Who were the Ekwesh? (Sea Peoples and the Achaeans)

In this livestreamed episode from Wanax TV, the presenter examines the Ekwesh, one of the Sea Peoples recorded in Egyptian sources during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah. The video as a whole covers the 1208 BC Battle of Perire, where the Ekwesh fought alongside the Libyans and other sea-raiding groups, and evaluates the scholarly identification of the Egyptian name Ekwesh (or Akawasha) with the Hittite Ahhiyawa and the Mycenaean Achaeans.

Responding to viewer questions in the opening section, the presenter gives an overview of the kingdom of Alashiya on Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age. He describes Alashiya's role in copper exports, its correspondence with Egyptian pharaohs in the Amarna letters as an equal, and Hittite claims that the island was a tributary state. He also mentions the late 15th-century BC raids on Cyprus under Attarissiya, and states that around 1180 BC the kingdom of Alashiya was invaded and destroyed by the Sea Peoples, followed by Mycenaean settlement, the rise of Greek city-kingdoms, local Mycenaean and Submycenaean pottery production, and the use of the Cypriot Syllabary to write Greek. He briefly addresses a viewer's suggestion that Ekwesh might refer to Enkomi, rejecting it because Egyptian sources already had a name for Cyprus.

Later, while discussing the fall of the Hittite Empire and Ugarit, the presenter cites the correspondence between the last king of Ugarit, Ammurapi, and the governor of Alashiya, noting the governor's reply that the king's own people were fighting among the attacking Sea Peoples. When weighing possible northern homelands for the Ekwesh, he again excludes Cyprus because it was a long-standing Egyptian trading partner and was itself attacked by the Sea Peoples.