The Philistines: Chapter I. The Origin of the Philistines

(Maraiwi or something similar) 'the miserable chief of Libya', with his allies aforesaid, had come with his family to the western boundary of Egypt. Enraged like a lion, he assembled his officers and to them expressed his opinion of the invaders in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination. 'They spend their time going about and fighting to fill their bellies day by day: they come to Egypt to seek the needs of their mouths: their chief is like a dog, without courage . . . .' Some of the vigorous old king's expressions have been bowdlerised by the hand of Time, which has

deprived us of a course of the inscribed masonry of the temple but notwithstanding we have an admirable description of restless sea-rovers, engaged in constant plunder and piracy. Then Merneptah, strengthened by a vision of his patron Ptah which appeared to him in the night, led out his warriors, defeated the Libyans—whose 'vile fallen chief' justified Merneptah's opinion of him by fleeing, and, in the words of the official report of the Egyptian general to his master, 'he passed in safety by favour of the night . . . all the gods overthrew him for the sake of Egypt: his boasting is made void: his curses have come to roost: no one knows if he be alive or dead, and even if he lives he will never rule again. They have put in his place a brother of his who fights him whenever he sees him'. The list of slain and captives is much mutilated, but is of some importance. For the slain were reckoned by cutting off and counting the phalli of circumcised, the hands of uncircumcised victims. 1 From the classification we see that at the time of the victory of Merneptah, the Libyans were circumcised, while the Shardanu and Shekelesh and Ekwesh, as we may provisionally vocalize the names, were not circumcised. The inscription ends with the flamboyant speech of Merneptah to his court, and their reply, over which we need not linger. Nor do the other inscriptions relating to the event add anything of importance for our present purpose.

About a hundred years later we meet some of these tribes again, on the walls of the great fortified temple of Medinet Habu near Thebes, which Ramessu III, the last of the great kings of Egypt, built to celebrate the events of his reign. These events are recorded in sculptured scenes, interpreted and explained by long hieroglyphic inscriptions. It is deplorable that the latter are less informing than they might have been: we grudge bitterly the precious space wasted in grovelling compliments to the majesty of the victorious monarch, and we would have gladly dispensed with the obscure and would-be poetical style which the writer of the inscription affected. 2

Ramessu III came to the throne about 1200 B.C. 3 Another Libyan invasion menaced the land in his fifth year, but the energetic monarch, who had already been careful to organize the military resources of Egypt, was successful in beating it back. War-galleys

from the northern countries, especially the Purasati and the Zakkala, accompanied the invading Libyans; but this latter element in the assault was only a foretaste of the yet more formidable attack which they were destined to make on Egypt three years later—that is to say, roughly about 1192 B.C.

The inscription describing this war is engraved on the second pylon of the temple of Medinet Habu. Omitting a dreary encomium of the Pharaoh, with which it opens, and a long hymn of triumph with which it ends, we may confine our attention to the historical events recorded in the hieroglyphs, and pictured in the representations of battles that accompany them. The inscription records how the Northerners were disturbed, and proceeded to move eastward and southward, swamping in turn the land of the Hittites, Carchemish, Arvad, Cyprus, Syria, and other places in the sane region. We are thus to picture a great southward march through Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. Or, rather, we are to imagine a double advance, by land and by sea: the landward march, which included two-wheeled ox-carts for the women and children, as the accompanying picture indicates; and a sea expedition, in which no doubt the spare stores would be carried more easily than on the rough Syrian roads. Clearly they were tribes accustomed to sea-faring who thus ventured on the stormy Mediterranean; clearly too, it was no mere military expedition, but a migration of wanderers accompanied by their families and seeking a new home. 1

The principal elements in the great coalition are the following:

as well as the Škršȝw, of which we have heard in previous documents.

'With hearts confident and full of plans', as the inscription says, they advanced by land and by sea to Egypt. But Ramessu was ready to 'trap them like wild-fowl'. He strengthened his Syrian

frontier, and at the same time fortified the harbours or river mouths 'with warships, galleys, and barges'. The actual battles are not described, though they are pictured in the accompanying cartoons: but the successful issue of these military preparations is graphically recorded. 'Those who reached my boundary,' says the king, 'their seed is not: their heart and their soul are finished for ever and ever. As for those who had assembled before them on the sea . . . they were dragged, overturned, and laid low upon the beach: slain and made heaps from end to end of their galleys, while all their things were cast upon the water.'

The scenes in which the land and naval engagements are represented are of great importance, in that they are contemporary records of the general appearance of the invaders and of their equipment. The naval battle, the earliest of which any pictorial record remains, is graphically portrayed. We see the Egyptian archers sweeping the crews of the invading vessels almost out of existence, and then closing in and finishing the work with their swords; one of the northerners’ vessels is capsized and those of its crew who swim to land are taken captive by the Egyptians waiting on the shore. In later scenes we see the prisoners paraded before the king, and the tale of the victims—counted by enumerating the hands chopped off the bodies.

The passage in the great Harris Papyrus, which also contains a record of the reign of Ramessu III, 1 adds very little to the information afforded us by the Medinet Habu inscription. The 'Danaiuna' are there spoken of as islanders. We are told that the Purasati and the Zakkala were 'made ashes', while the Shekelesh (called in the Harris Papyrus Shardani, who thus once more appear against Egypt) and the Washasha were settled in strongholds and bound. From all these people the king claims to have levied taxes in clothing and in grain.

As we have seen, the march of the coalition had been successful until their arrival in Egypt. The Hittites and North Syrians had been so crippled by them that Ramessu took the opportunity to extend the frontier of Egyptian territory northward. We need not follow this campaign, which does not directly concern us: but it has this indirect bearing on the subject, that the twofold ravaging of Syria, before and after the great victory of Ramessu, left it weakened and opened the door for the colonization of its coast-lands by the beaten remnant of the invading army.

Ramessu III died in or about 1167 B.C., and the conquered tribes

began to recover their lost ground. For that powerful monarch was succeeded by a series of weak ghost-kings who disgraced the great name of Ramessu which, one and all, they bore. More and more did they become puppets in the hands of the priesthood, who cared for nothing but enriching the treasures of their temples. The frontier of Egypt was neglected. Less than a hundred years after the crushing defeat of the coalition, the situation was strangely reversed, as one of the most remarkable documents that have come down to us from antiquity allows us to see. This document is the famous Golénischeff papyrus, now at St. Petersburg. But before we proceed to an examination of its contents we must review the Egyptian materials, which we have now briefly set forth, a little more closely.

The names of the tribes, with some doubtful exceptions, are easily equated to those of peoples living in Asia Minor. We may gather a list of them out of the various authorities which have been set out above, adding to the Egyptian consonant-skeleton a provisional vocalization, and remembering that r and l are interchangeable in Egyptian:

An X denotes 'present in', a - 'absent from' the lists. The majority of these fourteen names too closely resemble names known from classical sources for the resemblance to be accidental. It will be found that almost every one of these names can be easily identified with the name of the coast dwellers of Asia Minor; and vice versa, with one significant exception, the coast-land regions of Asia Minor are all to be found in recognizable forms in the Egyptian lists. The -sha or -shu termination is to be neglected as an ethnic formative.

Thus, beginning with the Hellespont, the Troas is represented in the Turisha, who have been correctly identified with the future Tyrrhenians (Tursci) as are the Pulasati with the future Philistines.

Dardanus in the Troad is represented by the Dardanu. They are the carriers of the Trojan traditions to Italy. 1 Mysia is represented by the Masa, Lydia by the Sherdanu from the town of Sardis. These are the future Sardinians. And the more inland region of Maeonia is echoed in the Mawuna, if that be the correct reading. We now come to a gap: the Carians, at the S.V. corner of Asia Minor, do not appear in any recognizable form in the list, except that the North Carian town of Pedasus seems to be echoed by the Pidasa. To this hiatus we shall return presently. The Lycians are conspicuous as the Lukku.

The name of the sea-coast region of Pamphylia is clearly a later appellation, expressive of the variety of tribes and nationalities which has always characterized the Levant coast. The inland Pisidian town of Sagalassus finds its echo in the Shekelesh. The Cilicians are represented by the Kelekesh, and this brings us to the corner between Asia Minor and North Syria.

The only names not represented in the foregoing analysis are the Danunu, Ekwesh, and the three tribes which first appear in the Ramessu III invasion, the Pulasati, Zakkala, and Washasha. The first two of these, it is generally agreed, are to be equated to the Danaoi and the Achaeans 2—the first appearance in historic record of these historic names. The latter do not appear in the Ramessu III lists: there were no Achaeans in the migration from Asia Minor. The Pulasati are unquestionably to be equated to the future Philistines, north of whom we find later the Zakkala settled on the Palestinian coast. The Washasha remain obscure, both in origin and fate; but a suggestion will be made presently regarding them. They can hardly have been the ancestors of the Indo-European Oscans.

The various lines of evidence which have been set forth in the preceding pages indicate Crete or its neighbourhood as the probable land of origin of this group of tribes. They may be recapitulated:

(1) The Philistines, or a branch of them, are sometimes called Cherethites or Cretans.

(2) They are said to come from Caphtor, a name more like Keftiu than anything else, which certainly denotes a place where the Cretan civilization was dominant.

(3) The hieratic school-tablet mentions 'Akašou' as a Keftian name: it is also Philistine [Achish].

To this may be added the important fact that the Phaestos disk, the inscription on which will be considered later in this book, shows us among its signs a head with a plumed head-dress, very similar to that shown on the Philistine captives represented at Medinet Habu.

We must not, however, forget the fact at which we paused for a moment, that thrice the Philistine guard of the Hebrew kings are spoken of as the Carians; and that the Carians are not otherwise represented in the lists of Egyptian invaders. We are probably not to confine our search for the origin of the Zakkala-Philistine-Washasha league to Crete alone: the neighbouring strip of mainland coast probably supplied its contingent to the sea-pirates. The connexion of Caria with Crete was traditional to the time of Strabo; 'the most generally received account is that the Carians, then called Leleges, were governed by Minos, and occupied the islands; then removing to the continent, they obtained possession of a large tract of sea-coast and of the interior, by driving out the former occupiers, who were for the greater part Leleges and Pelasgi.' 1 Further, he quotes Alcaeus's expression, 'shaking a Carian crest,' which is suggestive of the plumed head-dress of the Philistines. Again, speaking of the city Caunus, on the shore opposite Rhodes, he tells us that its inhabitants 'speak the same language as the Carians, came from Crete, and retained their own laws and customs' 2—which, however, Herodotus 3 contradicts. Herodotus indeed (loc. cit.) gives us the same tradition as Strabo regarding the origin of the Carians: they

'had come from the islands to the continent. For being subjects of Minos, and anciently called Leleges, they occupied the islands without paying any tribute, so far as I can find by inquiring into the remotest times; but whenever Minos required them, they manned his ships; and as Minos subdued an extensive territory, and was successful in war, the Carians were by far the most famous of all nations in those times. They also introduced three inventions which the Greeks have adopted; of fastening crests on helmets, putting devices on shields, and putting handles on shields. . . . After a long time the Dorians and Ionians drove the Carians out of the islands and so they came to the continent. This is the account that the Cretans give of the Carians, but the Carians do not admit its correctness, considering themselves to be autochthonous inhabitants of the continent . . . and in testimony of this they show an ancient temple of Zeus Carios at Mylasa.'

If then by the Pulasati we are to fill in the hiatus in the list of Asia Minor coast-dwellers, the most reasonable explanation of the name is after all the old theory that it is to be equated with Pelasgi. And if the worshippers of Zeus Carios settled in Palestine, they might be expected to bring their god with them and to erect a temple to him. Now we read in 1 Samuel vii, that the Philistines came up against the Israelites who were holding a religious ceremony in Mizpah; that they were beaten back by a thunderstorm, and chased in panic from Mizpah to a place called Beth-Car (v. 11). We may suppose that the chase stopped at Beth-Car because it was within Philistine territory; but unfortunately all the efforts to identify this place, not otherwise known, have proved futile. Very likely it was not an inhabited town or village at all, but a sanctuary: it was raised on a conspicuous height (for the chase stopped under Beth-Car): and the name means House of Car, 1 as Beth-Dagon means House or Temple of Dagon. This obscure incident, therefore, affords one more link to the chain.

If the Cretans and the Carians together were represented by Zakkala-Pulasati-Washasha league, we might expect to find some elements from the two important islands of Rhodes and Carpathos, which lie like the piers of a bridge between Crete and the Carian mainland. And I think we may, without comparisons too far-fetched, actually find such elements. Strabo tells us 2 that a former name of Rhodes was Ophiussa: and we can hardly avoid at least seeing the similarity between this name and that of the Washasha. 3 And as for Carpathos, which Homer calls Crapathos, is it too bold to hear in this classical name an echo of the pre-Hellenic word, whatever it may have been, which the Egyptians corrupted to Keftiu, and the Hebrews to Caphtor? 4

What then are we to make of the name of the Zakkala or Zakkara? This has hitherto proved a crux. Petrie identifies it with Zakro in Crete 5; but as has several times been pointed out regarding this identification, we do not know how old the name Zakro may be. As we have seen that all the other tribes take their name

from the coasts of Asia Minor, it is probable that the Zakkala are the Cretan contingents to the coalition: and it may be that in their name we are to see the interpretation of the mysterious Casluhim of the Table of Nations 1 (‏כסלחים‎ being a mistake for ‏סכל׳‎). The most frequently suggested identification, with the Teucrians (assigned by Strabo on the authority of Callinus to a Cretan origin), is perhaps the most satisfactory as yet put forward; notwithstanding the just criticism of W. Max Müller 2 that the double k and the vowel of the first syllable are difficulties not to be lightly evaded. Clerinont-Ganneau 3 would equate them to a Nabatean Arab tribe, the Δαχαρηνοί, mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium; but, as Weill 4 points out, it is highly improbable that one of the allied tribes should have been Semitic in origin; if the similarity of names be more than an accident, it is more likely that the Arabs should have borrowed it.

The conclusion indicated therefore is that the Philistines were a people composed of several septs, derived from Crete and the southwest corner of Asia Minor. Their civilization, probably, was derived from Crete, and though there was a large Carian element in their composition, they may fairly be said to have been the people who imported with them to Palestine the memories and traditions of the great days of Minos.

Footnotes

1:1 In Amos ix. 7 and in the Kethībh of 1 Chron. xiv. 10. The almost uniform rendering of the Greek version (Φυλιστιείμ) seems rather to favour this orthography. The spelling of the first syllable, Φυ, shows, however, that the modern punctuation with the shva is of later growth, and that in the time of the Greek translation the pronunciation still approximated rather to the form of the name as it appears in Egyptian monuments (Purasati).

2:1 Réflexions critiques sur l’origine, l’histoire et la succession des anciens peuples (1747), ii. 254.

2:2 F. Hitzig, Urgeschichte and Mythologie der Philister, Leipzig, 1845.

2:3 Gesenius, Thesaurus, s.v.

2:4 Movers, Untersuchungen über die Religion and die Gottheiten der Phönizier (1841), vol. i, p. 9.

2:5 Except (a) in the Hexateuch, where it is always transliterated Φυλιστιείμ, sometimes Φυλιστιίμ or Φιλιστιείμ; (b) in Judges x. 6, 7, 11, xiii. 1, 5, xiv. 2, where again we find the word transliterated: in some important MSS. however, including Codex Alexandrinus, ἀλλόφυλοι, is used in these passages; (c) in Isa. ix. 11 (English ix. 12, where we find the curious rendering Ἕλληνας, possibly indicating a variant reading in the text that lay before the translators.

3:1 Die alttest. Namen der Bevölkerung, p. 4; adopted by Arnold in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia, s. v. Philister.

4:1 Namely Joshua xiii. 2; 1 Sam. iv. 7, vii. 12, xiii. 20, xvii. 51, 52; 2 Sam. v. 19, xxi. 12, 17; 1 Chron. xi. 13; 2 Chron. xxi. 16.

4:2 For fuller particulars see Skinner's Commentary on Genesis (pp. 200–214). Sayce finds Caphtor and Kasluhet on an inscription at Kom Ombo: see Hastings's Dictionary, s. v. Caphtor; and Man, 1903, No. 77. But see also Hall's criticisms, ib. No. 92.

6:1 Such are Χαρρι, Χαρεθθι, Χελθι, Χελθει, Χελβει, Χελβες, Χελεμα, Χελεθθι, Χελλεθι, Χελεθιι, Χελεθοι, Χελοθθι, Χολθει, Χολλεθι, Χορεθι, Χορεθθει, Χορρι, Χορρει, Χερεθει, Χερηθει, Χερετ, Χερεθθει, Χερεθιν, Χερεοι, Χωρι, Χερηθη, Χερηθει, Χετθει, Χεττει, Οχελεθθι, Οχερεπι, Οχελβι, Χκελμι, Οχελεθ, Ρεθθι. The Pelethites appear under equally strange guises: Φελετι, Φελτι, Φελτει, Φελετιι, Φελεττει, Φελεθθι, Φελεθθιι, Φελεθθει, Φελετθει, Φελελεθθι, Ουπετ, Οχετ, Οφελτι, Οφελθι, Οφελεθθιι, Οφελετθει, Ωφελεθθει, Οπελθι, Οπελεθιν, Οπερετ, Πελεβι, Οθεθιι, Χετταιοις.

6:2 Cornill, Das Buch des Proph. Ezek. p. 368, followed by Toy, Ezekiel (in Sacred Books of O. T.), p. 88.

6:3 Possibly the instinct for triliteralism may also have been instrumental in the evolution of this form.

6:4 It is given in Lakemacher, Observationes Philologicae (1729), ii. 38, and revived by Ewald in his Kritische Grammatik der hehrläischen Sprache (1827), p. 297.

6:5 Hdt. ii. 128.

7:1 The Greek version has Χερεθί in the first of these passages, in the others Χορρι with a number of varieties of spelling, Χορρει, Χοριν, &c., all of them showing o as the first vowel.

7:2 Journal of the British School at Athens, viii (1901-2), p. 157.

8:1 The name of this chieftain's land is mutilated (tyn’y). Mr. Hall (op. cit. p. 167, Oldest Civilisation of Greece, p. 163) restores Yantanay, and renders 'Cyprus'. W. Max Müller compares with this name the word Adinai, found in the List of Keftian names given on p. 10.

8:2 For these tombs see Hall, British School at Athens, vol. x (1903–4), p. 154, and Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch. xxxi, Plate XVI [Sen-mut]; Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, i, Plate II, AḄ. [Rekhmara]; Virey, Mémoires de la mission en Caire, v, p. 7 [Rekhmara], p. 197 ff [Menkheperuseneb]. In the last-named, Keftiu is translated and indexed 'Phénicie'.

10:1 See the brief summary of the various stages of Cretan culture during the Bronze Age, later in the present chapter.

10:2 See Spiegelberg, Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie (1893), viii. 385 (where the text is published incompletely), and W. Max Müller in Mittheilungen der vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, vol. v, p. 6, where facsimiles will be found.

11:1 Dissertations qui peuvent servir de prolegomenes de l’écriture sainte (1720), II. ii, p. 441.

12:1 A place which, as has often been noticed, has the same radicals as the name of the Philistines.

12:2 Lehrbuch d. bibl. Geschichte, vol. i.

12:3 Aegypten and des Buch Mose, p. 127 ff.

12:4 Asien and Europa, p. 337.

12:5 An elaborate refutation of the Cilician hypothesis will be found in Noordtzij, De Filistijnen, p. 31.

13:1 Zeitschr. für wissensch. Theologie, xxxiv (1891), p. 103.

13:2 Gesch. des Volk. Isr. i. 142.

13:3 Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid, i. pp. 214, 241.

15:1 'Iudaeos Creta Insula profugos nouissima Libyae insedisse memorant, qua tempestate Saturnus ui Iouis pulsus cesserit regnis.'

15:2 Stephanus of Byzantium, s. v. ….

15:3 The bare outline statement, which is all that is necessary here, can be supplemented by reference to any of the numerous books that have appeared recently on the special subject of Cretan excavation: such as Professor Burrows's pleasantly. written work entitled The Discoveries in Crete (London, Murray, 1907), which contains a most useful bibliography.

16:1 See Hall, Proc. Soc. Biblical Archaeology, xxxi, pp. 144–148.

18:1 Other causes were at work producing the same result of restlessness among the peoples. Thus Mr. Alton suggests to me that the collapse of the island of Thera must have produced a considerable disturbance of population in the neighbouring lands.

19:1 T.A. Letters, ed. Winckler, No. 28; ed. Knudtzon, No. 38.

19:2 ib. W. 77, K. 123. See also W. 100.

19:3 ib. W. 151, K. 151.

19:4 For an exhaustive study of the great battle of Kadesh between Ramessu and the united tribes, see Breasted, The Battle of Kadesh (Univ. of Chicago Decennial Publications, Ser. I, No. 5.

21:1 See W. Max Müller's important note in Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch. x, pp. 147–154, where reasons are given against the exactly opposite interpretation, followed by 1 many authorities (e. g. Breasted, Ancient Records). On the other hand the contrary practice seems to be indicated by 1 Sam. xviii. 25. The difficulty of rendering lies in the fact that we have to deal with Egyptian words not found elsewhere.

21:2 See Breasted, Ancient Records, iv, pp. 1–85.

21:3 Petrie says 1202, Breasted 1198.

22:1 The details of these sculptures are more fully described later in this book.

23:1 Breasted, op. cit. p. 201.

25:1 Turisha has also been identified with the Cilician town of Tarsus.

25:2 With reservations: see Weill, Revue archéologique, sér. IV, vol. iii, p. 67. And even the identification of the Danaoi is uncertain. It is at least improbable that Rib-Addi of Tyre, in the letter quoted above, should report on the peacefulness of so remote a people as the Danaoi.

26:1 Strabo, XIV. ii. 17.

26:2 Strabo, xiv. ii. 3.

26:3 i. 17–1.

27:1 Βαιθχόρin the Greek Version (in some MSS. -κορ). Cf. the first footnote on p. 7.

27:2 xiv. ii. 7.

27:3 Hall looks for the Washasha in Crete, and finds them in the name of the Cretan town Ϝάξος [Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 177]. But if this comparatively obscure Cretan name were really represented in the Egyptian lists, we might reasonably look for the more important names to appear also. The name appears (in the form Oašašios) in an inscription from Halicarnassus: see Weill in Revue archéologique, sér. IV, vol. iii, p. 63.

27:4 Baur, Amos, p. 79, has already suggested this identification.

27:5 Proc. Soc. Bib. Arch., 1941, p. 41.

28:1 Gen. x. 14.

28:2 Mittheil. der corderas. Gesellschaft, v, p. 3. On Teucer see Frazer, Adonis, Allis, Osiris, p. 112.

28:3 Recueil d’Archéologie orientale, iv. 230.

28:4 loc. cit. p. 64.