How Did the Philistines Get to Canaan? One: by Sea

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Armadas of sleek warships carrying Philistine marauders and other Sea Peoples storm the beaches along the entire Levantine coast. At the same time, columns of ox-drawn carts descend from the north, carrying more Philistine warriors along with their wives and children. In the wake of this combined naval and overland assault lay the destroyed towns and cities of the Canaanite littoral.

This is the grim scenario conveyed by the inscriptions and reliefs of Pharaoh Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Egypt. The most powerful pharaoh of the XXth Dynasty (c. 1200–1070 B.C.), Ramesses III took credit for repulsing the onslaught of Sea Peoples, in the eighth year of his reign (1176 B.C.), before they could overrun Egypt as well.¹ After defeating and capturing his enemies, Ramesses claims to have “settled them in strongholds, bound in my name,” according to a retrospective summary of his career^a found in what is known as Papyrus Harris I.²

The Hebrew Bible is comparatively silent regarding the nature of the Philistines’ entry into the land of Canaan. Although numerous stories in Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel concern the Israelites’ arch-enemies, these narratives describe a people already well-established in the southern coastal plain, particularly at the Pentapolis cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath and Gaza (see, for example, 1 Samuel 6:3–4, 17; for the location of the cities, see map).³ The Biblical writers either did not know about the Philistines’ entry into Canaan or did not care. (But see Amos 9:7 and Jeremiah 47:4, which report that the Philistines hailed from Crete, known in the Bible as Caphtor.)

Before the first systematic archaeological excavations in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century, scholars generally agreed upon the following: (1) The Philistines and other Sea Peoples (among them the less famous Sikils, Shardana and Danoi) left their homelands en masse somewhere in the Aegean region; (2) they laid waste to most of the eastern Mediterranean region before they were 028defeated by Ramesses III at the Egyptian border; (3) they were garrisoned in Canaan either as prisoners of war or mercenaries; and (4) after having grown sufficiently strong and numerous, they were able to extricate themselves from Egyptian authority and establish themselves in the southern coastal plain of Canaan.

Abundant archaeological data generated over the past century have confirmed this picture in a number of respects. For example, distinctive Philistine painted pottery has been found at numerous sites in Palestine, but particularly at three sites of the Philistine Pentapolis: Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron (Tel Miqne).^b This pottery is unprecedented in Canaan 030prior to the period of the Philistine settlement, but has clear antecedents in the Aegean world. The hallmark of the initial Philistine settlement is large quantities of locally made pottery known as Mycenaean IIIC:1b. This type of pottery, which dates to about 1175 B.C. (the beginning of the Iron Age), imitates in form and decoration the fine wares widely produced in the Aegean region during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400–1200 B.C.) and exported throughout the eastern Mediterranean region.

The Philistines also produced and used distinctive cooking pots. At Ekron, for example, numerous Aegean-style, globular, one-handled cooking jugs appear alongside the familiar Late Bronze Age Canaanite cooking pots with everted, triangular-profile rims at the beginning of the Iron Age.⁴ Similarly, the kalathos, a shallow bowl with flat horizontal handles, also known from the Aegean region and Cyprus, began to appear at Pentapolis sites.

Distinctive architectural features related to cultic practice also betray their Aegean origins. For example, freestanding hearths prominently situated in large rooms are well known from sites throughout the Aegean and adjacent regions, primarily during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Toward the end of the Late Bronze Age in Greece (c. 1200 B.C.), such hearths took pride of place near the king’s throne in the megaron palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos.^c In Israel similar hearths first appear at a slightly later date in the 12th century (c. 1175) and only at Philistine sites like Ekron, Ashkelon and Tell Qasile.⁵ In a building 031at Ekron (Building 350), a large shrine with a circular hearth is flanked by pillars in a megaron-style building closely resembling a Mycenaean prototype.

What function might these hearths have performed in early Philistine society? A royal dedicatory inscription found in the sanctuary of an enormous seventh-century B.C. temple complex at Ekron suggests a possible answer.⁶ According to the text, the ruler of Ekron was a man named Ikausu (‘kysû), which is related to the Greek Axaios, meaning Achaean or Greek.

The deity worshiped in the temple, according to the inscription, was a hitherto unknown goddess named Ptgyh. One scholar has argued that this mysterious deity’s name should be read as Pytogayah, that is, “the goddess Gaia (Earth) who was worshiped in Pytho.”⁷ According to Homer, the earliest ancient Greek author, Apollo’s famous oracular center at Delphi was first known as Pytho.⁸ As for its patron deity, later Greek playwrights report that the earth goddess Gaia preceded Apollo there.⁹ Indeed, in the Late Helladic strata at Delphi (c. 1400–1100 B.C.), a number of figurines depicting females were found, including fragments of seated goddesses, typologically related to the famous Philistine goddess found at Ashdod (among other places in Canaan), nicknamed “Ashdoda.”¹⁰

Intriguing also is the important role played by the Delphic oracle during the peak period of Greek overseas colonization (c. 750–580 B.C.). The ancient Greeks consulted the oracle on a variety of matters, especially for divine guidance and sanction for colonizing ventures. In order to remain connected with home, colonizing parties brought with them a flame from the common hearth located inside the assembly hall of the mother city; this sacred flame was used to light the central hearth of the newly established colony. There might even have been a fire-bearer among parties of early Greek settlers charged with this important task.¹¹ In this way the presence of the patron deity was assured from the start, precisely when the colonizing effort was most vulnerable to failure.

Is it possible that the Philistines were reaffirming their connection to their Mycenaean homeland—much as Greek colonists did centuries later—when they built their hearth shrines and kept their flames burning?

Until recently, there has not been much dispute about two aspects of early Philistine history: that these people originated from somewhere within the Aegean/Mycenaean world, which, by the end of the Late Bronze Age, included the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands, Crete, Cyprus, coastal Asia Minor and Cilicia; and that they settled in southern coastal Canaan, as archaeology and the Hebrew Bible abundantly demonstrate.

Some scholars have begun arguing, however, that the Philistines did not migrate to Canaan at all. Instead, they argue, Philistine material culture reflects only the influence of maritime merchants on local Canaanites. The most prominent critic of the Philistine migration paradigm is Susan Sherratt of the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford. According to Sherratt, the abrupt appearance of the Philistine material culture assemblage is better explained by cultural diffusion brought about by trade.¹² That is, the locally produced Philistine pottery (especially Mycenaean IIIC:1b)^d reflects the activity of a loose 032confederation of maritime merchants based in Cyprus, who distributed massive quantities of this type of pottery throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Accordingly, the Philistines did not exist as an ethnos intrusive to Canaan. Instead, the material culture that has incorrectly come to be associated with the Philistines is viewed solely as the inevitable result of longstanding, socioeconomic processes.

There are several reasons for rejecting this so-called mercantile theory. First, clear destruction levels have been found at a number of Philistine sites, most prominently at Ekron. There, the small pre-existing Canaanite settlement was destroyed and a much larger Philistine city was built. This sequence of events hardly reflects the activity of a mercantile community, with a primary interest in trade.

Second, in the period prior to the appearance of the locally-made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery on the southern coast of Canaan, much Cypriote and Mycenaean pottery was imported. Then, all of a sudden, the imported pottery ceases, and the locally-made pottery in the Aegean style begins. We would not find this absence of ceramic imports at sites where maritime merchants supposedly distributed massive amounts of pottery.

Finally, many aspects of the new “Philistine” culture are incompatible with the mercantile theory, for example, the distinctive Philistine cooking jugs mentioned above. Women, who did most of the cooking in antiquity, would have tended to be conservative in the vessels they used. It is difficult to imagine Canaanite women adopting Aegean-style cooking jugs merely because merchants brought them from overseas.

A similar situation applies to the manufacture of cloth. A number of unperforated, cylindrical loom weights were found at Ashdod, Ekron and Ashkelon.^e This type of loom weight is unknown in Canaan prior to the Philistines’ arrival,¹³ and more important, it has clear precedents in the Aegean region and Cyprus. As with cooking, the available evidence strongly suggests that spinning and weaving were done primarily by women in the ancient Near East.¹⁴ It seems, then, that Philistine women were part of the migration. Either that or the Philistine men quickly taught their Canaanite wives the finer points of Aegean-style homemaking!

An essential question remains, however: How did the Philistines migrate? Was it by land or sea? The reliefs at Medinet Habu, which depict Philistines in bird-headed warships and also in ox-drawn carts, seem to suggest both.

My own view is that they migrated primarily, if not entirely, by sea.¹⁵ From most of the proposed Philistine homelands, a trip to southern coastal Canaan required travel by sea. As for coastal Asia Minor and Cilicia, geographic obstacles along the Levantine (Canaanite) coast, such as rivers, promontories, swamps, sand dunes and poor roads, would 033have slowed considerably, or altogether prevented, a large-scale migration.

More telling is the coastal location of sites that have so far yielded significant remains of the Sea Peoples’ material culture (for example, Tarsus in Turkey, Ras Ibn Hani in Syria and Ashkelon in Israel). In addition, these sites are distributed in a discontinuous pattern, suggesting the use of bridgeheads, and not in a continuous one, as would be expected if the Sea Peoples traveled by land. Ancient Egyptian and Ugaritic texts describe the Sea Peoples as being well acquainted with seafaring and piracy, after all, and long-distance travel in the eastern Mediterranean was then, as it is today, much easier and many times faster by sea than by land.

Together these considerations present a compelling argument for envisioning a seaborne population movement. But could large groups of people, along with all their possessions, have journeyed by sea?

To answer this question, we must first determine how many people migrated to Palestine. Estimating ancient populations is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, concerning the size of the Philistine Pentapolis, extensive excavations and surveys have generated abundant data. A conservative estimate of the area covered by Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath (Tell es-Safi^f), Gaza and Ekron at the time of the Philistine settlement is approximately 180 acres. A reasonable population density for ancient urban areas is about 100 people per acre, according to modern ethnographic and paleo-demographic studies. Therefore, about 18,000 people lived in the Philistine Pentapolis. For the sake of argument, let us say that approximately half of this population, or 10,000 people, were Philistine immigrants as opposed to indigenous Canaanites.

Depictions of ancient ships, ancient texts concerned with naval matters and shipwreck archaeology all indicate that the Philistines would have been capable of a seaborne migration of this magnitude. Ships were sufficiently large in terms of both cargo and passenger capacity, and some city-states had at their disposal surprisingly large fleets.

For example, the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck found near Kas off the coast of Turkey contained a cargo of mostly bronze “oxhide” ingots that weighed approximately 15 tons. This amount is small compared to the cargo mentioned in a roughly contemporaneous cuneiform text from Ugarit.¹⁶ The king of Carchemish asks the king of 064Ugarit to send him 2,000 kor (450 metric tons) of barley in one or two trips by a single ship, a distance of about 110 miles along the Syrian coast.¹⁷

Ancient texts also mention that major coastal polities could muster armadas of 100 ships or more. A cuneiform tablet from Ugarit¹⁸ records an urgent request from a military commander to the king of Ugarit for 150 ships.¹⁹ A Hittite tablet²⁰ reports that 100 ships laden with grain were sent by a vassal ruler (perhaps the king of Ugarit) to the famine-stricken Hittite Empire.²¹ According to the “Catalogue of Ships” in Homer’s Iliad,²² the kingdom of Mycenae and its 11 dependencies contributed 100 ships to the Achaean war effort.

Numerous ship depictions from the Late Bronze Age Aegean show approximately 25 rowing stations, indicating 25 rowers per side—or 50 altogether; hence the name “penteconter,” meaning a 50-oared galley. At 50 passengers per ship, these fleets could have potentially transported 5,000 people and hundreds of tons of cargo—in short, a large-scale seaborne migration was physically possible.

Also in question is the date of the Philistine settlement. Until the past 20 years there was a consensus that the Philistines arrived in the southern Levant immediately after their battle with Ramesses III in the eighth year of his reign—that is, 1176 B.C., according to the widely accepted Low Egyptian Chronology. Recently, however, Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein has proposed lowering the date of the Philistine settlement by approximately 50 years.²³ Briefly described, Finkelstein’s argument is as follows: Because certain sites located near the Philistine Pentapolis contain strata that are clearly datable to Ramesses III (Lachish VI and Tel Sera‘ IX) but that have not yielded Philistine pottery (monochrome or bichrome), Philistine pottery elsewhere must have been produced for the first time after the destruction of these strata, probably in about 1130 B.C.

This argument is based on the assumption that cultural boundaries must be permeable for all types of material culture. A corollary holds that when two neighboring sites thought to be contemporaneous do not possess precisely the same material culture, they cannot be contemporaneous. Amihai Mazar, however, has adduced examples from the archaeology of Israel to demonstrate that distinct material cultures have coexisted side by side with little or no interaction.²⁴ Furthermore, as pointed out by Shlomo Bunimovitz and Avraham Faust, even intensive interaction between cultures does not necessarily lead to material culture exchange.²⁵ Indeed, in order to maintain group identity and strengthen solidarity during times of conflict with a neighboring group, people tend not to acquire items emblematic of their rivals.²⁶

The final question is: How did these seaborne Philistines manage to defeat the Canaanites and seize from them some of the best real estate in the region? It would not have been difficult, given the weakened state of Egypt, which held political sway over southern Canaan for most of the Late Bronze Age.²⁷ If the Philistines and other Sea Peoples were able to threaten Egypt proper, as related by the inscriptions and reliefs at Medinet Habu, then it would have been relatively easy for them to pick off towns and cities in the outlying regions.

Therefore, archaeology has essentially borne out what was already known, or could have been inferred, from Egyptian texts and the Hebrew Bible more than a century ago—that a group of people from the Aegean region forcibly settled southern coastal Canaan in about 1175 B.C. The Philistine giant Goliath can rest assured that the belligerent reputation of his fellow Philistines is safe for the 21st century.

Armadas of sleek warships carrying Philistine marauders and other Sea Peoples storm the beaches along the entire Levantine coast. At the same time, columns of ox-drawn carts descend from the north, carrying more Philistine warriors along with their wives and children. In the wake of this combined naval and overland assault lay the destroyed towns and cities of the Canaanite littoral. This is the grim scenario conveyed by the inscriptions and reliefs of Pharaoh Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Egypt. The most powerful pharaoh of the XXth Dynasty (c. 1200–1070 B.C.), Ramesses III took credit […]