Philistine Pentapolis

In the March/April issue of BAR, two scholars, Tristan Barako and Assaf Yasur-Landau, presented contrasting arguments about how the Philistines, one of the feared Sea Peoples, left their Aegean homelands and came to settle on the coastal plain of Canaan. (“One if by Sea … Two if by Land- How Did the Philistines Get to Canaan,” BAR 29-02) The migration took place sometime after 1200 B.C., when the great palace cultures of the Mycenaean and Aegean world collapsed and when many cities in the eastern Mediterranean were destroyed. How did the Philistines get to Canaan?

Barako argued on behalf of a large-scale seaborne migration, and Yasur-Landau countered that a land route was likelier, one that passed along the southern coast of Anatolia and then into Syria and finally Canaan. According to Yasur-Landau, the Late Bronze Age city-states of Mycenae, Miletus and Tiryns, among others, could not possibly have launched a maritime migration of significant proportions; after all, these once-glorious polities were only shadows of their former selves in the aftermath of the destruction of 1200 B.C. He also noted that the 50-oared galleys called
penteconters could only have accommodated a migrating party of a small number of men. Women and children would have been left behind. And yet, reliefs at Pharaoh Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Egypt show women and children—traveling in oxcarts—migrating to Canaan, along with male Philistine warriors. Yasur-Landau also pointed to the lack of archaeological evidence relating to maritime activity at the initial Philistine settlements in Canaan—places such as Ekron, for example. But according to Barako, Yasur-Landau doesn’t tell the complete story; he offers here a rebuttal to some of Yasur-Landau’s arguments.—Ed.

To begin with, let me clarify my conception of the Philistines’ seaborne migration. Although I firmly believe that a large population of Philistines arrived in southern coastal Canaan primarily by ship, they probably didn’t do so all at once, but rather in stages, the way most migrations take place, whether by sea or land. Therefore, the Philistines could have used a relatively small number of ships for multiple trips. On this point Yasur-Landau and I appear to be in general agreement; on others we clearly differ.

Read the rest of Philistines Upon the Seas in the Biblical Archaeology Society Library.