Tjeker

The Tjeker or Tjekker (Egyptian: ṯꜣkꜣr or ṯꜣkkꜣr) were one of the Sea Peoples during the Late Bronze Age collapse of the late 13th and early 12th centuries BCE in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Origin

The origins of the Tjeker are uncertain. Their name is an Egyptian exonym, usually romanized as tkr, and expanded as Tjekru or Djekker. There is no consensus on the origins of the name or its etymology, nor what they called themselves. The Tjeker have been identified with the Sicels, who are linked to the Shekelesh, an exonym attributed to another group of Sea Peoples. Flinders Petrie linked "Tjeker", as an ethnonym, to Zakros in eastern Crete.

Ancient traditions connect the Tjeker with the mythical Teucri, a tribe said to inhabit northwest Anatolia south of Troy.^{[better source needed]} Modern scholars reject any historicity in this tradition.

History

Late Bronze Age

During the early 20th Dynasty of Egypt, Ramesses III (c. 1190 BCE) defeated the Sea Peoples including the Tjeker in Year 5, Year 8 and Year 12 as depicted at his Mortuary Temple at Medinet Habu. One scene shows the Tjeker and Peleset battling the troops of Ramesses III during the Battle of Djahy.

Iron Age

During the late 20th Dynasty of Egypt, under Ramesses XI (c. 1100 BCE), the Tjeker and its prince Beder are mentioned in the Story of Wenamun. They are thought to be the people who developed the port of Dor in Canaan during the 12th century BCE from a small Bronze Age town to a large city.^{[citation needed]}

Settlement at Dor

The Tjeker may have conquered the city Dor, on the coast of Canaan near modern Haifa, and turned it into a large, well-fortified city (classified as "Dor XII", fl. c. 1150–1050), the center of a Tjeker kingdom that is confirmed archaeologically in the northern Sharon plain.^{[citation needed]} The city was violently destroyed in the mid-11th century BCE, with the conflagration turning the mud bricks red and depositing a huge layer of ash and debris. Ephraim Stern connects the destruction with the contemporary expansion of the Phoenicians, which was checked by the Philistines further south and the Israelites.

The Tjeker are perhaps one of the few Sea Peoples for whom a ruler's name is recorded — in the 11th-century papyrus account of Wenamun, an Egyptian priest, the ruler of Dor is given as "Beder".

According to Edward Lipiński, the Sicals (Tjekker) of Dor were seamen or mercenaries, and b3-dỉ-r (Beder) was the title of the local governor, a deputy of the king of Tyre.

No mention of the Tjeker is made after the story of Wenamun.

Notes

↑ James Baikie mentioned it on pp. 166, 187 of his book The Sea-Kings of Crete, 2nd edition (Adam and Charles Black, London, 1913). Other scholars have accepted the association.
↑ The identification of Tjeker and Greek Teukroi, Latinized to Teucri, was first made by Lauth in 1867, and was repeated by François Chabas in his Études sur l’Antiquité Historique d’après les sources égyptiennes et les monuments réputés préhistoriques of 1872, according to the Woudhuizen dissertation.
↑ The campaigns are covered under Sea Peoples and are not repeated here.

References

Citations

↑ Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen: A Historiographic Outline. In: Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen: The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples. = The ethnicity of the sea peoples. 35–42, here P. 36, (ref: Dissertation, Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam 2006; Digitalisat).
↑ Redford 1992, p. 252.
↑ Sandars 1987, p. 170.
↑ Doherty, Gordon (2022). "Death from the Waves - the Sea People". Gordon Doherty, Author. Retrieved 2025-03-10.
↑ Bryce, Trevor R.The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford University Press, 1998 & 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-924010-4 p.339
↑ Stern 1990, p. 31.
↑ Lipiński 2006, p. 96.

Sources

Lipiński, Edward (2006). On the Skirts of Canaan in the Iron Age: Historical and Topographical Researches. Peeters Publishers. pp. 96–. ISBN 978-90-429-1798-9. Retrieved 1 May 2013.
Redford, Donald B. (1992). Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03606-3.
Sandars, N. K. (1987). The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the ancient Mediterranean, Revised Edition. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27387-1.
Stern, Ephraim (August 1990). "New Evidence from Dor for the First Appearance of the Phoenicians along the Northern Coast of Israel". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (279): 27–34.
Woudhuizen, Frederik Christiaan (1992). The Language of the Sea Peoples. Amsterdam: Najade Press. ISBN 90-73835-02-X.
Woudhuizen, Frederik Christiaan (April 2006). The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples (PhD thesis). Rotterdam: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte.

[3] James Baikie mentioned it on pp. 166, 187 of his book The Sea-Kings of Crete, 2nd edition (Adam and Charles Black, London, 1913). Other scholars have accepted the association.

[4] The identification of Tjeker and Greek Teukroi, Latinized to Teucri, was first made by Lauth in 1867, and was repeated by François Chabas in his Études sur l’Antiquité Historique d’après les sources égyptiennes et les monuments réputés préhistoriques of 1872, according to the Woudhuizen dissertation.

[8] The campaigns are covered under Sea Peoples and are not repeated here.

[1] Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen: A Historiographic Outline. In: Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen: The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples. = The ethnicity of the sea peoples. 35–42, here P. 36, (ref: Dissertation, Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam 2006; Digitalisat).

[FOOTNOTERedford1992252-2] Redford 1992, p. 252.

[FOOTNOTESandars1987170-5] Sandars 1987, p. 170.

[6] Doherty, Gordon (2022). "Death from the Waves - the Sea People". Gordon Doherty, Author. Retrieved 2025-03-10.

[7] Bryce, Trevor R.The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford University Press, 1998 & 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-924010-4 p.339

[FOOTNOTEStern199031-9] Stern 1990, p. 31.

[FOOTNOTELipiński200696-10] Lipiński 2006, p. 96.