"Museo dei dolmen" (Dolmen Museum) is a virtual museum of Mediterranean and Western Europe prehistory and early history, set up and directed by Federico Bardanzellu.

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Prehistory and Early History of the Mediterranean and Western Europe

 

Museo dei Dolmen

 

Movements of peoples in Mediterranean Sea between Bronze and Iron Age

1. Sea Peoples, who were they?  > Read more  

2. Iconography of the warriors > Read more

3. The Bronze Age collapse > Read more

4. Origin area of Sea Peoples  > Read more

5. Sea Peoples in Syro-Palestinian Levant > Read more

6. Doric invasion in Greece > Read more

 

7. Sea Peoples in Sardinia and Corsica

rame_cipriota

Copper ox-hide ingot

guerriero_Shardana

Sardinian bronze statuette depicting a         Shardanas warrior

Sardus_pater

Sardus Pater, wearing the

plumed helmet of Pheleset

arciere_sardo_filisteo

Archer with "philistine"

hair and kilt

guerrriero_sardo_tirrenico

Warrior with  a "Teresh" cap

 and a gamma-shaped  dagger

hilt

 

 

     

 The return  of most of the Teucers and Danaans from Palestine to the Greek peninsula, allowed the Philistines to assimilate and/or submit how many of the former were remained in the land of Canaan, where the eleventh century BC can be considered the century of the Philistines. This dominance seems to continue until the middle of the tenth century .

  Over time - returning to the iconography - it appears in Palestine a sarcophagi ceramic where the deceased is depicted with one or more cords around his forehead,  retaining their grouped  hair into braids or - according to somebody - the plumage of the helmets of the Pheleset as in the inscriptions of Medinhet Abu.

  But the "diaspora" of the Sea Peoples was not limited to the return to the Helladic peninsula and the islands of the Aegean Sea. In the Late Bronze Age, Sardinia seems to have been a popular destination and the immigration of the Sea Peoples there was contemporary, if not a few decades earlier, with the Doric invasion of southern Greece and the islands.

  Sardinia had already had dealings with Cyprus, since the last decades of the Middle Bronze Age: numerous copper ingots from the typical shape of a bull's skin of Cypriot origin, as indicated by thermoluminescence,  and, in some cases, marked with letters Cypro-Minoan alphabet .

 

 

 

The "Sardinian bronzetti", wrongly defined by certain  "nuragic" ones, are the key of evidence of the arrival of the Sea Peoples on the island.

  A detailed study conducted on 632 specimens found mainly in Sardinia, but also in other parts of the Mediterranean, identified around the XI - XII century BC the time of their appearance on the island, up until their end, which occurred around  V -VI century.

  264 statuettes are anthropomorphic, 216 zoomorphic , 146 represent only 3 spacecraft and models of Nuraghe. In addition, the study found out the succession in time of two particular schools of production: the oldest, called Uta/Albini , which flourished between the twelfth and ninth centuries and the most recent, generically called "Mediterranean" , from the IX to V century.

  The workshops are all identified as sardines.

 

 

 

 

 

What is surprising is the iconography of the anthropomorphic figurines, especially those representing warriors, as their clothing finds exact matches in Egyptian reliefs depicting Sea Peoples.

  The majority of local bronzes, in fact, wearing a horned headdress, the bodice and the type of sword of Shardanas, resoundingly confirms the etymological identity between the name of this people and the Mediterranean island.

  A significant percentage of bronzes wearing feathered headdress of Pheleset, as well as greater local deity: the Sardus Pater.

  There is no shortage bronzes identical to the representations of the Philistinian sarcophagi of ceramics, with one or more cords around his forehead, and  - perhaps - restraining grouped hair in pigtails.

  We have also found numerous statues with the plume of Weshesh and, in rare cases, even heads of priests, with a headdress that could be identified with that of Teresh.

 

 

 

 

 

The latter, however - like many others - especially wearing a bronze gamma-shaped dagger hilt," which does not seem to find evidence in depictions of Medinhet Abu, which could be an indication of an adaptation of weapons to the different socio-cultural  local situations level: no more weapons for large encounters between peoples in the open field or on ships, but probably only a status symbol of personal authority of the chiefs .

  Other statues of priests wear a wide-brimmed hat, heighter than the headdress battle field or parade ones.

  The oldest dating statues (XI - XII century) and their place of production, often within the island, stated that the arrival of the Sea Peoples - in this case led by the Shardanas warriors - may precede the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands, if it's true the date for this event specified by Eratosthenes (1104 BC).

 

 

 

 

The dates given by the study of Araque Gonzalez finally prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the arrival of the Sea Peoples in Sardinia preceded the Phoenicians ones, not dated before 750 BC and, of course , even the Carthaginians.

  Everything leads us to believe that the landing of the Sea Peoples has not had a particularly bloody with the local populations.

  Recent archaeo-astronomical studies, in fact, have shown that many nuragic towers, built in previous centuries by indigenous peoples, in fact, were not impregnable fortresses but places of astronomical worship and religious ceremonies.

  Local populations, basically peaceful and dedicated to agriculture and livestock, should have easily subjugated to warlike warriors and navigators elites.

  Warriors with the same Shardanas headdress and the same kind of weapons depicted in the course of the menhirs of Filitosa site, dated in the Late Bronze Age. This shows that consisting groups of Shardanas have also reached and submissive part of Corsica.

 

 8. Sea Peoples in Sicily and the Italian peninsula > Read more

9. The Iron Age > Read more

10. Phoenicians beyond Melqart Pillars > Read more

 

Credits - Testi di  Federico Bardanzellu  2013      facebook