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The depictions of Medinhet Abu Temple show a specific iconography
of the invaders.
Libyans and other Africans are depicted with a fringe of braids on the
forehead and neck , while the middle of the skull is partly shaved ,
with the exception of the summit, where the hair has been allowed to
grow and then grouped in a long
braid , dropped to the
side.
In some cases
they are depicted with his head covered by a cloth held by a ribbon tied
to the back, from which some strange plumed hair emerges or has grouped,
perhaps hardened with a kind of lacquer.
Pheleset, Tjeker and Denyen all wearing a plumed helmet, held by the throat by
a strip of leather, are equipped with Achaean type swords.
Weshesh
are wearing a hat from which emerges a single plume .
Shekelesh
have their hair beneath a cloth, in some cases swollen,
stopped on the head by a ribbon , wearing a medallion on his chest and
are equipped with two spears and a round shield.
The clothing of Teresh is similar to the
Shekeles, but they are deprived of medallion on his chest; but they wear
a particular cap or helmet, held by a circle and whose cover, cloth or
leather, ends at the top with a barely visible tip.
Shardanas are wearing a typical horned helmet, sometimes surmounted
by a central disk or a ring or a small central sphere and are equipped
with swords that technicals call "with outlet terminating in
dovetail" and modern scientists have
named Naue II,
as the first archaeologist who
identified them.
Some of these people, however, were not unknown to the Egyptians.
Lukka, Denyen and Shardanas, in fact, have already been mentioned
in the archive of El Amarna (about 1350 BC), including the
correspondence of Pharaoh Akhenaten and - probably - also his father
Amenophis III for the last years of his reign .
In
it, the Lukka are considered unfair by the ruler of Cyprus; Denyen are mentioned in a letter of Abimilki of Tyre
(in the Akkadian form Da-nu-na), as already established in an
uncertain place of the kingdom, by someone assumed the land of
Canaan; Shardanas guards, finally, are the subject of complaints of
the king of Byblos to
Pharaoh, which he was a vassal, for not being
protected by an attack of an enemy.
A
garrison of Shardanas
warriors
- presumably
made up by former
prisoners earlier
captured - is present
among the ranks of the
Egyptian army of Ramses II at the Battle of Kadesh
(northern
Syrian
ebanese-boundary),
against the Hittites
led by LKing Muwatalli
circa 1275 BC.
Other warriors
Pheleset, Lukka,
and Shekelesh
Shardana.sono present as
"askaris" Hittite
army.
The identification of all these people
is quite problematic.
Primarily, however,
it is essential to
identify the reasons for such attacks
war and
the complete
displacement of
the population. |
