Archaeologica.org

Difficult to see the point. Perhaps the money could be better spent researching what it was actually for ie what actually was it used for most of the time - Mary Beard and others have worked out that it was not used for games for much of its existence

Particularly in the UK where nearly any secluded urban space serves as an informal lavatory and garbage tip.

Always alarming to learn there was no easy way to change the bathwater and apparently nothing to prevent those with open sores using the pools

There was a documentary on this. It focused in part on how some people's heads had exploded due to the vaporisation of their brains. There was even a graphic for those who didn't know what an exploding human cranium might look like. This was followed by a BM exhibition which included a family group ...

Is it not true that most of the skeletons on the Herculaneum sea front are male - leading to the assumption that they were trying to secure boats for their women and children sheltering in the boat sheds

Middens in Oz are usually cited near the coast and largely consist of discarded shells

Of course Dorothy's dog in the Wizard of Oz was called Toto, one wondered where Walt had learned Swahili. I was told it meant young child and was not a pejorative, my brother was described as such

Interesting stuff. One day in the distant future there will be a remarkable find in Egypt which is not compared to Tutankhamun's tomb.

All seems a bit spooky but if the dead can apparently move glasses around a table no reason they can post comments.

When you overthrow a democratically elected government, kill thousands, institute a regime of state torture and murder (young women a speciality) on a regular basis with the West winking all the while and pouring in subsidies, this is the sort of thing that is likely to happen. I wouldn't visit Sisi...

Hmmm that wouldn't be when ordinary Egyptians attacked the fanatics with their bare hands and saved several valuable white lives at a cost to their own. In stark contrast to the US/Russian armed and paid for brave Egyptian military (free and violent virginity tests for all female suspects) who turne...

Maybe they can do something for the impoverished Egyptian people, as they never did during life.

It is an interesting issue. It partly comes from the idea that apart from the Romans (and the Greeks) the only people who achieved anything in the world were white westerners. Whole books were written on Zimbabwe trying to identify who its mysterious builders must have been (phoenicians, israelites ...

Fermented bitter porridge for everyone!

Just had the dates for this year's dig at Vindolanda confirmed. According to Anthony Birley big things are expected this year. Volunteers are apparently lining up so they have arranged for two extra seasons. Can't decide to take a slot at the beginning when they re breaking new ground, or at the end...