Clio’s Object of the Week: A Rare Roman Glass Marbled Unguentarium, Early 1st Century AD

This week’s featured object is a lovely marbled glass bottle sometimes referred to as an unguentarium, from “unguent” meaning a salve or ointment, though in the Roman world this would most commonly have been a scented oil either for personal use or for funerary rites. Reassembled from a few large fragments, like most of its… Read More Clio’s Object of the Week: A Rare Roman Glass Marbled Unguentarium, Early 1st Century AD

Sensationalist Reporting and the Antiquities Trade: If it’s in Print it Must be True!

A BBC online feature entitled “The men who smuggle the loot that funds IS”, 16 February, 2015, opens with the following remarkable claim: “The trade in antiquities is one of Islamic State’s main sources of funding, along with oil and kidnapping.” At no point in the dozen or so paragraphs that follow does author Simon… Read More Sensationalist Reporting and the Antiquities Trade: If it’s in Print it Must be True!