A recent re-examination of the architectural and other sculpted stone fragments from Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) drew attention to the small sandstone column on which is scored an ogham inscription. The commonest materials used for columns, capitals and ornamental sculpture at Silchester are the fine Jurassic limestones of Bath or Portland type. A very few pieces are carved intertiary sandstones or imported marble. This is the pattern for architectural masonry throughout southern England in the Roman period; limestone predominates and sandstone, usually greensand, is rare. On visual examination the particular stone with the ogham appears to be different from that of the other architectural fragments in the Silchester collection. It should also be noted that no similar material has so far been identified in the city wall or amongst any of the other ordinary building materials recovered from the Roman town. On the basis of visual examination alone it has been suggested that the stone originated from the calcareous grit of the Oxfordshire Corallian (Boon 1959, 87), but doubts about this identification led us to a more searching investigation to ascertain the character and source of the stone. Before introducing these analyses and their results it will be useful to summarize our present knowledge of the Silchester ogham. In this way the implications of the new results can be more satisfactorily appreciated.

So declares the new introduction to the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia (MAC), in Barcelona. It is too modest. The collection is big. It concentrates on Catalonia and its culture area but there are finds from further afield, notably Bronze Age Argaric material. Extensive space is devoted to the late prehistory of the Balearic Islands, a magnificent collection from the Greek and Roman site of Empúries (Ampurias, ancient Emporium, Emporiae), and to the late prehistoric 'Iberian' culture, including the Tivissa treasure. There is also a good collection of Visigothic material. To the visitor from northern Europe, the museum is a reminder of how much there is to find in a country for so long heavily populated.

These three books between them nearly cover the whole effective range of British archaeology, from the gropings and fumblings of medieval monks to the era of pollen analysis and radio-carbon. There is a gap of nearly a century, however, between the death of Stukeley in 1765 and the beginning of Dr Daniel's hundred years. That is the unfortunate but inevitable result of adopting the rigid yard-stick of a century for measuring what in fact is the growth of living knowledge.

Apparent deficiencies in Irish legislation for the protection of archaeology have been much commented on (e.g. ANTIQUITY 62: 4–5); here, the Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum points also to some of its strengths – for example, in protecting artefacts and non-artefactual material as well as sites and monuments – and explains the vigorous measures now taken to bring the law and the penalties up to date.