It is difficult to know what span of time must be allowed to accomodate the marchings and sailings implied by the Ugaritic texts -- and the fight over Cyprus involving the Hittites -- as well as the classical traditions of migrations. One wonders whether Rhodes was a staging ground: the island was largely unaffected by the movement and continued a vigorous trade with various Mediterranean ports: Taylor, The Mycenaeans, 160. If the completion of the siege of Troy was in fact the mainspring of the movement, then its date should establish a terminus a quo -- but unfortunatelythere is no unanimity on this, dates ranging from the fourteenth century to Eratosthenes' 1194-1183 B.C.: Burn, Minoans, Philistines and Greeks, 52; R. B. Edwards, Kadmos the Phoenician (Amsterdam, 1979), 164; A. B. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II. A Commentary, (Leiden, 1976), 1:177-80. The coalition under discussion could have taken shape in my view as early as Ramesses III's accession .....
