We can see Latin, scratched into the book’s wax 700-800 years ago. What is it? This well-preserved medieval ‘notebook’ dates to the 13th or 14th century. Measuring 10cm by 7.5cm, the book comprises ten wooden tablets covered in wax –…
REVIEW BY AB We have so many written and pictorial records created between 1500 and the present day that it might be supposed that artefacts from this time are of less importance than for earlier periods. Laura Burnett and Rob…
Even reputable observers like Pliny the Younger often ended up at the mercy of the competence of later scribes. As his writings only survive as copies, it may be no more than a scribal slip of the hand that immortalised August as the month when Pompeii met its fate.
Excavations in the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey have uncovered the remains of early Byzantine shops and businesses. Archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) working this year in Domitian Square, next to the Upper Agora, focused their…
A new exhibition in Florence examines what life was like for the young sons and daughters of gods, emperors, and ordinary mortals in ancient Rome. Dalu Jones explores what the ancient art on view reveals about attitudes towards children.
Writing a book about the history of a Roman town in Britain is not an easy task. To create a readable and balanced account, an author has to contend with various levels of knowledge, inevitably glossing over or filling in…