This book is part of a series featuring selections of ‘50 finds’, linked either by county of discovery or period, from those recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) since its establishment in 1997. Set up to document archaeological objects discovered by the public, which would otherwise go unrecorded, the PAS covers both England and Wales, but not Scotland.

After an introductory chapter on ‘The Portable Antiquities Scheme and Roman Britain’, the book is divided into seven thematic chapters: ‘Roman power in objects’; ‘Worshipping the gods’; ‘Luck and magic’; ‘Dressing the body’; ‘Styling the body’; ‘On the road’; and ‘Beautiful homes’. Each chapter starts with a short, two-page, introduction and then features seven PAS finds related to the theme of the chapter, with the last chapter, ‘Beautiful homes’, getting the extra object to bring the number up to 50. The book ends with a page of further reading and online resources.

In chapter 1, in less than three pages, the authors manage to introduce the PAS, highlight the dominance of Roman material among the reported finds (c. 625,000 of the 1.42 million finds recorded, as of June 2019), give an outline of Roman Britain and the key aspects of its material culture, explain the concept of ‘small finds’ and even discuss reasons for collection bias in the finds recorded by PAS. It is a remarkable piece of succinct but accessible writing and would be a useful source of inspiration for anyone needing to introduce any of these subjects to a general audience. The same quality of writing continues in the introductions to the thematic chapters.

While 50 objects are officially featured, many more finds are referred to in the text and illustrated, as each ‘featured object’ is supported by at least one related piece. The featured objects are each described, and discussed in a wider context, with the supporting objects reinforcing points and ideas. Excavated finds are occasionally used as these supporting objects, but the vast majority are also from the PAS, further highlighting the strength of this now vast database. The supporting objects are generally a nice additional example, or a logical expansion of the story, but occasionally, particularly in the chapter on ‘Roman power in objects’, the connection does feel a little forced. This apparent insistence on the implementation of a strict format does also produce a couple of slightly odd chapters. The separation of the objects in the ‘Luck and magic’ chapter from those in the previous chapter on ‘Worshiping the gods’ is not entirely convincing, and the fact that the introduction to the ‘Luck and magic’ chapter starts by referencing the last object in the previous chapter suggests the authors are aware of this. Shoehorning writing into the chapter entitled ‘On the road’ also feels rather contrived.

The illustrations, which one would expect to be the highlight of such a volume, are unfortunately its weakness. Most of the problems would seem to come from a lack of control of the sizing of the illustrations, whether photographs or drawings. The size of any particular image appears to have been driven solely by the space available on the page. Little or no consideration seems to have been given to the actual size of the objects being illustrated or the resolution of the source image. Most noticeable are the instances where the source image has clearly been over enlarged; the drawing of an oil flask swivel (p. 72) is possibly the worst case, but it is not alone. There are also a few instances where the image of the featured object is sadly small: particularly notable cases are the Crosby Garrett helmet (p. 20) and the Old Carlisle tombstone (p. 21). These are also examples of a wider peculiarity: quite frequently the illustration of the featured object is smaller than those of the supporting objects. While the images of the featured objects have a length or height noted in their captions, no indication of size is given for the supporting objects.

The authors should be commended for presenting a book aimed at a general readership that manages to provide such a mass of information in such a succinct and accessible form. Unfortunately, however, the production of the book has not done full justice to the work of the authors.