Conference in Venice

From Bob Lister, a message about the conference called Meeting the Challenge: Bringing Classical Texts to Life in the Classroom. Click the thumbnails to read the flyers.

I realise that the Venice conference starts the day the ARLT summer school finishes but I hope we will be able to pick up a few Arelates.

As I said at the Refresher Day I am part of a delegation going to see the Schools Minister, Jim Knight, in the middle of April to discuss, inter alia, recruitment and retention of classics teachers. If any of the regular visitors to your blog have had problems recruiting classics staff (or have other issues they would like to have raised) I would be delighted to hear from them. They can email me directly at RLL20@cam.ac.uk.

Mary Beard on house of Augustus

Mary Beard has blogged on the newly-opened House of Augustus in Rome. As you would expect, she is rather more informative than the Daily Mail on Augustus and his modest taste in dwellings. Worth a look.

She points the reader to her Sunday Times piece that I noted here.

Roman ruins found at Wansford

From Peterborough Today

AN “EXCEPTIONAL” ancient Roman site has been discovered in woodland near Peterborough.
Despite numerous digs and excavations across the region over the past two centuries, the huge site, hidden deep in woods at Bedford Purlieus, had miraculously gone unnoticed.

Early work has only scratched the surface of the Roman remains, but indications have left experts stunned by how well preserved the remains, of what appears to be a building of some importance, are.

Forestry Commission District Operations Manager, Hugh Manall said: “It's unusual for us to find a site of this significance that we didn't realise was there. Generally, sites as good as this are known about.”

Experts believe the remains at the site, just off the A47 at Wansford, near Peterborough, probably date back to between the second and fourth centuries AD.

Excavations have been taking place at three areas in the woods thanks to funding from Augean Ltd's landfill tax and Peterborough City Council.
City council archeologist Ben Robinson described the find as “exceptional”.

He said: “I've not seen a Roman building as well preserved as this. The work we have done has shown we have got a building of quite some importance, with all the features of a high-status Roman site. This was something big and impressive.”

Luxuries included in the building were heating and paintings hung on the wall.

Read the rest, with pictures