<P> A letter by the king is preserved on one of the clay tablets found baked in the conflagration of the destruction of the city . Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of the crisis faced by many Levantine states from invasion by the advancing Sea Peoples in a dramatic response to a plea for assistance from the king of Alasiya . Ammurapi highlights the desperate situation Ugarit faced in letter RS 18.147: </P> <P> My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities (?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country . Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots (?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka?...Thus, the country is abandoned to itself . May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us . </P> <P> No help arrived and Ugarit was burned to the ground at the end of the Bronze Age . Its destruction levels contained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH IIIC (see Mycenaean period). Therefore, the date of the destruction is important for the dating of the LH IIIC phase . Since an Egyptian sword bearing the name of Pharaoh Merneptah was found in the destruction levels, 1190 BC was taken as the date for the beginning of the LH IIIC . </P> <P> A cuneiform tablet found in 1986 shows that Ugarit was destroyed after the death of Merneptah . It is generally agreed that Ugarit had already been destroyed by the 8th year of Ramesses III, 1178 BC . These letters on clay tablets found baked in the conflagration of the destruction of the city speak of attack from the sea, and a letter from Alashiya (Cyprus) speaks of cities already being destroyed by attackers who came by sea . It also speaks of the Ugarit fleet being absent, patrolling the Lycian coast . </P>

What factors produced the transnational networks of the late bronze age