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The 35th volume of the ASLU series develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down projections of modern definitions and understandings of Egypt and Egyptian material culture onto the Roman world. "Egypt beyond representation" instead argues that these artefacts should be studied in their own right, without reducing them from the onset to fixed (Egyptian) meanings. Starting from a novel focus on the materials and materiality of a selection of stone Aegyptiaca from Rome, and by combining archaeological and archaeometric perspectives, this study shows that, while 'Egyptianness' may have been among Roman associations, these objects were able to do much more than merely representing notions of Egypt.Sander Müskens is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at Leiden University.

Tulou are traditional fortified multifamily dwellings prevalent in southern Fujian. In this 34st volume of the ASLU series Renyu Wang discusses three aspects of Chinese tulou heritage management. He first examines the tulou interpretation prevailing in southern Fujian. Based on building studies, oral history, genealogies and interviews, Wang tries to reconstruct a relatively complete landscape biography to describe the essential episodes of built environment evolution in the Hekeng River Valley. This biography highlights the part non-tulou architecture and non-agricultural economic forms have played in the evolution of the settlement environment. It then discusses the regulations and laws which may have direct impact on not only the built heritage but also the life of local lineage society and criticizes the harsh control of the local government over local people's built heritage and their environment in the name of heritage preservation. Further, Wang examines the roles of different stakeholders in the heritage framework concerning the use of local people's built heritage. And finally he explores the possibility of reaching equilibrium among all the heritage players in the form of contracts, and offers some suggestions to the stakeholders getting involved in the tulou management issues.Renyu Wang majored in linguistics and cultural studies (BA) in mainland China and obtained his Master's degree in cultural heritage studies from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). He has worked in various positions in the fields of archaeological heritage management.

How is it possible that three playwrights in the early modern Dutch Republic wrote dramas based on contemporary political events in Asia? Reflecting on this remarkable phenomenon, "Staging Asia" traces the passage of the stories surrounding three political revolutions from seventeenth-century Asia through to the Dutch Republic and their ultimate manifestation as dramas. This book explores the nature of the representation of the Orient in these plays and evaluates how this characterization was influenced by the channels that these dramatists relied on to gather information for their works. As these dramas exhibit strong connections to the Dutch East India Company, this work additionally examines the role of that enterprise in disseminating information on Asia and producing imagery about the Orient. Manjusha Kuruppath received her PhD from the Department of History, University of Leiden. Her research interests include literary history, history of the Dutch East India Company and early modern Asian history.

This volume focuses on reconstructing the daily lives of Bronze Age farmers as well as the landscape for their subsistence practices. Doing so, Wild West Frisia analyses the separate components comprising Bronze Age subsistence (i.e. crop and animal husbandry, hunting and gathering) rather innovatively: instead of summarizing the known data for each subsistence strategy and drawing conclusions solely based on these observations, this study first determines what may have been present yet perhaps is no longer visible. Contrasting this expectation with the actual archaeological data reveals missing elements, findings for which include recognizing that wild resource exploitation was perhaps equally if not more vital to farming life than crop and animal husbandry. Comparing the case-study area of West Frisia, the Netherlands, with north-west European coastal communities in general, local variation appears to be a consistent feature of Bronze Age farming. It can in fact be regarded as a common feature of subsistence during this time. Yvonne F. van Amerongen is a palaeo-ecologist at the archaeological company EARTH in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

Over the past decade the Middle East has undergone huge geopolitical shifts, including widespread war and violence, the collapse of numerous regimes, a changing American role, a restored Russian presence, and the emergence of ISIS. In this book Graham Fuller addresses the character of these shifts and how they will shape the future of this tumultuous region as well as the role of major outside powers.Fuller firstly focuses on Shari'a law and its appropriate role, if any, in the politics and governance of the Muslim world, thereby further exploring why identity may be the most important factor in examining Middle East politics today. Next he addresses the current Shi'ite-Sunni conflict, not simply by scrutinizing the essentially theological approach found in most Western analysis but also through better understanding the many more extra-religious factors behind the scenes. Finally the author claims that the appearance of ISIS has stretched the perennial phenomenon of Political Islam to the extreme. What, then, does ISIS imply for the future of the Middle East and for Islamist movements in general, not to mention for Muslims' understanding of Islam itself?Graham E. Fuller is a former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA in charge of long-range forecasting. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for nearly two decades. He has written numerous books on Middle East politics and Islamic movements and Eurasian geopolitics, recently Turkey and the Arab Spring: Leadership in the Middle East.