After 58 days, a great deal of mouse clicking and a lot of concentration the waiting is over. A total of 247 people attempted the jigsaw with only twenty two managing to complete the challenge. Completion times ranged from under eight mins to 3 1/2 hours. The winning entry came from Richard Flower from the University of Sheffield with an impressive completion time of 7 minutes and ten seconds. Richard wins a £50 books voucher and a copy of The Topography of Rome and its Vicinity. Impressively, six entrants  recorded times of less than 15 minutes, four of which completed in under 8 minutes. Five of the highest ranking runners up will each receive a copy of The City in the Roman West, c.250 BC to c.AD 250.

So, how do you rebuild Rome in under eight minutes? We asked Professor Richard Flower for his thoughts.

“I think it was useful for me to have a sense of the geography of Rome in completing the jigsaw quickly, although it took me a while to get used to it, as the map is a different way round to modern ones. I don’t think there was any real trick to winning – as people tend to do with jigsaws, I started with the edges and then tried to fill in the most distinctive features first, in this case beginning with the Tiber and working out from there. I think the competition was an interesting and fun idea, and it certainly provided a welcome distraction from finishing my book!”

About the Journals…

Cambridge Journals is proud to publish a number of leading Classics Journals which bring new research and findings to an ever widening audience. Since 2011 we have been privileged to publish the Papers of the British School at Rome (PBSR), a leading journal devoted to research about Italy and Rome from a wide range of disciplines. It contains articles on the entire period from prehistory to the contemporary, and with important archaeological news, including the latest discoveries in the city of Rome. A cropped section of the image used in the jigsaw was used as the cover photo of the 2011 Volume of PBSR. If you’d like to stay up-to-date with Cambridge Classics journals you can sign up for electronic table-of-content alerts here. The British School at Rome also publish a book series. Find out more about the forthcoming publication in the series by Mark Bradley Rome, Pollution and Propriety.

About the books…

The Topography of Rome and its Vicinity was originally published in 1834 and has been reissued in two volumes as part of the Cambridge Library Collection. The work accompanies a map, downloadable here, and provides alphabetical entries on all sites in Rome and its environs, with their modern names and populations, and their significance in ancient history and literature. Volume 2 also contains essays on the history and languages of ancient Italy. Find out more about Cambridge Library Collection books in Archaeology here.

The City in the Roman West is an up-to-date and well-illustrated synthesis which provides students and specialists with an overview of the development of the city in Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Spain and North Africa, whether their interests lie in ancient history, Roman archaeology or the wider history of urbanism. It accounts not only for the city’s geographical and temporal spread and its associated monuments (such as amphitheatres and baths), and also for its importance to the rulers of the Empire as well as the provincials and locals.

 What the runners up said

I had great fun; hopefully you will have more competitions like this one… it keeps people interested on all things related to the Classics (Jorge Perreira)

Many thanks, so close and yet so far!  I like jigsaws and doing one online I found quite addictive! I’d like to think that it was a more educational way to spend my time than playing angry birds on my mobile! (Clare Roberts)

I relished the puzzle and will savor my prize (Hunter Baines)

The competition was great fun and what a novel idea. Winning a book for taking a study break? What a great idea! (Sarah Hendriks)