An article in Nature reports the latest results from X-ray tomography. Executive summary: lots of tiny inscriptions found, Olympiad cycle wheel identified, and possible origin in Sicily.

Today is Father's Day in Italy -- even though presumably this year St Joseph is also demoted, like St Patrick was, because of it being Holy Week.

Father's Day is always on March 19th, the feast of St Joseph. It used to be a civil holiday too, but it was removed with many other saints' days in 1977. Since childhood, I've always found it rather peculiar that fathers and fatherhood were celebrated on the day of the guy who was quite famously not the boy's father.

(These days I have a better appreciation of the non-biological varieties of fatherhood, like adoption and fosterage[1], than when I was a child and I'd barely heard about them at all. But I still find it moderately amusing.)

[1] Though in fact the "official" definition of St Joseph isn't either of those -- in Italian he's called padre putativo, "the one who is believed to be the father". Which sustains me in my amusement, as the phrase is not commonly used for adoptive/foster fathers.