By the year 1000 BC, the political and economic horizons of Babylonia had narrowed considerably. This chapter focuses on the history of the period, giving first the historical background: geographical, ethnic, cultural, and institutional, and then a series of chronological narratives sketching the major phases of the era. In many ways, the Chaldaeans and other foreign tribal groups hold the key to understanding many of the Babylonian political and socioeconomic developments of this age. The relations of the tribal groups, especially Kassites, Aramaeans, and Chaldaeans, to the older Babylonian population can be sketched briefly. In the brief period of ninety years in sharp contrast to the sparse documentation from Babylonia proper, the number of inscriptions on 'Luristan bronzes' reaches its high point. The Assyrian campaigns of 814-811 left northern Babylonia humbled and leaderless. Babylonia as a nation and state did not succumb during this phase of weakness.

Since the inscriptions of Ramesses III repeatedly speak of using captives as troops in his own army and since some of the Sea Peoples (especially the Sherden) had been used as mercenaries or as slave troops during the reign of Ramesses II, many scholars now agree that the Philistines were first settled in Palestine as garrison troops. Between the late thirteenth and the end of the twelfth century BC, the territory occupied by the Canaanites was vastly reduced due to occupation by Israelites, the sea peoples, and the Aramaeans. However, there were compensations for these losses. The coast of Phoenicia proper was ideally prepared by nature to become the home of a maritime people. The Hittites had established several vassal states in northern Syria during the initial period of their occupation in the fourteenth century BC. At least two of them, Carchemish and Aleppo, were ruled by princes of the imperial Hittite dynasty.