The Sea Peoples were a multiethnic seafaring confederation that attacked Ancient Egypt and other regions of the eastern Mediterranean during the "Late Bronze Age collapse" from around 1277 BC to 1178 BC. The Sea Peoples consisted of the Denyen (Danaans), Ekwesh (Achaeans), Lukka (Lycians), Peleset (Pelasgians), Shekelesh (Sikelians), Sherden (Nuragic Sardinians), Teresh (Tyrrhenians, or Etruscans), Tjeker (from Zakros on Crete), and Weshesh (Waksioi of Crete). They first invaded the Nile Delta in the second year of Ramesses II's reign, 1277 BC, and Ramesses repelled their attack on Sherden, using their prisoners as conscripts at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC. From 1208 to 1207 BC, Pharaoh Merneptah defeated the Sea Peoples and the Lybians, killing 6,000 of them and taking 9,000 prisoners. During the 1170s BC, the Sea Peoples were involved in the collapse of the Hittite, Mycenaean, Ugarit, and Mitanni kingdoms, but Ramesses defeated them in the naval Battle of the Delta and the land Battle of Djahy in 1178 BC, and he forced them to settle in Philistia, where they became the Philistines (Peleshet).
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