See great article at Worldhistory.org by Joshua J. Mark published on 02 September 2009. Intro extracts are as follows.
The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of naval raiders who harried the coastal towns and cities of the Mediterranean region between c. 1276-1178 BCE, concentrating their efforts especially on Egypt. They are considered one of the major contributing causes to the Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1250-c.1150 BCE) and were once regarded as the primary cause.
The nationality of the Sea Peoples remains a mystery as the existing records of their activities are mainly Egyptian sources who only describe them in terms of battle such as the record from the Stele at Tanis which reads, in part, “They came from the sea in their war ships and none could stand against them.” This description is typical of Egyptian references to these mysterious invaders.
Names of the tribes which comprised the Sea Peoples have been given in Egyptian records as the Sherden, the Sheklesh, Lukka, Tursha and Akawasha. Outside Egypt, they also assaulted the regions of the Hittite Empire, the Levant, and other areas around the Mediterranean coast. Their origin and identity has been suggested (and debated) to be Etruscan/Trojan to Italian, Philistine, Mycenaen and even Minoan but, as no accounts discovered thus far shed any more light on the question than what is presently known, any such claims must remain mere conjecture.
After their defeat by Ramesses III the Sea Peoples vanish from history, the survivors of the battle perhaps being assimilated into Egyptian culture. No records indicate where they came from and there are no accounts of them after 1178 BCE but, for almost one hundred years, they were the most feared sea raiders in the Mediterranean region and a constant challenge to the might and prosperity of Egypt.
