In order to understand where the Philistines came from, we need to look at the events that preceded their appearance on the stage of history. As indicated on the map before you, Egypt and Hatt, the kingdom of the Hittites, ruled over Canaan, Lebanon and Syria. In these areas there were cities headed by a king under the authority of one of these two empires. For hundreds of years, Hatt and Egypt battled for dominance over the territories that lay between them. Around the Aegean Sea were nations with independent cities such as Mycenae in Greece and Troy in Asia Minor. By the end of the 13th century BCE, Egypt and Hatt were exhausted from battling, the cities around the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea were destroyed or abandoned for reasons that are unclear, and the territory shown on the map before you was ripe for conquest.