The Sea Peoples : The Creators of History: a Study of Influence

Abstract: The approaches used in recent research regarding the ‘Sea Peoples’ of the late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean have been evaluated in this thesis. Different influences exist on all planes and effect all things in different ways. Researchers have the power of creating the history we know and all too often is the biased influence of the researcher forgotten and their words are taken as facts. Different researchers approach, the studies using different schools of thought such as e.g. ‘processualism’ and post-processualism. Some scholars firmly stay by one approach side, but the approaches should be viewed as complementing each other. Raising awareness of some of the major questions within the research, and scholars different ways of approaching them is a main point in this thesis. The different scholars' approaches to research concerning the ‘Sea Peoples’ etnichity, their migration and impact brought up in the different texts have been analyzed.Concluding remarks focus on that the term ‘Sea Peoples’ is a creation of the modern day scholars and that researchers should refrain from using the term and focus on the different clans instead. A strong vote for interdisciplinary and complementary studies is presented regarding the future of this study and others.