WERE SEA PEOPLE JEWS?
For example, in a text found at the site of Heliopolis, dated to “Year 5, second month of the third season (tenth month),” we are told, “The wretched chief of Libya has invaded [with] Shekelesh and every foreign country, which is with him, to violate the borders of Egypt.”17 The same wording is repeated on another inscription, known as the “Cairo Column.”18
In a longer inscription found at Karnak (modern-day Luxor), we are given additional details about this earlier wave of incursions by the Sea Peoples. The names of the individual groups are included:
[Beginning of the victory that his majesty achieved in the land of Libya] Eqwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Shardana, Shekelesh, Northerners coming from all lands…. the third season, saying: The wretched, fallen chief of Libya … has fallen upon the country of Tehenu with his bowmen—Shardana, Shekelesh, Eqwesh, Lukka, Teresh, taking the best of every warrior and every man of war of his country . . .
List of the captives carried off from this land of Libya and the countries which he brought with him . . .
Sherden, Shekelesh, Eqwesh of the countries of the sea, who had no foreskins:
Shekelesh 222 men
Making 250 hands
Teresh 742 men
Making 790 hands
Shardana—
[Making]—
[Ek]wesh who had no foreskins, slain, whose hands were carried off, (for) they
had no [foreskins]—
Shekelesh and Teresh who came as enemies of Libya—
Kehek, and Libyans, carried off as living prisoners 218 men.19