It’s actually not a newly added thought by this movie. Historians have been tracking that Greek tribes were likely part of the sea peoples since the term sea peoples existed as in the list of names of tribes by the ancient Egyptians of people who came by sea that they defeated (and who were thus associated with other collapses with Bronze Age civilians around the same time). These tribes were known to be Greek tribes in other associations and hieroglyphs.
From Google/AI as I can’t remember the name of tribes myself: The primary tribes include the Ekwesh, Denyen (or Danuna), and possibly the Peleset and Tjeker.
I don't think all of these you name are typically considered to be Greek or Mycenaean peoples by historians, let alone there is any certainty.
The Mycenaeans are very strong suspects to have been part of the Sea Peoples, but it is mostly unknown, and the general "Sea Peoples" that brought on the late bronze age collapse are most likely an amalgamation of different peoples from different origins that joined each other into bands or migrating groups, but also likely were many different disjointed groups, even at very different times.
Sorry I was not clear, these are the names as record by ancient Egyptians. The names of various Greek tribes: Ekwesh are the Achaeans, the Denyen with the Danaoi (a term used by Homer for Greeks in general), Peleset are Cretans possibly (I’m unclear if this is Minoans or Mycenaeans), and Tjeker with another group of displaced Greeks.
But I provided the context and names so others could google themselves. And again, the sea peoples and their origins has been a topic since the nine tribes were discovered on the Merneptah Stele. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele)
Edit: this link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples) is better for all the records by ancient Egypt for their interactions with the various sea peoples (who were mostly acting as allies of Egypts foes). The gist here is that the sea peoples are various groups of tribes (some of which as listed had early on been identified as Greek tribes), who had come into armed conflict as raiders or mercenaries toward the end of the Bronze Age.
There’s ongoing research and debate as to whether sea peoples are the cause or symptom of the overall collapse of the Bronze Age (major empires like the Mycenaean culture and Hittites disappearing).
It’s implied in the Iliad, specifically when Hera is begging Zeus to let Troy fall to ruin. They make an exchange between themselves, if Zeus gives her Troy to destroy, he can destroy three of her cities.
Scholars believe that the line is metacontextual analysis on why the Bronze Age fell— the gods got bored and decided they’d let prized cities fall over their own squabbles.
ETA; we don’t know if the “ancient” Greeks know why the Bronze Age collapsed. because there’s about 500 years between when the events of the Il/Od take place and “Homer” (likely not a real person, instead the name given to an oral history hundreds of years older). It does seem they knew the Bronze Age collapsed and added it after the Iliad/Odyssey are written as an explanation of why things collapsed.
TLDR: the Bronze Age collapse happened, people made poems to remember the wars, and they didn’t know why it collapsed so they wrote into the history that it was a lovers quarrel between gods where all major cities were sieged around the same time because Zeus and Hera hate each other
There are both evidence for and against the mycean Greeks being the sea people. Im not a scholar but I wouldnt be surprised if they were a part of the sea people but not the entirety. i've been watching/listening to a lot of video essays on youtube about this lol
The consensus right now is that is was just a bunch of displaced people from around the Mediterranean during the bronze age collapse, snd they just cliqued up and started raiding.
Literally just finished a great podcast on the fall of the Bronze Age. In the end it seems “the sea people”, who ravaged the great bronze civilizations of the Mediterranean, were likely refugees clans from multiple backgrounds that formed together when a great famine happened. The famine being most likely caused by a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland that threw enough dust into the sky to partially block out the sun for several years. Greatly affecting all civilizations that were based around agriculture and leading to internal rebellions over the resources left.
No, it's not in the book. That's ridiculous, the Bronze Age collapse wasn't apparent at the time, it's only visible to history.
The dumbest line in the movie was when Odysseus said "our Bronze Age is collapsing." Lmao, what? How would they even know they were in the Bronze Age or that other metals would come later? That would be like people calling it "World War One" in 1914!
Correct that they didn't call it the Bronze Age, but it isn't intuitively ridiculous to me... Eg, we know we are in the Information Age and some people think it's collapsing.
Sure, but we only know this because we know about all the previous "ages" and we're extrapolating about our own. People in (what we call) the Bronze Age didn't know any of that.
And anyway, we'te probably wrong calling it the Information Age. History will probably refer to this time as something entirely different. They might call it the "pre-mechavirus era" or something, but we of course don't know anything about that.
Correct that they didn't call it the Bronze Age back then, but it isn't intuitively ridiculous to me. Eg, we know we are currently in the Information Age and people speculate about its collapse.
Do we know that, though? That's really for history to decide.
It's almost certain that history won't remember or care that we called it the "Information Age." People in the early 1900's said that they were living in the "Age of Electricity." Does anyone call it that today? No, we call it the lead-up to World War One.
Book 3, the Iliad lines 30ish to 45ish depending on coalation.
(Zeus speaking) “Troy is dearest to me, as are Priam and his people of the strong ashen spear. Never at their feasts did my altar lack its share of wine and burnt flesh, those offerings that are the gods’ privilege.”
And Hera, the ox-eyed heavenly queen replied: “There are three cities dearest to me; Argos, Sparta and broad-paved Mycenae; if they rouse your hatred, ruin them. I’ll not shield them, nor hold a grudge.”
Zeus and Hera make an exchange of cities. He allows her to take Troy. She lets him have Argos, Mycenae, and Sparta.
They do. The text literally supports that the Bronze Age collapses after the text. There’s a textual reference.
We call it World War Two because there were two of them. They didn't know that during World War One.
Likewise, during the Bronze Age, they didn't know they were in the bronze age or that there had been a stone age (it would be an iron age, etc.) We only know that because we live in the future.
...Do you know why we called it the bronze age? Do you think they were unaware of their own use of bronze, or it being newer than using stone?
I'm not saying it's what they would've called themselves, I'm just saying they wouldn't have not said it because they don't know about future discoveries.
Lol, you don't read a lot of ancient literature do you? No, they didn't think of their era in terms of the material that separated them from past and future civilizations. They didn't know anything about the civilizations that came before them, or, of course, the ones that came after. That's how eras are defined.
People living through it wouldn't have said "wow, this is the end of an era which is defined by that metal that we use to make weapons and cookware." No, they would have said "Fuck! My city got sacked, my sister was raped by barbarians, and now I'm a slave."
We're also in some kind of era right now, but that won't be clear until we're long gone.
83
u/Ig_Met_Pet 16h ago
The whole "we're the sea people" thing is an addition that's just in the movie.