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A University of Cincinnati scholar and the Penn Museum have joined 50 animal-skin fragments into a double-sided page from a late-fourth-century Roman legal text. The Latin manuscript discusses taxation and public infrastructure but does not match any previously known imperial legal code.
Seventeen fragments reused in early modern administrative bindings provide the first substantial evidence of medieval books and reading on Guernsey. Six are written in French, including a rare passage from a dramatic Griselda poem that survives in only one other manuscript.
DNA recovered from three pottery fragments indicates that people at the Etowah Mounds consumed cacao during the 11th and 12th centuries. The finding provides evidence of cacao use east of the Mississippi River and points to connections with regions where the tropical plant grew.
Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have developed a heating-based method that distinguishes magnetism acquired when clay was fired from a later magnetic signal. Tests found that pottery more than 1,000 years old retained the later signal until temperatures exceeded 112°C, while modern samples lost it at lower temperatures.
Researchers analyzed 28 paint samples from 14 Egyptian artifacts dated from 1425 B.C. to A.D. 400. Cattle collagen was the most common binding material, while proteins from other animals and plants indicate a broader range of ingredients in ancient paint adhesives.
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