The active intercourse with the Aegean Isles during this age can be traced from Asia Minor to Egypt (notably at El-Amarna), and movements in the Levant had accompanied the pressure southwards from Asia Minor in the time of the Amenhoteps. A similar combination was defeated by {7} Ramses III. (about 1200); among its constituents the Philistines may doubtless be recognised. But Egypt, now in the Twentieth Dynasty, was fast losing its old strength, and the internal history of Palestine is far from clear. Apart from the sudden extension of the Assyrian empire to the Mediterranean under Tiglath-pileser I. (about 1100 B.C.), no one great power, so far as is known, could claim supremacy over the west; and our period comes to an end at a time when Palestine, according to the Israelite historians, was laying the foundation of its independent monarchy. Palestine has always been open to the roaming tribes from Arabia and the Syrian desert, tribes characteristically opposed to the inveterate practices of settled agricultural life. Arabia, however, possessed seats of culture, though their bearing upon our period cannot yet be safely estimated. But a temple with an old-established and contemporary cult, half Egyptian and half Semitic, has been recovered by Professor Petrie at Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and the archæological evidence frequently illustrates the results of the excavations in Palestine. Excavations have been undertaken at Tell el-Hesy (Lachish), at various sites in the lowlands of Judah (including Tell es-Sāfy, perhaps Gath), at {8} Gezer, Taanach, and Tell el-Mutesellim (Megiddo), and, within the last few months, at Jericho. Much of the evidence can be roughly dated, and fortunately the age already illuminated by the Amarna tablets can be recognised. Its culture associates it with North Syria and Asia Minor, and reveals signs of intercourse with the Aegean Isles; but, as a whole, it is the result of a gradual development, which extends without abrupt gaps to the time of the Hebrew monarchy and beyond. Chronological dividing-lines cannot yet be drawn, and consequently the archæological evidence which illustrates the 'Amarna' age is not characteristic of that age alone.