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Emanuel, Jeff

The appearance of the brailed rig and loose–footed sail at the end of the Late Bronze Age revolutionized seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean. The most famous early appearance of this new technology is found in history’s first visual representation of a naval battle, on the walls of Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, where both Egyptian and Sea Peoples ships are depicted with this new rig, as well as top–mounted crow’s nests and decking upon which shipborne warriors do battle. The identical employment of these innovative components of maritime technology by opposing forces in this battle suggests either some level of previous contact between the invaders and those responsible for designing and constructing Egypt’s ships of war, or shared interaction with a third party, perhaps on the Syro–Canaanite coast. This article examines the evidence for the development of the brailed rig in the eastern Mediterranean, and explores the possibility that at least one group of Sea Peoples, who may have comprised a key part of the international economy of the Late Bronze Age in their role as “pirates, raiders, and traders” (Georgiou 2012: 527) – Artzy’s “nomads of the sea” (1997) – played a similarly integral role in the transference of maritime technology between the Levant, Egypt, and the Aegean.

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.

The seaworthiness of the balsa sailing raft, and the seafaring aptitude of those who built and sailed it, has been the subject of critically biased, often conflicting accounts over the nearly five centuries since contact. This paper objectively marshals historical evidence to recover the preColumbian design and construction of this ‘Crown Jewel’ of the coastal Andean fleet. Sailing balsas were constructed of balsa tree (ochroma spp.) trunks lashed together with henequen, covered with one or more decks of cane or reed, and fitted with crescent-rigged sails and guaras, or centreboards. The balsa trunks used for the deck, which maintained excellent long-term buoyancy after an initial period of water absorption, kept the raft afloat on rolling seas and allowed seawater to wash through the structure, preventing the craft from capsizing. The upper decks allowed for sensitive cargo to be kept dry during ocean voyages, and the straw huts and cooking pits on many balsas allowed seafarers access to subsistence and comfort while afloat. Finally, the sail-and-centreboard combination made the balsa a highly manoeuvrable craft that may have been capable of efficiently sailing in any direction with respect to wind. Through this evidentiary reconstruction, it will be shown that, though these rafts appeared primitive to many of the Europeans who saw and wrote about them, the aboriginal balsas of the Andean coast were both well-designed and extraordinarily capable of performing their assigned tasks, which included fishing and coastal trade, and may also have included lengthy voyages of commerce and exploration.

Despite a broad temporal presence in Egyptian records, the association of the Sherden with another ‘Sea Peoples’ group – the better known and archaeologically-attested Philistines – has led to several assumptions about this people, their culture, and the role they played in the various societies of which they may have been a part. This article separates the Sherden from the Aegean migration and greater ‘Sea Peoples’ phenomenon of the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition and focuses on the aspect of this people for which we have the best evidence: their role in Egyptian society. Once those layers have been peeled away, a close reading of the extant literary and pictorial evidence from the New Kingdom and beyond reveals the evolving role of the Sherden in Egypt, from adversarial origin, through a phase of combined military cooperation and social exclusion, to a final, multigenerational period marked by rapid and enduring acculturation and assimilation.

While the World Wide Web has provided the public at large with heretofore-unimagined access to information, the egalitarian – and frequently anonymous – nature of online content creation has also provided an unprecedented opportunity for the spread of misinformation and misinterpretation alike. Archaeology is no exception to the double-edged sword that is the 21st century web, as the opening of museum collections, the ability to conduct armchair “surveys” via tools like Google Earth, unfettered access to uncontextualized images via simple Web search, and similar developments have combined to confront a new generation of avocational and aspiring archaeologists with myriad explanations and interpretations of artifacts, archaeological data, and history writ large. While certainly – and literally! – not a deus ex machina, the rise of the MOOC (both in its traditional definition as “massive open online course,” and in its growing use as a repository for massively-accessible online content) may help counter this current state of affairs by providing a structured mechanism for professionals across the academy to reach, interact with, educate, and learn from an ever-growing online audience. This is of particular importance for archaeology, a field in which standards of conduct and interpretation are keys to sound and ethical practice. The open, inclusive nature of MOOC-based learning experiences can allow them to compete with similarly free and open sources of information about archaeological topics that are broadly accessible on the public Internet. Further, in the MOOC environment, experts leading open online learning experiences can draw in new participants, while simultaneously ensuring that the facts, techniques, and practices conveyed in their particular learning experience represent accurate scholarly interpretation and understanding, as well as the most up-to-date professional standards and methods. Successful participants, in turn, may go on to serve as international and intercultural hubs from which accurate, professionally-conveyed information can flow outward to various peripheries, while at the same time the multicultural nature of MOOC audiences may also serve as a mechanism for improving the professional practice of archaeology, in part by creating a feedback loop via which practitioners can be exposed to viewpoints and cultural interpretations that might not be commonly considered. While distance education is not a new phenomenon by any means, the combination of open learning opportunities and 21st century technologies has allowed “non-traditional” education to take a decidedly non-traditional turn of its own. New technologies and techniques allow learners to be provided with interactive experiences, while teachers can be provided the ability to keep their fingers on the pulse of the participant collective, ensuring that knowledge and understanding are being effectively communicated to the community of learners, and that the feedback loop between participants and practitioners remains firmly in place. This paper considers the role of MOOCs in this “new academy,” with two open learning experiences offered by HarvardX/edX in 2013 serving as case studies to evaluate and demonstrate the opportunity presented by the MOOC phenomenon not only to engage students online, but to take steps toward creating a true worldwide community of practice.

In 1920, a small wooden ship model was discovered in a shallow tomb in Gurob, near the Faiyum oasis in Middle Egypt. Incorrectly assembled (twice) but perceptively labeled as a “Pirate Boat” by the overseer of its excavation, Flinders Petrie, the model was paired in antiquity with a pavois and a wheeled cart, likely signifying its use as a cultic object. Following two brief mentions by Petrie (in 1927 and 1933), the model was largely forgotten until the turn of the millennium, when it was “rediscovered” in the Petrie Egyptological Museum and published by in 2013 by Shelley Wachsmann, who recognized the small model as representing a Helladic oared galley of the type known from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.

The galley’s introduction was a critical inflection point in the history of ship architecture, as its design allowed for unprecedented freedom of movement on the seas. Adopted around the Eastern Mediterranean, the Helladic galley ultimately spawned both the Phoenician bireme and Greek dieres, and its use was critical to these cultures’ Iron Age exploration, expansion, and colonization. The Gurob model, which dates between the mid-13th and mid-11th centuries BCE, is the most complete three-dimensional evidence we have for this important vessel type, as well as the only polychromatic representation found to date. As such, it confirms much that has been theorized about these vessels, while also providing new evidence for their construction and adornment, including the use of color – a facet of Mycenaean seafaring that had only previously been accessible in Homeric epithets like μἐλας ‘black’ and κυανόπρῳρος ‘dark-prowed’, as well as the less-well-understood μιλτοπάρῃος ‘red-cheeked’ and φοινικοπάρῃος ‘purple-cheeked’ descriptors. The latter are only used in the Homeric epics to identify the vessels of Odysseus, and the uniquely polychromatic nature of the Gurob ship-cart allows to understand them much more fully than in the past.

This lecture discusses the Gurob model and its significance for our understanding of Mycenaean seafaring and Homeric ship descriptions, and includes three-dimensional representations, composed by the Institute for the Visualization of History, of this ship-cart model as discovered and as reconstructed. Additionally, the design, spread, and influences of the Helladic oared galley are discussed in their internationalist Eastern Mediterranean context, with particular emphasis on framing Odysseus’ maritime to Egypt, vividly recounted in the hero’s ‘second Cretan Lie,’ within the larger context of the epic’s fictive date in the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition.

The tumultuous transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean was marked by a change in the iconography of warriors and warfare, particularly in Egypt and in the Aegean world. It is also at this time that the Helladic oared galley makes its first appearance, where it is used as an instrument of naval warfare in the first true sea battles in recorded history. This paper investigates these earliest representations of naval combat, with a special emphasis on the appearance and employment of new maritime technology and its effect on maritime operations and naval warfare. Also considered are what modes of fighting were utilized in, and what changes had to be made to adapt to, this earliest form of ship-based combat.

While the “Second Cretan Lie” of Odyssey xix 199–359 and xvii 417–44 is presented as fictional tales within Homer’s larger myth, some elements have striking analogs in Late Bronze–Early Iron Age reality. This thesis examines these portions of the hero’s false ainos within their fictive context for the purpose of identifying and evaluating those elements. Particular focus is given to Odysseus’ declaration that he led nine successful maritime raids prior to the Trojan War; to his twice–described ill–fated assault on Egypt; and to his claim not only to have been spared in the wake of that Egyptian raid, but to have spent a subsequent seven years in the land of the pharaohs, during which he gathered great wealth. Through a comparative examination of literary and archaeological evidence from the Late Bronze–Early Iron transition in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is shown that these aspects of Odysseus’ stories are not only reflective of the historical reality surrounding the time in which the epic is set, but that Odysseus’ fictive experience is remarkably similar to that of one specific member of the ‘Sea Peoples’ groups best known from 19th and 20th dynasty Egyptian records: the ‘Sherden of the Sea.’

CB22x: The Ancient Greek Hero, was offered as a HarvardX course in Spring 2013 on edX, a platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs). It was taught by Professor Greg Nagy. The report was prepared by researchers external to the course team, based on examination of the courseware, analyses of the data collected by the edX platform, and interviews and consultations with the course faculty and team members.