But Lazaropoulos does not usually provide us with exact dates: this is the only one in his writings. Beyond providing the sequence of actions, he provides no information how much time passed between the rapacious acts of Etoumes, the Trapezuntine raid on Sinope, and the beginning of the siege itself, making it possible the first two happened earlier—perhaps years—before 1223. Fortunately our third source, Ali ibn al-Athir, mentions that in 1223 a ship of refugees from the Mongols sank off Anatolia which was then plundered by the Seljuks; so it is clear all three events happened over this six-month period between February and September 1223.[12]