional ritual complex. Oh, hands. Oh, you're right. Yes. You know what that is? When they kill the enemy, they cut off their hands and they make a big pile and give it to the king. They don't mind being gruesome here. Yeah, it shows your superiority over your enemies, you know. They like to make it seem like it wasn't even close, right? We like a battle that's like, you know, you're the underdog and you come back and you somehow pull it out. They don't want to be considered an underdog at all. There's like the other side had absolutely no chance whatsoever and we completely stomped on them. You know what I mean? It wasn't even a fight, you know. And look at what we did to them, you know. Access narrows further as you enter the sanctuary complex. These spaces were restricted in antiquity, reserved for priestly specialists. Scenes within this zone emphasize permanence and stability. Depictions of Jehuti Thoth recording the king's name reflect the belief that writing itself preserves the king's existence. Architectural features such as false doors functioned as thresholds to the next life, allowing the king's spirit to receive offerings. Look how deeply these are carved. But boy, they really dug these hieroglyphs in his day real deep, right? In earlier times, you know, you go in a little bit, but in his time, boy, you just carve them, right? Maybe it was because they were already practicing erasing other people's hieroglyphs and going over it. So they're like, no one's going to erase these. But now we go back in time. Draa Abu el-Naga occupies the northern edge of the Theban necropolis, positioned at the mouth of a wadi, leading towards Deir el-Bahari and directly opposite Karnak on the east bank. The site initially gained prominence during the Second Intermediate Period, when Thebes became the power base of the 17th dynasty, and it continued to serve as the primary burial ground for elite officials, even after royal burials shifted to the Valley of the Kings. That means it was a burial ground for roughly 2,500 years. From the end of the 11th dynasty, around 2000 BCE, through the Coptic period. This longevity makes Draa Abu el-Naga one of the most continuously used cemeteries in Egyptian history. Draa Abu el-Naga has many types of burials. It contains royal pyramid tombs of 17th dynasty rulers, monumental rock-cut tomb chapels of 18th dynasty and Ramzide officials, simpler shaft tombs of lower status individuals, and later reuse across multiple periods. This diversity of burial types allows scholars to reconstruct funerary practices across social strata and across time. But it can be a little confusing because rather than replacing earlier burials, later generations repeatedly return to the same ground, reusing and reinterpreting it. We're here at the tomb of Harry. And if you look down here, this is where, of course, the body would have been. This is the tomb chapel. This is the chapel where the offerings were put. But the body, of course, is down here. And they found all kinds of artifacts down here, including scarabs and many other things. But we're going to go inside. What makes this tomb chapel so interesting is that it comes from a time that we don't have many preserved tomb chapels. This is from the very beginning of the 18th dynasty. Harry was a contemporary of Amos I, the founder of the new kingdom. He probably died in the reign of the next king, Amenhotep I. But he is said inside to have been the overseer of the double granary of the king's wife and the royal mother, Ahotep. So we're going to go in and see a little bit of this tomb. So come on. The Spanish mission had to piece together all of these pieces and put them back together the way they were. Architecturally, the tomb is simple, a narrow corridor leading directly into a broad inner chamber with a central pillar. There is no transverse hall, and the decoration is confined to the corridor walls. This simplicity reflects an early new kingdom phase before later tomb plans became standardized and more elaborate. The surviving reliefs show offering scenes and family members, including Harry's son, Amos, presenting offerings. Oh wow, look how deep that goes. And the coffin down there? Yes, it's down here. Yeah, so way down here. You can look down this shaft when you come up. The coffin was way down in there. Oh, so this is how the archaeologists get down there. There's a ladder going down, and that is going way down there. How many meters would you say that was? Wow. Oh, you can see all of the cases that the archaeologists have of artifacts cataloged and recorded, and their tools are over here. Immediately adjacent is the tomb of Jehuti, who served as overseer of the treasury around 1470 BCE. His position placed him at the center of Egypt's imperial administration at the height of New Kingdom expansion. Okay, so this is the tomb of Jehuti. He lived about 50 years after Harry during the reign of Hatshepsut, and he's said to have held three different positions in his life, overseer of the treasury, overseer of the works, whatever that is, and overseer of the cattle of Amun. But what's the most interesting thing about this tomb is in the back, he's got in hieroglyphs, cursive hieroglyphs, some chapters from the Book of the Dead, and he wanted to impress people with his own writing, so he has that in the tomb. So we're going to look at that. Look at this. This is a stela over here. Coffin would have been down below. This is the tomb chapel. Oh my, look at this. Another stela here. This one follows a more developed inverted T-shaped plan with a broad courtyard and a long axis extending deep into the hillside. The decoration combines raised and sunk reliefs, and the tomb's program emphasizes writing and record keeping. Chapters from the Book of the Dead appear in cursive hieroglyphs painted over lime plaster, but I realized later it was down in the burial chamber, which we could not access. See some reliefs here on the walls. This is an impressive tomb. Look at that. And here we go. Wow. Offerings listed over here. This is the tomb down here. Way down there. That's where the archaeologists climbed down. This is a woman doing an animal sacrifice ritual where they say specific words, and it kind of lulls the animal to sleep, and then they put the ears around its eyes. Oh, and oh, it's a different somebody else's tomb. Oh, I see. Oh, so that's interesting. So maybe that one was done afterward, and then they just, yeah, there's one tomb on top of another one. Hey everybody, take a look at this. There's a depiction of a bull being slaughtered, and there's the head. Oh, actually, this is the body, and the head cut off here. Yes, with the knife. One of the things I love about these types of tombs is like, you know, if you want to study Hatshepsut, yes, you can go to her temple, you can go to all of her inscriptions, and there's a ton of that stuff that you can do, but you can also go to the people that worked for her. There were others that lived during the reign of Hatshepsut, and you can find more about her time by looking at the tombs of the nobles and others that were active at the time. So this is somebody who was contemporary with her, and we can find out more about her reign by looking at the people that served her. The discovery of funerary gardens and mud brick offering chapels near this tomb shows how tombs here functioned as active ritual spaces even after the funeral. Here we entered the tomb of Roy, built during the reign of Horemheb. Roy was a scribe. This tomb has some excellent paintings here on the south wall. You can see on the bottom, this is dedicated to Roy and his wife Nebtawi. Here we have the funeral itself, so the people here on the bottom register are engaging in the actual earthly funeral dedicated to Roy and his wife. Then on the second register, we have another couple that's not them, but they're an important couple of an official and his wife that are doing obeisance and honor to Roy and Nebtawi. And then we get into the heavens. Here's the couple again, the main couple, and they're being brought here to the judgment of the dead. You can see a part of the scale here. It's not fully preserved, but you can see two sides. But notice what you got here, two hearts and two feathers. Normally you see one heart and one feather. Why are there two? This is open to interpretation, but the usual interpretation is it's the couple, so one is Roy's heart and one is Nebtawi's heart. Then you can see here they're being brought before Osiris. You can see Osiris seated here on the throne. His face is missing, but he's got the telltale signs of his mummified lower body and his accoutrements. And here we have the professional mourners that are at the funeral. Here you have Anubis with the mummified body. Of course, he's only appearing in spirit. And then you have, look at this, what appears to be a pyramid. We've seen a pyramid tomb like this one, but this one did not look like that. So I have to wonder why it's being depicted here. But you have the eyes of Horus on either side of it. His tomb reflects the post-Amarna restoration, emphasizing traditional gods, moral order, and correct ritual practice. We also entered the tomb of Amenemope, sometimes called Amenemopet. It belongs to the early 20th dynasty, during the reign of Ramses III, whose temple I just showed you, a period when Egypt was under strain. Amenemope served as third prophet of Amun, placing him high within the Waset religious administration. At a time when the state was beginning to falter, Amenemope presents himself as a guardian of orthodoxy. The tomb doubles down on tradition, visually, theologically, and ideologically. The decor echoes earlier New Kingdom conventions, using archaism as reassurance. It's amazing how many non-Old Kingdom granite sarcophagi I've seen on this trip. These were turned into catacombs later, and I think they connected them with tunnels. Draa Abu al-Naga is a quieter place than Medinet Habu, not only because the people here were less important than a king, but because it comes from a different state of mind. Most of the tombs here were constructed during periods when Egypt's political system was expanding or stable, and their architecture assumes continuity rather than insecurity. The emphasis is on family, office, ritual duty, and long-term remembrance. There's no sense of urgency. Draa Abu al-Naga doesn't explain itself, it doesn't argue, it simply exists. The Sea People didn't defeat Egypt, but they arrived at a moment when the system was already strained, and what Egypt built in response tells us how close they came, perhaps, to being broken. At least the fear was real. The walls of the fortified temple are very thick. In the final episode of this series, we move north along the Nile to Abydos to explore the Temple of Seti I and descend into the Osirion, places built to reach backward in time, into origins, into myth, and into the deepest ideas Egypt had about life and death. Stay tuned.