Moreover, the framework of the “Sea Peoples as mysterious invaders who destroyed the Bronze Age” was itself partly a product of the interpretive tradition.

Scholars in the early twentieth century — most influentially the Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, who coined the term “Sea Peoples” — built a narrative in which these confederated raiders swept down from the Aegean or the western Mediterranean, destroyed the Hittite Empire, and nearly destroyed Egypt as well.

This narrative was dramatic and satisfying in its simplicity, but it rested on selective reading of limited evidence.

The truth, as scholarship has increasingly recognized over the past several decades, is considerably more complex.