Top 50 Reasons to Love Vindolanda (B.) Birley, (E.M.) Greene, Pp. 96, b/w & colour ills, colour map. Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2024. Paper, £15.99. ISBN: 978-1-3981-1658-0.

Do you ever find yourself clicking on a top 10 list on social media?You probably clicked it because you already know a good bit about that particular topic.You really do not need to read it, but you just want to see if the list writer got it right.When the writer gets it wrong, it gives you fodder for complaints that you promptly express to other readers and commenters on that list.When the list-writer gets it right, it is sheer perfection, to be shared and reshared with like-minded groups and fans.That is what Birley and Greene's new book on Vindolanda feels like.They got it so right, and it is not just 10, but 50 amazing objects to obsess over.For over 50 years now, the multi-layered archaeological site of Vindolanda, an ancient Roman fort and town just south of Hadrian's Wall, has yielded countless stunning artefacts from the daily lives of soldiers and their families living on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire.These objects have stories to tell about the people who made them, used them, lived with them, loved them, and discarded them.Many of these objects have the marks of their makers still on them, making the items come alive with imagined stories of their owners' lives.On every page, the book contains clear, colour photographs of the artefacts and detailed descriptions of their size, archaeological period, significance, and location of discovery.Although the authors include a helpful bibliography, an index listing all the objects and their corresponding pages would have been useful as well.However, since the book is slender, paging through it to find a particular object is not an onerous task.The authors could have organized the book as a simple list, but they rightly give it more structure by dividing the objects into groups of related artefacts that allow the reader a more nuanced understanding of them.In addition, they break up dense material that could have been a long introduction into tiny essays that introduce each chapter.A brilliant decision!Chapter 1 focusses on the fort, the army, and its soldiers, spotlighting a leather marching boot, a slinger's finger guard, sling pouch, bullets, and even a sword.But the most notable item from this chapter is a wooden writing tablet that states the size of the population at Vindolanda, an invaluable tool in studying the ancient fort.Chapter 2 spotlights women and children who lived at the fort.It features the famous birthday party invitation, a wooden tablet written in part by a Roman woman named Claudia Severa.