The Sherden

The Empires of Bronze series is a tale of the late Bronze Age and pivots around the Hittite Empire. But one of the most crucial characters comes not from the realm of the Hittites, nor any of the other three 'great powers' (Assyria, Egypt and Ahhiyawa/Mycenaean Greece), but from an island on the periphery of that world. The island... of the Sherden.

In book 1, Son of Ishtar, Volca the Sherden mercenary arrives in Hittite lands and kneels before King Mursili, claiming he has sailed from the distant western island, seeking to find and serve the Hittite court. What a nice guy, eh? Well, we soon discover that he is anything but a noble adventurer, and he comes to be known throughout Dawn of War and Thunder at Kadesh as 'Volca, the bastard Sherden'. I won't say any more lest I spoil anything for readers just beginning the series, but I do think that Volca's origins deserve a little bit of exploration. Who were the Sherden, and where exactly did they come from?

The Sherden: fierce sea-warriors from the distant west. The golden-robed chap on the left was my inspiration for Volca. It was something about the horned helmet, the look on his face, staring out of the picture at you, eyes dripping with menace and intelligence. Shudder! (artwork by Giuseppe Rava).

Who Were the Sherden?

The Sherden first rear their head from the mists of history in 1386 BC in the so-called 'Amarna Letters' - tablets exchanged between Egypt's Pharaoh and his vassals in Canaan and Amurru. Written in cuneiform script (wedge-shaped markings from the Latin cuneus = wedge) using the Akkadian language, these texts describe Pharaoh installing the Sherden as a garrison in the vassal city of Gubla (modern Byblos, Lebanon).

Subsequent tablets, papyruses, monumental temple reliefs and stele show them marching with Egypt's armies as a mercenary wing. In this role they soon acquired a fearsome military reputation. By the time of the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC) a select group had even risen to serve Pharaoh as a royal bodyguard corps. Reliefs attest to their gruesome role during that battle - serving as runners alongside the Egyptian chariots, tasked with hacking the hands from any dead or injured Hittites.

Pharaoh Ramesses and his mighty armies preparing for battle on the plains of Kadesh. And who's that chap on Pharaoh's right, with the horned helm and straightsword? (Credit to Osprey Publishing for the artwork).

Sherden warriors hard at work during another battle, hacking the hands from the dead or injured. Nice.

This relief from Abydos depicts a Sherden warrior again serving Egypt at the Battle of Kadesh, and here we see him hacking the hand from a dead Hittite opponent.

A Sherden warrior would typically be equipped with:
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• A distinctive horned helmet. The horns were made of ivory, tin or lead. Some depictions show a disc rising from the crown as well, and one theory is that this was added to the traditional panoply after the Sherden joined the Egyptian ranks, as a symbol of devotion to the Egyptian Sun God Ra.
• A cuirass. The richer of the Sherden would probably have had a cuirass of inverted V-shaped leather or bronze bands known as 'lobster' style armour.
• A long ash wood spear.
• A battle axe.
• A straight sword for stabbing and hacking, sporting a strong central ridge. Interestingly, these seem to have been composed of copper and a hint of arsenic more often than much harder bronze. Perhaps that is the reason for the strengthened ridge?
• A dagger.
• A round buckler shield, sometimes gold-rimmed with many metallic bosses.

A horned Sherden and mercenaries from other seafaring tribes preparing for battle. (Credit to Giuseppe Rava for the artwork).

​You'll notice the leftmost man in the image above carries a trident instead of a spear. The thinking here is that he is their leader, and that the trident symbolises the seafaring roots of his tribe. That brings us to our second question: the Sherden voyaged across the sea to come to Egyptian and Hittite lands, but from where exactly?

The Lost Island of the Sherden

Okay, so it's a cool-sounding subheading, but the Island of the Sherden is not really lost. It's right here, red-ringed in this map of the Near East during the Late Bronze Age (roughly the 13th century BC).

The Near East during the Late Bronze Age, circa 1275 BC.

​"Hold on," I hear you cry, "that's not the Island of the Sherden, that's Sardinia!"

Yes it is Sardinia, but yes it was also the Island of the Sherden. How do we know that? Well, onomastic study deals with mining information from place names and how they have changed over time. A slippery business, certainly. But often, the ancient root in the name of a landmark or city echoes and persists for many millennia, through manifold conquests, culture-shifts, population-influx, devastation, natural disaster and abandonment: think of Britain - the name stems from Roman Britannia, which itself came from the original Celtic term Pretanī; or the city of Trier in modern Germany, founded by the Celtic Treveri tribe in the 4th c BC, conquered by the Romans 300 years later and renamed Augusta Treverorum, then battered from every angle through the many centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages by migrating peoples and roving armies as Europe was carved up time and time again. In both instances, we can still see a plausible link between the original and current place names, and recorded history allows us to confirm the timeline.

​So it is with the Island of the Sherden -> Sardinia. Likewise with its southern Bronze Age neighbour, the Island of the Shekelesh... now known as Sicily (Not convinced? Say Sicily with the Latin 'hard c' to hear how close it sounds).

Sardinia: Volca's original home?

​However, debate continues as to whether the Sherden (and indeed the Shekelesh) inhabited their island before or after the period described in Empires of Bronze. Did they sail from the west to enter the politics of the Great Powers, or did they originate in the Near East and later voyage to and claim the island as their new home? We simply do not know for certain, as we don't have clear attestations that allow us to confirm either way. There is evidence and theory supporting both views. The Sardinian origin theory is supported by archaeological finds such as the Sherden-style sword discovered on Sardinia and dating from 1650 BC (several centuries pre-Empires of Bronze). The Sardinian destination theory is based on other plausible and closer (to the Near East) origins for the Sherden, such as Sardis on modern Turkey's Ionian coast - this fits in with an Egyptian record stating that the Sherden 'came from the north' and there is an onomastic link there too (Sardis->Sherden).

The debate will continue to sway back and forth I have no doubt, and to be honest, that's half the fun of it all!

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I hope that was a thought-provoking and entertaining read for you. You can read all about the Sherden in my Empires of Bronze series. Book 3 'Thunder at Kadesh' is out now!
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