Mark asked in reply to my post on the transition from the Late Bronze
Age collapse
> I would not mind reading more on this. What's your main source?
Sorry Mark, not one, but many.
1. Egyptian Sources
Joyce Tydesley has just publisghed a very useful book on Rameses II,
which is a good starter. There are also other good Histories of
Rameses II (avoid the attepts by Rohl and the Velikovskians to redate
the history and eliminate the post Bronze Age Dark Ages, by pushing
Rameses into the reigns of Shesonk, or making him a contemporary of
Nebuchadnezzer.
2. The Chronicles of the Pharaohs - one of the recent series giving
potted biographies on all the Egyptian Pharaohs (Like the Chronicles
of the Poples, Roman Emperors, Chinese Emperors etc) is an easy
popular way in.
3. The Cambridge Ancient History is good on the Achaean problem in
Hittite records and speaks of Eteocles, Alexander and Atreus. It is
also good on the "Peoples of the Sea", and the late Hittite Empire.
4. The two volume Greek Myths of Robert Graves gives more information
of the Atreides.
5. The BBC Book, produced on "The Search for Troy" gives a good
account of the reigns of Hattusilis III and Tudhalias IV, but there
is
much on the former and his wife, Padukhepa on the net.
6. The records of the city of Ugarit have a good account on the
Hittite Cyprus campaigns and the coming conflagration of the Sea
Peoples.
7. Robert Graves speaks of Colophon of Mopsus, and Otto Guerney in
his
chapters of the Neo Hittites in his classic "The Hittites" speaks of
Mopss's importance at the start of hoenician and Neo Hittite
genealogies. Mopsus also has some intriguing parallels with the
Hebrew Mosus (Croft, unpublished).
8. The stories of the Peoples of the Sea, and the defence of Egypt in
the reigns of Merenptah and Rameses III are found in any good
Egyptian
History (Alan Gairdners' "The World of the Pharaohs", but there are
many others.
It is putting all the sources together and trying to find a single
narrative that is in part my own.
Hope this helps
John