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A.D. RIDDLE / BIBLEPLACES.COM

FAMILIAR FOES. Among the “peoples of the sea” who attacked Egypt in the early 12th century BCE were the Peleset (the biblical Philistines), seen here as bound captives in the reliefs of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. Like the Shardanu before them, the defeated Philistines were pressed into military service by the Egyptians, who settled them in garrison towns along the southern coast of the Levant. With the Egyptian withdrawal from Canaan, however, Philistine warlords soon came to dominate the region’s coastal cities and, as we know from the Bible, quickly emerged as the chief rivals to early Israel.