The appearance of the brailed rig and loose-footed sail at the end of the Late Bronze Age revolutionized seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean. In the first visual representation of a naval battle in the Egyptian records, the battle at Medinet Habu, both Egyptian and ‘Sea Peoples’ ships are portrayed as employing this new rig on warships which are nearly identical in structure and design. This fact suggests some level of previous contact between the invading mariners and those responsible for designing and constructing Egypt’s ships of war. This paper examines the evidence for the development of the brailed rig in the eastern Mediterranean, and explores the possibility that the Šrdn of the Sea, one of the ‘Sea Peoples’ who appeared in “battleships in the midst of the sea” off of the Egyptian coast a century earlier, may have played an integral role in the transference of that technology to the Egyptians.

The association of the Essenes with the site of Qumran, and the specific instructions regarding latrine placement and etiquette in the Temple and War Scrolls, combine to make the toilet practices of the Qumran community an issue with a direct relation to the study of the site and of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The texts most often associated with toilet practices at Qumran present accounts and instructions which are incompatible with each other, while the presence of a cesspit toilet in Locus 51 of Qumran contradicts each of these texts. Further, the difficulties presented by this toilet’s presence are increased by its being taken out of use at the end of Period Ib of the site (31 BC), after which it appears not to have been replaced – a development which suggests either a significant change in Qumranites’ beliefs after 31 BC, or a change in the makeup of the community’s inhabitants themselves. Finally, the combination of the material evidence regarding toilet practices at Khirbet Qumran, the contradictions in the literary sources thought to address them, and scholarly attempts to rationalize or circumvent these contradictions should serve to reinforce the importance of proper methodology and evidence-based analysis to the current and future study of Qumran, its inhabitants, and their connection to the Scrolls.

Competition and combat have a historic tension in Greek myth and culture. Though the origination of athletics in ancient Greece may not have been martial, several literary examples from the classical Greek through imperial Roman periods make clear that a belief in an inextricable, etiological link between combat and athletic competition was widespread among ancient authors and observers. The hoplitodromos, or race in armor, is a representative example both of this etiological belief and of the evolution of Greek athletics over time. As the growing prevalence of hoplite warfare reduced the opportunity for warriors to earn kleos aphthitōn on the battlefield, athletic competitions became a partial replacement for the lost opportunities to achieve eternal glory. Further, the rise of a classical “gymnasion culture,” which valued physical beauty, youth, and eroticism most highly, may have sparked a pushback on the part of our ancient sources, who sought in return to emphasize all the more the martial practicality of athletic training and competitive events.

The association of the Sherden with their fellow “Sea Peoples,” the more well-known and better-attested Philistines, has led to several assumptions about this group, its members’ origin, and their role in the events that marked the end of the Late Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age. Despite a broad temporal presence in ancient Near Eastern records, there exists limited information about who these Sherden were and where they came from, the circumstances of their entry into the Egyptian and Ugaritic records in which they appear, and where they eventually settled. Further, addressing these questions in traditional fashion relies on the assumption that they were a homogeneous ethnic group with a single shared culture, point of origin, and geographic destination. This study separates the Sherden from the Aegean migration and greater “Sea Peoples” phenomenon of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition in an effort to challenge long-held assumptions about their initial encounter with Ramesses II in the early years of his rule, their role in the famous land battle and naumachia of Ramesses III’s eighth year, their participation in the migrations that marked the end of the Late Bronze Age, and their status as foreigners to the Levant whose main function was to serve as mercenary soldiers and pirates. Through a close reading of the extant material and literary evidence from the Amarna and Ramesside periods in Egypt, and with support from relevant Ugaritic texts, the role of the Sherden within broader Near Eastern society in general, and amesside Egypt in particular, is shown to be very different from that of the more famous Philistines: one of initial, small-scale intrusion of heterogeneous warriors who originated elsewhere within the eastern Mediterranean world, followed by relative geographic stability over multigenerational periods that was marked by rapid and enduring acculturation and assimilation into Egyptian society.

Despite a broad temporal presence in Egyptian records, the association of the Sherden with another ‘Sea Peoples’ group, the more well-known and better archaeologically attested Philistines, has led to several assumptions about this group, its members’ origin, and their role both in the events that marked the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age and in Egyptian society as a whole. This study separates the Sherden from the Aegean migration and greater ‘Sea Peoples’ phenomenon of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition in an effort to challenge long-held assumptions about their initial encounter with Ramesses II in the early years of his rule, their role in the famous land battle and naumachia of Ramesses III’s eighth year, their participation in the migrations that marked the end of the Late Bronze Age, and their status as foreigners to the Levant whose main function was to serve as mercenary soldiers and pirates. Through a close reading of the extant literary and pictorial evidence from the New Kingdom and beyond, this paper traces the role of the Sherden within Egyptian society from its adversarial origin, through a phase of combined military cooperation and social exclusion, to a final, multigenerational period that was marked by rapid and enduring acculturation and assimilation into Egyptian society.

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In the decade since 9/11, the United States has grown weaker: It has been bogged down by costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has spent billions of dollars on security to protect air travel and other transport, as well as the homeland more generally. Much of this money has been channeled into efforts that are inefficient by design and highly bureaucratic, a lack of coordination between and among the government and an array of contractors making it difficult to evaluate the return on the enormous investment that we have made in national security. Meanwhile, public morale has been sapped by measures ranging from color-coded terror alerts to full-body hand searches.

Now counterterrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross details the strategic missteps the U.S. has made in the fight against al Qaeda, a group that U.S. planners never really took the time to understand. For this reason, America's responses to the terrorist threat have often unwittingly helped al Qaeda achieve its goals. Gartenstein-Ross's book explains what the country must do now to stem the bleeding.

• Explains in detail al Qaeda's strategy to sap and undermine the American economy, and shows how the United States played into the terrorist group's hands by expanding the battlefield and setting up an expensive homeland security bureaucracy that has difficulty dealing with a nimble, adaptive foe
• Outlines how al Qaeda's economic plans have evolved toward an ultimate ""strategy of a thousand cuts,"" which involves smaller yet more frequent attacks against Western societies
• Shows how the domestic politicization of terrorism has weakened the United States, skewing its priorities and causing it to misallocate counterterrorism resources
• Offers a practical plan for building domestic resiliency against terrorist attacks, and escaping the mistakes that have undermined America's war against its jihadist foes

Clearly written and powerfully argued by a prominent counterterrorism expert, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what al Qaeda is really after and how the United States can thwart its goals—or help unwittingly to achieve them.

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:

From the dawn of writing in Sumer to the sunset of the Islamic empire, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization. Investigating a vast range of primary sources, some of which are translated here for the first time, and focusing on the dynamic influence of the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East, William McCants looks at the ways the conquerors and those they conquered reshaped their myths of civilization's origins in response to the social and political consequences of empire.

The Greek and Roman conquests brought with them a learned culture that competed with that of native elites. The conquering Arabs, in contrast, had no learned culture, which led to three hundred years of Muslim competition over the cultural orientation of Islam, a contest reflected in the culture myths of that time. What we know today as Islamic culture is the product of this contest, whose protagonists drew heavily on the lore of non-Arab and pagan antiquity.

McCants argues that authors in all three periods did not write about civilization's origins solely out of pure antiquarian interest--they also sought to address the social and political tensions of the day. The strategies they employed and the postcolonial dilemmas they confronted provide invaluable context for understanding how authors today use myth and history to locate themselves in the confusing aftermath of empire.