Jeffrey P. Emanuel from Harvard University thinks so.
To start with, the sea peoples were a purported confederacy of naval raiders who wreaked havoc in the Mediterranean around the time of the bronze age collapse that saw the major civilisations of the bronze age Mediterranean crumble. Many historians assume that the sea peoples had a role to play in said collapse, they mostly differ in thought on how large of a role they actually played.
Today we have inscriptions from Amarna letters(Egypt), Hittite records, Ugaritic records, linear B inscriptions (Mycenaean Greece), Cyprus(Alashiya) and Medinet Habu mortuary Temple in Egypt- a collection of contemporary sources that mention a growing problem of naval raiders, seemingly affecting all of the major powers at the time.
The question still remains who these sea peoples, purportedly from diverse backgrounds, actually were, with hundreds upon hundreds of theories having been formed over the years. Emanuel concerns himself with the possible historical inspiration of the sea peoples: movements for Homer’s Odyssey.
Emanuel writes below
Odysseus’ declaration that he led nine successful maritime raids prior to the Trojan War; his description of a similar, though ill–fated, assault on Egypt; and his claim not only of having been spared in the wake of the Egyptian raid, but of spending a subsequent seven years in the land of the pharaohs, during which he gathered great wealth.
Odysseus’ fictive experience is remarkably similar to the experience of one specific member of the ‘Sea Peoples’ groups best known from 19th and 20th dynasty Egyptian records.
Above he refers to the Sherden.
Passage from the Odyssey.
“For before the sons of the Achaeans set foot on the land of Troy, I had nine times led warriors and swift-faring ships against foreign folk, and great spoil had ever fallen to my hands. Of this I would choose what pleased my mind, and much I afterwards obtained by lot.”
We have ancient dna from a Philistine buried in Ashkelon. Said individual plotted closest to the Myceanean Greeks. 3 other late early iron age samples plotted closest to bronze age Anatolia. Is there any reason to think that Homer’s Achaeans (Myceanean Greeks) were NOT prominent among the sea peoples? Among other groups, of course. Ancient DNA and archeological evidence from Philistia point to an influx of migrants from mixed Aegean/Anatolian origin.
On reliefs, Sherden are shown carrying round shields and spears, dirks or swords, perhaps of Naue II type. In some cases, they are shown wearing corselets and kilts, but their key distinguishing feature is a horned helmet, which, in all cases but three, features a circular accouterment at the crest. At Medinet Habu the corselet appears similar to that worn by the Philistines.
Passage from the Odyssey.
“But my comrades, yielding to wantonness, and led on by their own might, straightway set about wasting the fair fields of the men of Egypt; and they carried off the women and little children, and slew the men; and the cry came quickly to the city. Then, hearing the shouting, the people came forth at break of day, and the whole plain was filled with footmen, and chariots and the flashing of bronze. But Zeus who hurls the thunderbolt cast an evil panic upon my comrades, and none had the courage to hold his ground and face the foe; for evil surrounded us on every side. So then they slew many of us with the sharp bronze, and others they led up to their city alive, to work for them perforce.”
The first certain mention of the Sherden is found in the records of Ramesses 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.
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 great Naue II swords,[10] with which they are depicted in inscriptions about the Battle of Kadesh, fought against the Hittites. Ramesses stated in his Kadesh inscriptions that he incorporated some of the Sherden into his own personal guard at the Battle of Kadesh.
Years later, other waves of Sea People, the Sherden included, were defeated by Merneptah, son of Ramesses II, and Ramesses III. An Egyptian work written around 1100 BC, the Onomasticon of Amenope, documents the presence of the Sherden in Palestine.[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 presence of the Sherden in all source material disappears for the twenty years between the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses III (1186-1155 BCE). The Sherden then rapidly resurfaced within inscriptions and reliefs at the Medinet Habu temple in Thebes. The Medinet Habu records contain the only captioned depiction of Sherden—with horned helmets, long spears, and short kilts—that subsequently provide Sherden historiography with a primary outline of how Sherden are visually illustrated.
Remember we also have physical evidence of Ramesses III’s succesful battles against the sea peoples (mortuary temple at Medinet Habu). From the inscriptions at Medinet Habu:
“The foreign countries (i.e. Sea Peoples) made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms: from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya on, being cut off (i.e. destroyed) at one time. A camp was set up in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting: ‘Our plans will succeed!’”
The aggressors are described as “foreign countries” whose “confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh.” They obliterated Hittite forces and traditional local allies. While two of the invaders explicitly named are associated with the Sea Peoples narrative, the Sherden are not mentioned throughout the inscription. Nevertheless, an additional inscription on the interior of the first court’s west wall describes a similar invasion of Egypt at this time and also serves as the basis for the Sea Peoples narrative.
On the east wall of the first court, the Sherden are depicted in conflict with Libyan forces hostile to Egypt during the fifth and eleventh years of Ramesses III.[lxxiii] The Sherden are also represented in a relief on the north wall of the first court as storming a Hittite fortress in Syria. The Great Harris Papyrus, discovered behind Medinet Habu near its northwest wall and composed during the reign of Ramesses IV (1155-1149 BCE), documented the final victories of Ramesses III over the invasions of the groups associated with the Sea Peoples—including the Denyen, Tjeker, Peleset, Sherden, and Weshesh. It recounts the same campaign depicted at Medinet Habu.
The two paragraphs below are from Emanuel’s work. I highly recommend you read through his stuff on the Sherden
The “master myth” of the Odyssey contains many fascinating micronarratives, each of which has its own individual grounding (or lack thereof) in historical truth. Though the stories Odysseus tells Eumaios are portrayed as fiction within Homer’s macronarrative, several of its elements have precedent in archaeological and literary records dating to the Late Bronze Age and the LBA–Iron I transition (LH IIIB-C).
Further, Odysseus’ fictitious experiences have a remarkable analogue in a very real and very specific group of sea raiders, the Šrdn, who set upon Egypt in their ships around the same time Odysseus claims to have carried out his ill–fated raid. This people is of uncertain origin, but their story is extraordinarily similar to the tales that make up Odysseus’ Cretan Lie: years of successful maritime raiding culminating in an ill–fated attempt on the Nile Delta, followed by a sojourn in Egypt during which they were valued as a part of society and made prosperous for their efforts. The two stories diverge as Odysseus’ seven year stay in Egypt draws to a close: while the nostos that makes up the Odyssey’s macronarrative dictated that its hero move on, those Šrdn who settled in Egypt were able to create a new home for themselves in the land of the pharaohs, complete with wives, children, and land they could pass down through generations.
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