TheSherden (Egyptian:šrdn,šꜣrdꜣnꜣ oršꜣrdynꜣ;Ugaritic:šrdnn(m) andtrtn(m); possiblyAkkadian:šêrtânnu; also glossed "Shardana" or "Sherdanu") are one of the severalethnic groups theSea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records (ancient Egyptian andUgaritic) from theEastern Mediterranean in the late 2nd millennium BC.
On reliefs, they are shown carryinground shields andspears,dirks orswords, perhaps ofNaue II type. In some cases, they are shown wearing corslets and kilts, but their key distinguishing feature is ahorned helmet, which, in all cases but three, features a circular accouterment at the crest. AtMedinet Habu the corslet appears similar to that worn by thePhilistines. The Sherden sword, it has been suggested by archaeologists sinceJames Henry Breasted, may have developed from an enlargement of European daggers and been associated with the exploitation ofBohemian tin.Robert Drews suggested that use of this weapon by groups of Sherden and Philistine mercenaries made them capable of withstanding attacks by chariotry and so made them valuable allies in warfare,[1] but Drews's theory has been widely criticised by contemporary scholars.[2][3]
The earliest known mention of the people calledSrdn-w, more usually calledSherden orShardana, is generally thought to be theAkkadian reference to the "še-er-ta-an-nu" in theAmarna Letters correspondence fromRib-Hadda, mayor (hazannu) ofByblos,[4] to the PharaohAmenhotep III orAkhenaten in the 14th century BC. Though they have been referred to as sea raiders and mercenaries, who were prepared to offer their services to local employers, these texts do not provide any evidence of that association, and they shed no light on what the function of these "širdannu-people" was at the time.[5][6]
The first certain mention of the Sherden is found in the records ofRamesses II (ruled 1279-1213 BC), who defeated them in his second year (1278 BC) when they attempted to raid Egypt's coast. The pharaoh subsequently incorporated many of these warriors into his personal guard.[7] An inscription by Ramesses II on a stele from Tanis that recorded the Sherden pirates' raid and subsequent defeat, speaks of the constant threat which they posed to Egypt's Mediterranean coasts:
the unruly Sherden whom no one had ever known how to combat, they came boldly sailing in their warships from the midst of the sea, none being able to withstand them.[8][9]
After Ramesses II succeeded in defeating the invaders and capturing some of them, Sherden captives are depicted in this Pharaoh's bodyguard, where they are conspicuous by their helmets with horns with a ball projecting from the middle, their round shields and the greatNaue II swords,[10] with which they are depicted in inscriptions about theBattle of Kadesh, fought against theHittites. Ramesses stated in hisKadesh inscriptions that he incorporated some of the Sherden into his own personal guard at the Battle of Kadesh.[11]
Years later, other waves of Sea People, the Sherden included, were defeated byMerneptah, son of Ramesses II, and father ofRamesses III. An Egyptian work written around 1100 BC, theOnomasticon of Amenope, documents the presence of the Sherden inCanaan.[12] After being defeated by Pharaoh Ramesses III, they, along with other "Sea Peoples", would be allowed to settle in that territory, subject to Egyptian rule.
The Italianorientalist Giovanni Garbini identified the territory colonized by the Sherden as that occupied, according to theBible, by theIsraelitetribe of Zebulun going by theeponym ofSared, which had established themselves in the northern territory ofCanaan.[13][14][15] ArchaeologistAdam Zertal suggests that some Sherden settled in what is now northern Israel. He hypothesizes that biblicalSisera was a Sherden general and that the archaeological site atel-Ahwat (whose architecture resemblesnuraghe sites inSardinia) was Sisera's capital,Harosheth Haggoyim,[16] though this theory has not received wide acceptance in the scholarly community.[17]
The Sherden seem to have been one of the more prominent groups of pirates that engaged in coastal raiding and the disruption of trade in the years around the 13th century BC. They are first mentioned by name in theTanis II rhetorical stele ofRamesses II, which says in part, "As for the Sherden of rebellious mind, whom none could ever fight against, who came bold-hearted, they sailed in, in warships from the midst of the Sea, those whom none could withstand; but he plundered them by the victories of his valiant arm, they being carried off to Egypt."[18] It is possible that some of the Sherden captured in the battle recounted in Tanis II were pressed into Egyptian service, perhaps even asshipwrights or advisers on maritimetechnology, a role in which they may have assisted in the construction of the hybrid Egyptian warships seen on the monumental relief atMedinet Habu that shows the naval battle between Egyptians and Sea Peoples.[19]
Michael Wood has suggested that their raids contributed greatly to the collapse of theMycenaean civilization.[20] However, while some Aegean attributes can be seen in the material culture of thePhilistines, one of the Sea Peoples who established cities on the southern coastal plain ofCanaan at the beginning of theIron Age, the association of the Sherden with this geographic area is based entirely on their association with that group and the Sea Peoples phenomenon writ large, rather than on physical or literary evidence (of which almost all testifies to their presence in Egypt, rather than their port of origin).[21]
No mention of the Sherden has ever been found in Hittite or Greek legends or documents.[citation needed]
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English archaeologistMargaret Guido (1912–1994)[22] concludes the evidence for the Sherden, Shekelesh, or Teresh coming from the western Mediterranean is flimsy. Guido in 1963 suggests that the Sherden may ultimately derive fromIonia, in the central west coast ofAnatolia, in the region ofHermos, east of the island ofChios. It is suggested thatSardis, and the Sardinian plain nearby, may preserve a cultural memory of their name.
Until recently[dubious –discuss] it was assumed that Sardis was only settled in the period after theAnatolian and Aegean Dark Age, but American excavations have shown the place was settled in theBronze Age and was a site of a significant population.[citation needed] If this is so, the Sherden, pushed by Hittite expansionism of the Late Bronze Age and prompted by the famine that affected this region at the same time, may have been pushed to theAegean Islands, where shortage of space led them to seek adventure and expansion overseas. It is suggested that from here they may have later migrated to Sardinia. Guido suggests that
[if a] few dominating leaders arrived as heroes only a few centuries beforePhoenician trading posts were established, several features of Sardinian prehistory might be explained as innovations introduced by them: Oriental types of armour, and fighting perpetuated in the bronze representation of warriors several centuries later; the arrival of theCypriot copperingots of theSerra Ilixitype; the sudden advance in and inventiveness of design of the Sardiniannuraghes themselves at about the turn of the first millennium; the introduction of certain religious practices such as the worship of water in sacred wells – if this fact was not introduced [later] by the Phoenician settlers.[23]
It has been stated that the only weapons and armour similar to those of the Sherden found in Sardinia have been dated to several centuries after the period of the Sea Peoples, which mainly covered the 13th–12th centuries BC. If the theory that the Sherden moved to Sardinia only after their defeat around 1178–1175 BC by Ramesses III is true, then it could be inferred from this that the finds in Sardinia are survivals of earlier types of weapons and armour.[dubious –discuss] On the other hand, if the Sherden only moved into the Western Mediterranean in the ninth century, associated perhaps with the movement of early Etruscans and even Phoenician seafaring peoples into the Western Mediterranean at that time, this would solve the problem of the late appearance of their military gear in Sardinia; but it would remain unknown where they were located between the period of the Sea Peoples and their eventual appearance in Sardinia.
The theory that postulates a migration of peoples from the Eastern Mediterranean toSardinia during the Late Bronze Age was firmly rejected by Italian archaeologists likeAntonio Taramelli[24] andMassimo Pallottino[25] and byVere Gordon Childe,[26] and more recently by Giovanni Ugas, who instead identifies the Sherden with the indigenous SardinianNuragic civilization.[27][28][29] He excavated the accidentally-discoveredHypogeum of Sant'Iroxi in Sardinia, where severalarsenical bronze swords and daggers dating back to 1600 BC were found. The discovery suggested that the Nuragic tribes actually used these kind of weapons since the mid-2nd millennium BC, as is also demonstrated by the Nuragic bronze sculptures dating back to as far as 1200 BC and depicting warriors with a horned helmet and a round shield.
Similar swords are also depicted on thestatue menhir ofFilitosa, insouthern Corsica.[30]Giovanni Lilliu noted that the period in which the Sherden are mentioned in the Egyptian sources coincides with the height of the Nuragic civilization.[31] According to Robert Drews, Sardinians from theGulf of Cagliari and the nearby areas were encouraged to become warriors and leave their island in order to improve their life conditions in the kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean.[32]
Since 2008, the "Shardana Project" has been developed in Corsica and Sardinia by the Centre of Studies J.-Fr. Champollion on Egyptology and Coptic Civilization, based in Genoa in cooperation with theUniversity of Genoa and the University of the Mediterranean in Taranto. The project aims to gather as many data available about the Sherden culture inside and outside the Pharaonic Egypt.[33] The project, conducted by the Egyptologist Giacomo Cavillier, aims to verify the possible interconnections and contacts between the Sherden and the local culture of these islands, in a broader Mediterranenan view, and to reassess all data available on this phenomenon.[34]
The identification of the Sherden with the Nuragic Sardinians has also been supported bySebastiano Tusa in his last book[35] and in its presentations,[36] and by Carlos Roberto Zorea, from theComplutense University of Madrid.[37]
Another one to support it has been the Cypriot archaeologistVassos Karageorghis, that found Nuragic pottery in Cyprus and wrote about the Nuragic role in places like the Syrian city ofTell Kazel.
It is most probable that among the Aegean immigrants there were also some refugees from Sardinia. This may corroborate the evidence from Medinet Habu that among the Sea Peoples there were also refugees from various part of the Mediterranean, some from Sardinia, the Shardana or Sherden. [...] It is probable that these Shardana went first to Crete and from there they joined a group of Cretans for an eastward adventure.[38]
Adam Zertal, and more recently Bar Shay fromHaifa University, have also argued that the Shardana were Nuragic Sardinians, and connected them to the site ofEl-Awat in Canaan.
When you look at plans of sites of the Shardana in Sardinia, in the second millennium BCE, throughout this entire period, you can see wavy walls, you can see corridors... you can see high heaps of stones, which were developed into the classical nuraghic culture of Sardinia. The only good architectural parallels are found in Sardinia and the Shardana culture[39]
According toMalcolm H. Wiener "some of the Sea Peoples are likely to have started from Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, or the Balkans. Sardinia has long been viewed as a likely or possible homeland of the Sherdana in light of the similarity in names and Egyptian depictions of helmets resembling helmets found in Sardinia" while for the Austrian archeologistReinhard Jung "the hypothesis of a connection between Šardana and Nuragic Sardinians is as old as the archaeology, but it could not be proven so far." (2017).[40]
Late Bronze Age Nuragic pottery had been found in the Aegean and in the Eastern Mediterranean particularly inCrete atKommos and on the island ofCyprus, atKokkinokremnos, a site attributed to the Sea Peoples,[41][42] andHala Sultan Tekke.[40] Nuragic pottery were also found in a tomb of theUgarit harbour ofMinet el-Beida.[43]
Ma io ritengo che le conseguenze della nostra osservazione sulla continuità degli elementi eneolitici in quelli della civiltà nuragica abbiano una portata maggiore di quella veduta dal collega mio; che cioè la civiltà degli Shardana siasi qui elaborata completamente, dai suoi germi iniziali, sia qui cresciuta, battagliera, vigorosa, e che lungi dal vedere nella Sardegna l'estremo rifugio di una razza dispersa, inseguita, come una fiera fuggente, dall'elemento semitico che venne qui ad azzannarla e a soggiogarla, noi dobbiamo vedere il nido donde essa spiegò un volo ardito, dopo aver lasciato una impronta di dominio, di lotta, di tenacia, sul suolo da lei guadagnato alla civiltà.
In the nuragic sanctuaries and hoards we find an extraordinary variety of votive statuettes and models in bronze. Figures of warriors, crude and barbaric in execution but full of life, are particularly common. The warrior was armed with a dagger and bow-and-arrows or a sword, covered with a two-horned helmet and protected by a circular buckler. The dress and armament leave no doubt as to the substantial identity of the Sardinian infantryman with the raiders and mercenaries depicted on Egyptian monuments as "Shardana". At the same time numerous votive barques, also of bronze, demonstrate the importance of the sea in Sardinian life.
"È certo, i nuragici erano gli Shardana."
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