This small project was initiated to create a broader understanding of the working properties of sarsen and its challenges. This notoriously durable coarse-grained sandstone is most familiarly associated with the Phase 3 monument at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, although its exploitation persisted into the twentieth century. Discussion has focused on the probable methods employed in prehistory to work the stone: splitting, flaking and pecking. These techniques have rarely been applied in practice, but have been considered broadly in this project. The preliminary results, obtained from a single block of saccharoidal sarsen, have reawakened understanding and appreciation of the potential provided by shock waves to split and shape this intractable silicate successfully and repeatedly using direct percussion, techniques that were familiar to Neolithic communities to work flint. The flaking properties of the stone are considered together with attributes of hammer mode in comparison with data from prehistoric stone assemblages at Stonehenge. The discussion questions to what extent flaking could be controlled repeatedly to form a major part of monolith production. Results derived from the laborious nature of pecking supplement previous attempts to recreate dressed surfaces at Stonehenge. Efficiency was not improved by applying heat to the surface of the stone; indeed, it confirmed that uncontrolled, excessive heat shatters the structure of sarsen, rendering it unworkable.

This paper examines clothing depicted in the portraits painted on the walls of the tombs of elites at various settlements in Campania and Lucania in southwest Italy in the fourth century BC, as it provides important information on sartorial appearances and self-perception, especially in view of the dearth of textiles and lack of textual sources. It investigates the interconnected relationship between dress behaviour, ethnic identity and social status among independent Italic groups in the region in this century, a time of political and cultural tensions triggered by Rome’s aggressive expansion of its territorial control. The images, as well as the material culture from grave assemblages, indicate that people expressed who they thought they were through clothing and dress accessories and that this happened on a local basis rather than on a large scale or ‘national’ level. It was predominantly women who were expressing group belonging through specific garments and styles, headdresses, colours and patterns. These images painted for perpetuity offer us a precious window on dress behaviour and they suggest that women were the primary bearers of small-scale community identities in funerary representation and in life in this period of political and social change.

Discussions of the Gallo-Roman dodecahedron often note the significance of the dodecahedron in Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy, but they tend not to relate the archaeology to the textual evidence in any detail. We attempt to do that in this paper. We argue that, whilst it remains the case that there is no contemporaneous description of the Gallo-Roman dodecahedron, there are several texts – including an overlooked passage in Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean Life – that point to its possible inspiration. We relate these texts to the location of dodecahedra in Gaul and Britain and to the interest of the Druids in Pythagoras, which was frequently remarked upon by Roman commentators.

The article aims to shed new light on the voices of bereaved benefactors: slaves, freedmen and freedwomen, who are often marginalized in literary and monumental sources, by exploring a series of unpublished funerary inscriptions from Rome, currently in storage at the Museo Nazionale Romano. Editions of the text, translations and commentaries have been produced by young scholars from the British School at Rome (former participants of the BSR Postgraduate Course in Epigraphy). Their entries, edited by Abigail Graham (Institute for Classical Studies, University of London, British School at Rome) and Silvia Orlandi (La Sapienza, President of the Association Internationale d’ Epigraphie Grecque et Latine), are an exciting and unique opportunity to view inscriptions through a different lens: from scholars with diverse backgrounds and interests (history, archaeology, epigraphy, as well as linguistics), including postgraduates and academics. Careful consideration of text, appearance and context presents an array of voices and audiences as well as poignant messages that transcend time and space through a common experience: grief. By incorporating interdisciplinary scholars in the editorial process, we aim to provide and promote uniquely accessible epigraphic discussions that reflect the broader impact and significance of epitaphs as texts, images and emotive experiences.

In this article, we report new marine reservoir age correction (ΔR) values from the Marine20 calibration for the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait over the past 6700 cal BP, derived from 14C and U-Th ages of Holocene corals. Since secondary calcite from diagenetic processes can influence coral 14C ages, we developed a pretreatment protocol that ensures low calcite content (<1%, 0.8±0.2%) using a combination of thorough physical cleaning and repeated XRD measurements. We compare our new measurements with published ΔR values from the region, recalculated to conform to the Marine20 dataset. The results show larger temporal variation (∼300 yr) in ΔR from 5500 to 6700 cal BP for the Penghu Islands and ∼400 yr variability at several SCS sites from 5500 to 8200 cal BP. Relatively smaller ΔR variability is observed from 0–5500 cal BP: ∼220 yr in the Penghu Islands and ∼320 yr for South China Sea sites. The weighted mean ΔR value of –155±59 14C yr for the past 5500 cal BP is determined as the marine reservoir age correction around Taiwan and northeastern SCS, and this value is consistent with modern values inherited from the North Equatorial Current, the upstream source of the Kuroshio Current that feeds the northeastern SCS and the Taiwan Strait.

This study identifies, introduces and joins up the long lives of the geographically dispersed fragments that exist of the famed and fabled Stone of Scone/Destiny, used in inauguration and coronation of Scottish, English and British monarchs since medieval times. Based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines material culture studies and ethnographic methods, it characterises the networks in which the fragments have lived and considers what work these fragments were and are doing. It asks what difference fragmentation and the existence of fragments makes to our contemporary understanding of the meaning, values and significance of the Stone. The Stone and its considerable fragmentation evoke specific procedural and curatorial issues that invite wider reflection on the nature and role of fragments, and about private collections and their afterlives. Through the life of pieces, the study suggests, we can better understand what role social value could and should be playing in our museum and heritage practices.

In the summer of 1924, a young Neapolitan scholar, Mario di Martino Fusco, claimed to have discovered the long-lost 107 books of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, sparking an international media frenzy. Announced prematurely by his supposed ally, Francesco Ribezzo, the claim captivated the scholarly world until it was definitively debunked. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary newspaper reports and scholarly reactions, this article reconstructs the unfolding of the Livy delusion: from Martino’s initial assertion, through journalistic hysteria and academic opportunism, to the final official inquiry revealing a misreading of a fourteenth-century reference. The episode not only ruined Martino’s career but also exposed the vulnerabilities of scholarly ambition, press sensationalism and nationalist rivalries in Fascist Italy. It remains one of the most extraordinary cases of literary delusion in classical scholarship, illustrating both the enduring allure of lost texts and the dangers of credulity and pride.