It didn’t take long. I reclined, alone, in the ever popular Coptic Guest House in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter. David Abulafia’s heavy tome on the Mediterranean Sea began bobbing above my head. It sank to my chest, then to the floor. Overwhelmed by the obscurities of Luwian hieroglyphs and two weeks of pilgrim responsibilities, I slipped beneath the waves, a human Akrotiri. I was exhausted. Darkness fell.