Weshesh

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The Weshesh were one of the ethnic groups that included the so-called peoples of the sea, which caused riots in several areas of the Eastern Mediterranean at the beginning of the

They are known mainly for two Egyptian inscriptions. One of them comes from Medinet Habu and they appear in it as one of the peoples - along with the peleset, tjeker, shekelesh and denyen - who attacked areas of Anatolia, Cyprus and Syria, before establishing a camp in Amurru and then continued their march to Canaan and Egypt, where they were defeated by the Pharaoh Ramses III in the eighth year of his reign. According to another interpretation, those five peoples attacked Egypt after their countries had been devastated by other peoples from the north. The other inscription, which comes from Papiro Harris, includes the same villages except the shekelesh and instead the Sherden, which were not cited in the Medinet Habu.

Unlike other peoples of the sea, the Weshesh are apparently not represented in commemorative reliefs of Ramses III. It has been suggested that they might have been established in Western Anatolia, either in the region of Caria, or in the Troade - since their name has been tried to relate to the name Wilusa, which is identified with Troy - or perhaps in an area between Cilicia and Syria around the Gulf of Iskenderun.