Dr Richards came to speak to the Egyptian Society Taunton about the fearless and enigmatic Sea Peoples.

However, his talk was a surprise to me:  I had read about them, about their battles with the Egyptians, seen them on the walls of temples.  In his presentation Dr Richards postulated that in fact, there is little to prove that the Sea Peoples or their battles ever actually existed. He argued that there is scant proof of these people other than that of the temple carvings, which, along with the Egyptians’ own accounts of the battles, might well be no more than royal propaganda.

I enjoyed the presentation, in spite of it contradicting all I have read and believed, but then that may well have been the point:  the ancient Egyptians were, as we know, masters of royal rhetoric and propaganda – and the talk certainly got me thinking.