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ON THE COVER: An enigmatic collection of artifacts, including this 3/4-inch bronze figure of a woman’s head, together with a unique array of architectural remains, initially baffled the excavators of el-Ahwat (“the Walls” in Arabic), a settlement in north central Israel that dates to Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.E.). Tracking down who had built el-Ahwat led excavators to Sardinia. In “Philistine Kin Found in Early Israel,” dig director Adam Zertal suggests that the link between ancient Israel and Sardinia is the Shardana, a tribe of Sea Peoples (the Philistines were another tribe) who streamed into the eastern Mediterranean basin in 1500–1200 B.C.E. Zertal also thinks that Shardana warriors played a critical role in the battle chronicled in Judges 4 and 5, in which Deborah and Barak hastily assembled an army of Israelite tribesmen to face the invading army of the general Sisera.