While there have been a number of inquiries into agricultural production and amphora manufacture, discussion of the relationship between the two remains limited. A recent article by A. Bevan that examines the history of ‘containerization’ in the Mediterranean from the early Bronze Age to the 20th c. A.D. illustrates one side. It focuses on different manifestations of containers, emphasizing their cultural impact over the whole history of civilization in the region. While underscoring the importance of these transport vessels as packaging, particularly for liquid commodities, he provides limited consideration of the mechanisms behind the goods moving into these containers. Studies concerned with agricultural production are also on the rise, but scholars often limit the focus to amphorae. For instance, in analyzing capital investment in large-scale farms, A. Marzano commented:

Until recently, the late-antique castellum of Can Blai (also known as Can Pins) has not received the attention it deserves. Located in Sant Ferran de ses Roques in the centre of the small Mediterranean island of Formentera (Balearic Islands) (fig. 1), the fort was built at the highest (25 m asl) and narrowest point of the isthmus that joins the two major areas of higher ground, Puig Guillem on the north (107 m asl) and La Mola in the south (192 m asl). The fort lies c.600 m from the E shore and c.900 m from the W shore. In 1975, the Swedish resident R. Sternberg mentioned its existence to the second-named author, here, who was then director of the Archaeological Museum of Ibiza and Formentera. Fernández undertook archaeological investigations (1979, 1980) which documented the site and the form of the fort. The fieldwork did not result in full reports, but it was mentioned in a general publication on this island and in accounts of the heritage of the Pityusic Islands.

A monumental tomb has been discovered at Pompeii in the Stabian Gate area during renovation work on a public building, constructed in the early 19th c., that currently houses the offices of the Archaeological Park. The tomb is part of a necropolis that developed alongside an important gate in the S sector of the city walls. In this area, 19th-c. investigations brought to light the gate as well as a section of paved road and two schola tombs in grey tuff, set directly on the left side of those leaving the city, on public ground and therefore authorised by the ordo decurionum (fig, 1). The first of the tombs is that of Marcus Tullius, a prominent figure in Pompeian society known for the dedication of the Temple of Fortuna Augusta; the second belongs to the duumvir Marcus Alleius Minius. Research was first conducted here by A. Maiuri, then again in the period 2001-2 when an additional stretch of paved road and two tombs on its right side were brought to light. The new, ongoing excavation, launched in 2016 to consolidate the foundations of the 19th-c. building but complicated by that building's looming presence, led to the rediscovery of a monumental tomb which had actually been found, partially excavated and robbed at the moment of the construction of the 19th-c. building.

In the Greek world, the practice of decorating walls with painted stucco emerged in the 5th or 4th c. B.C. and was at first limited to public and religious monuments and the palaces of rulers, later spreading to the houses of the aristocracy. In the homes of the nobility, painted decoration enhanced the ornamentation of rooms used for receiving visitors, such as the dining room (andron), in which the floors were sometimes decorated with mosaics, most often with geometric motifs. In the wealthiest abodes, as seen at Pella in the 4th c. B.C., Alexandria, or on Delos in the 2nd c. B.C., a mosaic picture called an emblema sometimes lay at the centre of the mosaic. In the realm of domestic art, in the Hellenistic age images were restricted to the mosaic floors. The walls were ornamented with architectural elements that imitated, in stucco relief, the fashions that could be seen in the masonry and marble veneers of temples and palaces. This type of décor, established in the homes of Greek nobility throughout the Hellenistic era, is traditionally known as the masonry style or incrustation style.

The only three surviving frescoes from the Roman world to depict a series of episodes from Homer's Iliad in continuous frieze format are all found on a single street in Pompeii. They were published in 1953 in V. Spinazzola's Pompei alla luce degli scavi nuovi di Via dell’Abbondanza (anni 1910-1923), vol. 2, under the editorship of S. Aurigemma, whose detailed descriptions and interpretation of the iconography and epigraphy have remained largely unchallenged. Relatively poorly preserved, they exhibit a puzzling interplay between their iconography, epigraphy and the Homeric text, and even the chronology of the epic itself. Each of the Iliad friezes, like the Odyssey frescoes in the Vatican Museums, in parts reflect close adherence to the text of their respective epics, yet each contains details which do not derive from the Homeric account: some alter it in subtle ways, noticeable only to those who know their Homer well, but there are also extra-Homeric figural scenes and painted epigraphy in the form of labels which, although traditionally considered to be errors made by an ill-educated artist or even evidence of the use of hypotheses of the Iliad and Odyssey, must derive from some external source. This paper seeks to show that in the Iliad frieze of the Casa di D. Octavius Quartio it may be possible to establish the source of the extra-Homeric insertions: the details appear to refer not only to the erudite realm of Homeric epic, but also to the thrill and violence of contemporary arenas.

In a series of studies about settlement density in the Rhine area from protohistoric to modern times, K.-P. Wendt and A. Zimmermann try their hand at the difficult task of evaluating the palaeodemography of a region. Their task is all the more complex because these are times and spaces for which written sources are lacking, as a result of which reasoning relies very broadly on interpretation of the archaeological record. The two researchers also attempt to characterize the density of rural settlements and their spatial distribution. I shall not dally on the methods employed, which involve quite complex statistics and geomatics (anyway, they lie outside my area of scientific competence), and shall take the figures at face value, even if I might question some of them. I shall contemplate the economic impact of population growth on the countryside of Gaul in Imperial times. It is a subject that has often been addressed, but one which I intend to reconsider in the context of a European programme on this issue. The relationship between population numbers, agricultural yield, gross domestic product and taxation has certainly been one key to our understanding of the Roman economy ever since the model suggested by K. Hopkins. Here, however, I do not wish to proceed in terms of theory, but intend to review critically the archaeological sources, which, for want of written evidence, are our mainspring for evaluating the key components of economic development on the regional scale of NE Gaul.

The mosaic carpets decorating Palestinian synagogues in late antiquity took various forms but tend to focus on three recurring visual themes: the zodiac, a motif with origins in Greco-Roman religious art; the Jerusalem Temple, long in ruins but still very much alive in the Jewish imagination; and the Biblical story, often classics and easily identifiable to those well-versed in scripture. The latter was the programmatic focus of the frescoes of the Dura Europos synagogue and would maintain hegemony in episodic art on synagogue floors through late antiquity. The paradigm was thought to have shifted in 2013-14 when excavations at Huqoq uncovered a mosaic panel featuring war elephants that was claimed to portray the first extra-Biblical scene ever found in an ancient synagogue. Huqoq was a thriving Jewish village in the Late Roman period. Its basilica-type synagogue was paved twice with mosaic, the earlier of which is better preserved and includes the “elephant panel”. Most of the rest of the floor has not been fully published, although news releases and preliminary reports mention them and assign the floor a date in the 5th c. The floor does include well-known Biblical scenes along with a zodiac panel and two undated dedicatory inscriptions with decorative framing elements that include putti.