'Šrdn of the Strongholds, Šrdn of the Sea': The Sherden in Egyptian Society, Reassessed

63rd Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt. — Providence, RI, 2012. — 6 pp.Despite a broad temporal presence in Egyptian records, the association of the Sherden with another ‘Sea Peoples’ group, the more well-known and better archaeologically attested Philistines, has led to several assumptions about this group, its members’ origin, and their role both in the events that marked the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age and in Egyptian society as a whole. This study separates the Sherden from the Aegean migration and greater ‘Sea Peoples’ phenomenon of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition in an effort to challenge long-held assumptions about their initial encounter with Ramesses II in the early years of his rule, their role in the famous land battle and naumachia of Ramesses III’s eighth year, their participation in the migrations that marked the end of the Late Bronze Age, and their status as foreigners to the Levant whose main function was to serve as mercenary soldiers and pirates. Through a close reading of the extant literary and pictorial evidence from the New Kingdom and beyond, this paper traces the role of the Sherden within Egyptian society from its adversarial origin, through a phase of combined military cooperation and social exclusion, to a final, multigenerational period that was marked by rapid and enduring acculturation and assimilation into Egyptian society.