The Shekelesh (

Egyptian language The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead language, dead Afroasiatic languages, Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large Text corpus, corpus of surviving texts which were made acces ...

: ''šꜣkrwšꜣꜣ'' or ''šꜣꜣkrwšꜣꜣ'') were one of the several

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

s the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...

were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records in ancient Egyptian from the

Eastern Mediterranean Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communi ...

in the late 2nd millennium BC.

Earliest records

The Shekelesh first appears in Egyptian records during accounts of the

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

Merneptah Merneptah or Merenptah (reigned July or August 1213 BC – May 2, 1203 BC) was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 BC until his death on May 2, 1 ...

's military campaigns in modern

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

in the closing years of the

13th century BC In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave p ...

, as recounted on the

Great Karnak Inscription The Great Karnak Inscription is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription belonging to the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Merneptah. A long epigraph, it was discovered at Karnak in 1828–1829. According to Wilhelm Max Müller, it is "one of the famous ...

. In the text, the Shekelesh, alongside other clans of the Sea Peoples, are described as auxiliary troops of the Libyan ruler

Meryey Meryey was a king of ancient Libya (or the ''Libu''), during the late 13th century BC. He was the son of Ded. His reign was contemporary with pharaoh Merneptah of Egypt (1213-1203 BC). He is mentioned as the architect of a major military allianc ...

, and Merneptah recounts he killed between 200 and 222 of them. Nearly thirty years later, the Shekelesh are mentioned within the exploits of

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III (also written Ramses and Rameses) was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. He is thought to have reigned from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC and is considered to be the last great monar ...

, where they, along with the

Peleset The Peleset (Egyptian: ''pwrꜣsꜣtj'') or Pulasati were one of the several ethnic groups the Sea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records in ancient Egyptian from the Eastern Mediterranea ...

Tjeker The Tjeker or Tjekker (Egyptian: ''ṯꜣkꜣr'' or ''ṯꜣkkꜣr'') were one of the Sea Peoples. Known mainly from the " Story of Wenamun", the Tjeker are also documented earlier, at Medinet Habu, as raiders defeated by Pharaoh Ramesses III of ...

Denyen The Denyen (Egyptian: ''dꜣjnjnjw'') is purported to be one of the groups constituting the Sea Peoples. Origin They are mentioned in the Amarna letters from the 14th century BC as possibly being related to the "Land of the Danuna" near Ugarit. ...

, and

Weshesh The Weshesh (Egyptian: ''wꜣšꜣšꜣ'', ''wꜣšš'') were one of the several ethnic groups the Sea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records in ancient Egyptian from the Eastern Mediterran ...

, are described as forming a foothold in the

Amurru kingdom Amurru may refer to: * Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon * Amorite, ancient Syrian people * Amurru (god) Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...

during the 8th year of his reign. Ramesses, per his inscriptions, vanquished the coalition, and portrays himself leading a glorious procession of captured Sea Peoples as prisoners.

Origins

In 1867, Egyptologist and philologist

Emmanuel de Rougé ''Vicomte'' Olivier Charles Camille Emmanuel de Rouge (11 April 1811 – 27 December 1872) was a French Egyptologist, philologist and a member of the House of Rougé. Biography He was born on 11 April 1811, in Paris, the son of Charles Camil ...

identified the Shekelesh as coming from

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, given the phonetic similarities of the two names. Joining him was fellow Egyptologist

François Chabas François Joseph Chabas (2 January 1817, Briançon, Hautes-Alpes – 17 May 1882, Versailles) was a French Egyptologist. Chabas came from a modest background, studied at Chalon and became a wine merchant. Self-taught, he learned Latin, Greek ...

, in 1872. The following year, the identification was disputed by

Gaston Maspero Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper. Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia. ...

, who believed the Shekelesh were

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

n in origin, instead opting to identify them with the ancient city of

Sagalassos Sagalassos ( el, Σαγαλασσός), also known as Selgessos ( el, Σελγησσός) and Sagallesos ( el, Σαγαλλησός), is an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, about 100 km north of Antalya (ancient Attaleia) and 30 ...

. In 1928,

Eduard Meyer Eduard Meyer (25 January 1855 – 31 August 1930) was a German historian. He was the brother of Celticist Kuno Meyer (1858–1919). Biography Meyer was born in Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the universi ...

proposed an identification with the

Sicels The Sicels (; la, Siculi; grc, Σικελοί ''Sikeloi'') were an Italic tribe who inhabited eastern Sicily during the Iron Age. Their neighbours to the west were the Sicani. The Sicels gave Sicily the name it has held since antiquity, bu ...

, who are known to have inhabited Sicily during the Sea Peoples' conquests, although the Sicals are often identified with the Tjeker, another group of the Sea Peoples. Today, it is still uncertain where the Shekelesh originated from, and if they indeed embarked from Sicily, it is similarly debated whether or not Sicily was their original homeland, or if they were originally settlers which came from some other location. The Shekelesh have also been identified with the ''Shikalayu'' ( Hittite: 𒅆𒅗𒆷𒅀𒌋 ''ši-ka-la-ia/u-u'') mentioned by the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma II in a letter to the governor of

Ugarit ) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit , map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location = Latakia Governorate, Syria , region = F ...

. Per Šuppiluliuma, the ''Shikalayu'' were ones "who dwell/live on ships",Heike Sternberg-el Hotabi: ''Der Kampf der Seevölker gegen Pharao Ramses III.'' Rahden 2012, S. 49. and, given his wordage, seemed to be largely a mystery to the Hittites. Given their association with ships, these scholars conclude the ''Shikalayu'' were a pirate group who hailed from a place, presumably an island, known as ''Shikala''.

References

{{reflist Sea Peoples