拉美西斯三世

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The Philistine paradigm attempts to answer fundamental questions in Philistine history, namely the how and when of Philistine settlement in the southern Levant. According to the traditional paradigm, the Philistines, among other ‘Sea-Peoples’, came from the Aegean islands and were settled in Egyptian strongholds in the south Canaanite Coastal Plain in the eighth year of Ramesses III. Formulated on the basis of Egyptian texts and Philistine archaeological remains, the paradigm has been criticized on the reliability of both source materials. Therefore, it is the aim of the present study to conduct a methodological analysis of the pillars on which the paradigm rests and to offer a new reconstruction of the events that took place in the Levant in the twelfth century BCE.

INTRODUCTION

The emergence of the Philistine culture in the southern Levant is clouded in ambiguity and as such is one of the most hotly debated issues in the history of the Iron Age in Israel. The prevalent reconstruction sees the Philistine settlement as tightly linked to the attacks of the ‘Sea-Peoples’ against Egypt in Ramesses III’s eighth year. This reconstruction has been criticized on both historical and archaeological grounds (Cifola 1988; Bauer 1998; Sherratt 1998; Silberman 1998; Sharon 2001; Cline and O’Connor 2003; Finkelstein 2007; Maeir et al. 2013; Middleton 2015). Therefore, it is the aim of the present study to reassess the validity of the traditional Philistine paradigm by presenting a new analysis of the three basic pillars on which it stands:¹

Papyrus Harris I, which describes the resettlement of ‘Sea-Peoples’ captives in Egyptian strongholds, presumably in southern Canaan.

Philistine material culture – commonly associated with the arrival of new Aegean populations.

¹ A fourth pillar, of course, is the biblical account regarding the Philistine entity, but this will not be dealt with in the present study. Suffice it to say here that according to current scholarship, the material was put in writing centuries after the events described here and hence using it for historical reconstruction is difficult, demanding the separation of genuine ‘memories’ or traditions from later layers that portray realities and goals of the authors (Finkelstein 2002; Römer 2005; Schmid and Person 2012).

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 36(3) 267–285 2017

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 267

RAMESSES III AND THE ‘SEA-PEOPLES’

The Medinet Habu records of Ramesses III, which document the emergence of the ‘Sea-Peoples’ in the Levant.

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According to the textual sources, comprising the Medinet Habu reliefs and inscriptions together with the great Papyrus Harris I, Ramesses III defeated the ‘Sea-Peoples’ on the northern frontiers of the Egyptian empire and proceeded to settle them in his strongholds in southern Canaan; the ‘Sea-Peoples’ subsequently forced the Egyptians out of Canaan and seized control of the region of Philistia (Albright 1932; Alt 1944). Alternatively, the ‘Sea-Peoples’ were defeated at the Nile Delta (Stadelmann 1968; Bietak 1993; Redford 2000), and retreated to settle southern Canaan.

The discovery of locally-produced Aegean-style pottery (Monochrome and Bichrome) in the south Canaanite Coastal Plain was interpreted as representing the arrival of those defeated ‘Sea-Peoples’ (Dothan 1982; Killebrew 2005; Yasur-Landau 2010; contra Bauer 1998 and Sherratt 2003).

Shortly after its identification, Monochrome pottery became the definitive marker of the initial Philistine settlement in southern Canaan (Mazar 1985; Dothan 2000, 153; Dothan and Zukerman 2004; Yasur-Landau 2010).² A paradigm was born: the earliest strata of the Philistine settlement, which yielded Monochrome pottery, represent the resettlement of the defeated ‘Sea-Peoples’ in Ramesses III’s eighth year, c.1175 BCE.³

The paradigm assumes Egyptian involvement in the Philistine settlement, either directly, by stationing the defeated Philistines in Egyptian-Canaanite strongholds, or indirectly, by simply losing their sovereignty over Canaan in the aftermath of the conflict against the ‘Sea-Peoples’. Both scenarios should have been easily discernible in the rich archaeological record of southern Canaan, but have been surprisingly hard to prove. Deliberate resettlement of ‘Sea-Peoples’