Nomads of the Sea

Description

Res Maritimae: Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory Through Late Antiquity. — Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1997. — pp. 1–16."Nomads of the Sea" were fringe groups employed as economic mercenaries within established, yet varied political and economic systems of the Bronze Age. They became an essential part of a trade network, a position obtained because of their peculiar expertise: knowledge in navigation and prerequisites for successful maritime trade plus capital in the form of a boat. They served as intermediaries and brought their traditions to coastal settlements and along land routes of the economic hinterland. Thus, those who started our as hirelings carried out, in time, their own "sailors' trade" and the natural evolution to "entrepreneurial trade" and economic competition with their employers was a matter of time. When the economic situation was no longer favorable, the "Nomads of the Sea" (who, in the process, became merchants of the sea), reverted to marauding practices: they joined forces with pirates, and the image of "Sea Peoples" familiar to us from the Egyptian sources emerged.