One of our volunteers spotted this in one of the Institute’s lantern slide boxes and called it to our attention:
What was it that attracted his interest? Was it the little round label ‘6054’ which indicated that the slide had originally been one of Sir John Myres’ slides? Was it the beautiful map with incredible detail of ‘Latium and Campania’?
Here’s Vesuvius and the bay of Naples from the bottom of the map:
Or was it this?:
Our volunteer, Robert Petts, is a philatelist and he really knows his stamps. He tells us that this little strip of paper is a re-used edging of a sheet of 1 penny red stamps of Edward VII, printed in 1905. The ‘E’ tells you the part of the year – this sheet of stamps was printed in the first half. The ‘5’ gives you the year. So there you go – it’s amazing what you can learn in the archive when you have great volunteers.
Archaeology Archives Oxford 