These two slender volumes are recent additions to the ‘50 Finds’ series from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). Previous issues have broadly focused either on a geographical region (e.g. 50 Finds from Lincolnshire) or a particular time period (e.g. 50 Bronze Age Finds). Instead, these authors discuss multi-period finds under linked thematic headings. Each section begins with a short preamble, followed by detailed case studies of objects drawn from the Scheme’s database.
Kayt Hawkins’s look at childhood breaks the topic down into Everyday Care, Education and Work, Toys, Dolls, Soldiers and Figurines, Miniature Household Toys, Games of Chance, and Other Finds from Childhood. Ben Paites leads us through chapters on Historical Figures, The Natural World, Language and Symbols, Mythology, and Communities through the lens of non-normative or alternative expressions of gender and sexuality.
Unsurprisingly, Roman finds are well represented in these editions, given the high incidence of reporting and identification of Roman finds and their proportions on the PAS database itself. The database contains over 463,000 Roman records, almost twice the next most common periods, Medieval (c. 296,000) and post-Medieval (c. 263,000).
Hawkins discusses Roman votive miniatures, figurines and jewellery relating to children and parenting, as well as items of play and gaming. Paites brings in Roman seal matrices, coinage, fittings, jewellery, figurines and mounts to his discussion of gender fluidity in the past. Alexander the Great, Elagabalus, Hadrian and Antinous, Cybele and Attis all feature, alongside Mars, Venus and Mercury. Somewhat more tangential links include depictions of animals known for same-sex interactions (e.g. ducks and rams) and the modern usage of ancient symbolism, such as opposed crescents and the infinity symbol.
The great strength of this series is that one can easily find comparanda and additional material on the PAS database using the reference code provided for each object. For instance, I was curious to find out more about a gold protective amulet (phylactery) mentioned in passing, which was inscribed for a woman’s health in pregnancy (Hawkins, 13). The PAS code (BERK-0B6771) took me to the object record, which informed me it was one of only three such plaques known from Britain, pointed me towards similar examples and provided its current location (acquired by the British Museum after being declared Treasure).
These books are clearly not intended as academic reference works and each has only a short section on sources at the end. However, in Paites’s volume, I would have liked specific references to follow up some of his statements. For example, he paraphrases Diodorus Siculus on the subject of the sexual proclivities of British Iron Age men, but without a reference either to the original text or a translation (Paites, 8).
Being drawn from the PAS database, most objects under discussion have good-quality scale images, with supplementary representations from a variety of sources. Paites’s volume also contains some quirky black-and-white sketches which, to my eye, rather detract from the design of the book.
Overall the design, commentary and interpretation of both volumes is clear and accessible. Both are filled with fascinating facts, details and anecdotes. Paites raises interesting questions throughout about how we categorise ourselves and others, now and in the past. Hawkins’s selection highlights the vagaries of recording bias and preservation as well as the archaeology of childhood and play. The juxtaposition of Roman finds with artefacts from many different time periods, right up to the modern day, is refreshing and encourages a wider-than perspective. For the Roman purists among you, there is also John Pearce and Sally Worrell’s 2020 publication 50 Roman Finds from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, reviewed by Evan Chapman in Britannia 52, 498–9.
