If you want to understand ancient Egypt, the Nile Delta is of key importance. Excavations and surveys in the Delta keep unearthing new information about how the ancient Egyptians lived, how they envisaged the afterlife and how they interacted with other cultures. The study of finds from the Delta gives us a glimpse into the beliefs and everyday life of the ancient Egyptians. From 1979 to 2014 Willem van Haarlem worked on several archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, focusing on the excavations at Tell Ibrahim Awad in the eastern Delta from 1991 onward. At the same time he was curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the Allard Pierson, the heritage collections of the University of Amsterdam. On the occasion of his retirement a number of archaeologists, Egyptologists and museum curators have written a series of short studies in his honour, varying from current excavation results from Delta sites to new or renewed research into museum objects from this region. This book offers a rich palette of subjects to scholars interested in Delta archaeology and above all provides hitherto unpublished materials from excavations and museum depots that will inspire the next generation of Nile Delta scholars.

New Kingdom burial customs in Nubia (northern Sudan) are well traceable by means of large cemeteries, in particular Egyptian style rock-cut shaft tombs with pyramidal superstructures. These tombs and their contents have lately been discussed as important data sets offering insights into the diverse population, material culture, funerary and social practices in New Kingdom Nubia.A new rock-cut shaft tomb, potentially with pyramidal superstructure (Tomb 26), was discovered by the AcrossBorders project on Sai Island in 2015. This tomb yielded intact interments of officials connected with the Egyptian administration of colonial Nubia, buried together with family members and rich burial assemblages. Tomb 26 allows a close comparison with contemporaneous evidence from the nearby New Kingdom town of Sai, therefore providing a more complete picture of life and death in New Kingdom colonial Nubia. This book is the final publication of Tomb 26, its architecture and material culture, including chapters on geology, human remains, scientific analyses and a compilation of the material discovered. New information provided by AcrossBorders excavations of Tomb 26 contribute to recently discussed questions regarding cultural encounters and social practices in New Kingdom Nubia. Comparable material from other tombs on Sai and elsewhere in Nubia is discussed in order to stress the relevance of the new discovery.The archaeological contextualisation of Tomb 26, in combination with scientific analyses like strontium isotope analysis, offers fresh information on the complex coexistence of various cultural groups on Sai with slightly different approaches to their cultural and social affinities during the New Kingdom. Overall, Tomb 26 and its associated finds are of prime significance for understanding lived experience on New Kingdom Sai and more broadly in New Kingdom Nubia.with contributions byJohannes Auenmüller, Cajetan Geiger, Rennan Lemos, Andrea Stadlmayr and Marlies Wohlschlager

August 1990, 30,000 Iraqi troops have invaded Kuwait and are in a position to influence nearly half of the world's oil supply. The United Nations condemn the aggression but it is clear that only military intervention is going to displace Saddam Hussein. Captain Joseph 'Quarry' Samuels and the Marines of Scout Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Division are tasked with discovering the strength and deployment of Iraqi troops. Quarry and his scouts are soon engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the 10,000-strong 108th Iraqi Armored Division. Operating behind enemy lines, they put themselves squarely in danger's way in order to collect the intelligence necessary to launch military operations. When hostilities end, with the greatest one-sided military victory of all time, the Marines deserve to be on their way home. However, Quarry remains in Kuwait to continue the deadly game with an old nemesis, but this time with a new ally on his side.

Much focus in research on alphabetic writing systems has been on correspondences between graphemes and phonemes. The present study sets out to complement these by examining the linguistic denotation of markers of word division in several ancient Northwest Semitic (NWS) writing systems, namely, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Moabite, and Hebrew, as well as alphabetic Greek. While in Modern European languages words on the page are separated on the basis of morphosyntax, I argue that in most NWS writing systems words are divided on the basis of prosody: ‘words’ are units which must be pronounced together with a single primary accent or stress, or as a single phrase. After an introduction providing the necessary theoretical groundwork, Part I considers word division in Phoenician inscriptions. I show that word division at the levels of both the prosodic word and of the prosodic phrase may be found in Phoenician, and that the distributions match those of prosodic words and prosodic phrases in Tiberian Hebrew. The latter is a source where, unlike the rest of the material considered, the prosody is well represented. In Part II, word division in Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform is analysed. Here two-word division strategies are identified, corresponding broadly to two genres of text: viz, literary, and administrative documents. Word division in the orthography of literary and of some other texts separates prosodic words. By contrast, in many administrative (and some other) documents, words are separated on the basis of morphosyntax, anticipating later word division strategies in Europe by several centuries. Part III considers word division in the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Here word division is found to mark out ‘minimal prosodic words’. I show that this word division orthography is also found in early Moabite and Hebrew inscriptions. Word division in alphabetic Greek inscriptions is the topic of Part IV. Whilst it is agreed that word division marks out prosodic words, the precise relationship of these units to the pitch accent and the rhythm of the language is not so clear, and consequently this issue is addressed in detail. Finally, the Epilogue considers the societal context of word division in each of the writing systems examined, to attempt to discern the rationales for the prosodic word division strategies adopted. Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

Mourners shake and pull their hair on reliefs and paintings from ancient Egypt. They took part in funerary ceremonies in ancient Egypt, contributing to the dead’s resurrection in the afterlife. Hair played a clear role in these rites. In this publication Maria Rosa Valdesogo describes the relation between hair and these rites, and the role hair played in death in ancient Egypt. This book is the publication of her Phd research about the Hair in the funerary ceremony of ancient Egypt.

A refereed journal published annually by the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies.

Did the Exodus occur? This question has been asked in biblical scholarship since its origin as a modern science. The desire to resolve the question scientifically was a key component in the funding of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century. Egyptian archaeologists routinely equated sites with their presumed biblical counterpart. Initially, it was taken for granted that the Exodus had occurred. It was simply a matter of finding the archaeological data to prove it. So far, those results have been for naught. The Exodus: An Egyptian Story takes a very real-world approach to understanding the Exodus. It is not a story of cosmic spectaculars that miraculously or coincidentally occurred when a people prepared to leave Egypt. There are no special effects in the telling of this story. Instead, the story is told with real people in the real world doing what real people do. Peter Feinman does not rely on the biblical text and is not trying to prove that the Bible is true. He places the Exodus within Egyptian history based on the Egyptian archaeological record. It is a story of the rejection of the Egyptian cultural construct and defiance of Ramses II. Egyptologists, not biblical scholars, are the guides to telling the Exodus story. What would you expect Ramses II to say after he had been humiliated? If there is an Egyptian smoking gun for the Exodus, how would you recognize it? To answer these questions requires us to take the Exodus seriously as a major event at the royal level in Egyptian history.

Bathing culture was one of the pillars of Roman society and bathhouses are one of the largest categories of a particular type of construction excavated in the Roman world. The large number of surviving remains and their regional variety make bathhouses vital for the study of the local societies in the Roman-Byzantine period. This book presents the archaeological evidence of close to 200 Roman-style bathhouses from the region of Iudaea/Syria-Palaestina and Provincia Arabia, part of the provinces of the Roman East, constructed from the reign of Herod the Great (second half of the 1st century BCE) to the end of the Umayyad rule (mid-8th century CE). The bathing complexes of the Roman, Byzantine, and the Early Islamic periods, ranging from large public thermae to small bathing suites, are for the first time analysed as unified data with an unprecedented amount of detail, considering a variety of parameters - from dating and setting, through building techniques and materials, to plans and decorations. Typologies of the bathhouses and their components are supplemented by exploration of the socio-cultural insight provided by this particular type of construction. The historical narrative of the regional bathing facilities is updated in the light of new information. The full raw data used for the study is provided in the expandable open-access online database.

This volume presents interpreting of agency of individual officials in in different periods of ancient Egyptian history. Their activity and careers are observed using different methods different methods of complex network of more general trends operating the society at a given stage of its evolution. We are confident that this is one of the most promising and proven ways to gain deeper insights into day-to-day lives of the people of the past. In recent years, this research approach has evolved independently at several institutions exploring ancient Egypt.

The generation of young men and women who joined the British Army during the mid to late 1980s would serve their country during an unprecedented period of history. Unlike the two world war generations, they would never face total war – there was never any declaration of war and there was no one single country to defeat. In fact, it was supposed to have been the end of a war, a time of peace and stability. Politicians started to use the term, Peace Dividend, with government officials even planning on how and where it should be spent. But for those in the military, the two decades following the end of the Cold War would not be a time of peace. Government spending and the size of the military was reduced but the Army's commitments increased exponentially. Those serving not only faced continuous deployment in overseas operations, they would also be involved in immense upheavals that took place within the army. When the Berlin Wall came down, the British Army had not changed for decades. The ending of the Cold War, combined with a technological revolution, a changing society at home, and new global threats mean that the Army of the second decade of the twentieth-first century – the army this generation of soldiers is now retiring from – is unrecognizable from the one they joined in the late 1980s. This is the story of the soldiers who served in the British Army in those tumultuous decades.

By the 13th century BC, the Syrian city of Ugarit hosted an extremely diverse range of writing practices. As well as two main scripts – alphabetic and logographic cuneiform - the site has also produced inscriptions in a wide range of scripts and languages, including Hurrian, Sumerian, Hittite, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Luwian hieroglyphs and Cypro-Minoan. This variety in script and language is accompanied by writing practices that blend influences from Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Levantine traditions together with what seem to be distinctive local innovations. Script and Society: The Social Context of Writing Practices in Late Bronze Age Ugarit explores the social and cultural context of these complex writing traditions from the perspective of writing as a social practice. It combines archaeology, epigraphy, history and anthropology to present a highly interdisciplinary exploration of social questions relating to writing at the site, including matters of gender, ethnicity, status and other forms of identity, the relationship between writing and place, and the complex relationships between inscribed and uninscribed objects. This forms a case- study for a wider discussion of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of writing practices in the ancient world.

Designed for children aged 7-11 and their teachers, and beautifully illustrated throughout, this book explores daily life in ancient and modern Egypt. Meet Nofret and Rahotep, two ancient Egyptian children who live in the city of Akhetaten some 3000 years ago. Meet Amira and Omar, who live in modern Amarna in the towns that now overlie much of the ancient archaeological site. Watch as these children’s lives unfold through their parallel stories, which compare themes such as food, fashion and family life across the millennia. The book is an ideal learning tool for the home or the classroom as key topics from the story are accompanied by hands-on activities that provide more detail on life in ancient Egypt with a focus on ancient Amarna. Discover why the pharaoh Akhenaten decided to build a new capital city and change the religion of ancient Egypt. Find detailed instructions to make mudbricks, bake ancient Egyptian bread and weave cloth, alongside creative writing, maths, science and art activities, all based on key areas of school curricula and which challenge the usual stereotypes about Egyptian life.

Selected in 2005 by the Army to be the first airborne reconnaissance squadron, 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, better known as 5-73 CAV, was formed from 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The members of the squadron were hand-selected by the squadron command team, Lieutenant Colonel Poppas and Command Sergeant Major Edgar. With just more than 400 paratroopers, they were half the size of a full-strength battalion and the smallest unit in the Panther Brigade. The squadron deployed to eastern Diyala in August, 2006. Despite their size, they were tasked with an enormous mission and were given the largest area of operations within the brigade. Appropriately for a unit known by the call sign of its CO—Headhunter—5-73 would go on to pursue various terrorist factions including Al Qaeda in Iraq. They got results, and 5-73 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for launching the Turki Bowl campaign from November 2006 to January 2007 against insurgent groups in Diyala Province. However the toll would be heavy—the squadron lost twenty-two paratroopers during the deployment Headhunter is a unique account of the War on Terror. It’s a soldier’s story, told by those very paratroopers who gallantly fought to tame Diyala. Based on dozens of interviews conducted by the author, the narrative describes the danger of combat, the loss of comrades and the struggles of returning from a deployment. The voice of the families left behind are also included, describing ther challenges they faced, including the ultimate challenge—grappling with the death of a loved one. This book explores the human dimensions of loss and struggle and illustrates the sacrifices our service members and their loved ones make.

This volume presents and analyzes information on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic historical geography and toponyms of the Beth Qaṭraye region as well as newly discovered vocabulary from a language referred to as Qaṭrāyīth (“in Qatari”) used by its inhabitants.

Culture of Defeat is based on a 2017 conference focusing on the impact on, and responses by, the defeated parties in conflicts in the ancient Near East. Shifting the focus of analysis from the conqueror to the vanquished, the (re-)examination of written sources and the archaeological record sheds new light on the consequences and reactions after often traumatic defeats and allows to gain a more nuanced and complete picture of such events.

This volume brings together contributions by scholars focussing on peritextual elements as found in Middle Eastern manuscripts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels, intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla that provide additional explanatory content akin to but substantially different from our modern notes and endnotes; images and illustrations that present additional material not found in the main text. These elements add additional layers to the main body of the text and are crucial for our understanding of the text’s transmission history as well as scribal habits.