FOLD&R: the Journal of Fasti On-Line
Length
Although there is no real limit on length, texts are generally no longer than 25pp., including notes and bibliography
Citations
Citations should be inserted in footnotes, using an abbreviated format (Harvard) with the surname of the author in small capitals followed by the year of the publication and the pages: thus JOLIVET 1982: 43-50.
Bibliography (at the end of the text)
Monographs :
Surname of author(s) in small capitals, initial, year: title of the work, number of the volumes, place of publication ex. MOREL J.P., 1981, Céramique Campanienne: les formes, Roma.
Collective works (conference volumes, exhibition catalogues)
Surname of the author(s) in small capitals, initial, date, in, name of the editor in the format initial. Surname (in small caps), ed. Title, (indication of Catalogue or Conference) volume number, place of publication
ex.: Coarelli F., 1996, Legio linteata: l’iniziazione militare nel Sannio, in L. Del Tutto Palma (a cura di), La Tavola di Agnone nel contesto italico (Atti Agnone 1994), Firenze: 3-45.
Lexica, Dictionaries, etc.
Thulin H., s.v. etrusca disciplina, in Real-Enciclopedie…
Articles
Surname of the author(s) in small capitals, initial,, date, title of the work between single quotes, title of the journal, volume number, page numbers
es.: MURRAY THREIPLAND L., TORELLI M., 1970, ‘A semisubterranean etruscan building in the Casale Pian Roseto (Veii) area’, in Papers of the British School at Rome 38: 62-121
The names of the journals should be cited in full.
Images
Images should be submitted in Jpeg or TIFF format, at 300 dpi. There is no limit on the number of illustrations, but the editors may suggest that some are redundant or unclear.
All excavation reports should contain at least one plan of the site.
Writing an Excavation Report for FOLD&R
FOLD&R reports are intended to be read by our colleagues and by the archaeologically - aware public. They are also excavation records, but not in the sense of the internal records of the project (the reports of the site supervisors) or those given to the archaeological authorities at the end of the season. The following is a brief overview of what we are looking for in a report that is readable and informative. But first, a caveat. Reports do not need to mention every Stratigraphic Unit – indeed they don’t have to mention any Stratigraphic Units. Exceptions can be made for contexts with material that needs discussion, or for those that are mentioned many times (wall 3430), but in general context-numbers are part of the internal bureaucracy of the excavation, and do not make life easier on the reader. If the must be mentioned they should be bolded, without ‘US’-
The text
The report should begin with a couple of lines on the dates of the excavation and the institutions involved. While it is good to mention individual roles, gratitude towards authorities, and the sponsors, these should be confined to a footnote. The geographical position of the site should be described, if this is the first report on it. Previous work on the site or on the general area should be detailed here as well.
A second paragraph should cover the progress and techniques of the excavation in synthesis. If the report covers several seasons this is a good place to mention what was done in them. If necessary, a plan can indicate the areas excavated in successive seasons.
The report proper should begin with any geophysical or other preliminary work (LIDAR etc.). It is not necessary to discuss in detail the way these techniques function: by now most people are aware what, say, magnetometry is. If there are clear anomalies two side-by-side plans can help, one for the geophysics image and one for its interpretation. The report should then move on to a phase-by-phase description of the site or structure, beginning at the first, earliest phase. Ideally, each phase should be illustrated by a plan. At the end of each phase its chronology should be discussed, with specifics about the material from which it is derived.
After the report a discussion of the site as a whole is needed: room and building usage, change over time, overall chronology. This is the point at which any similar sites should be mentioned, and a thought could be devoted to how it fits in to the settlement pattern in the area, or to the history of the town in which it is located.
Many excavations write an interim report every season, which is, of course, ideal. However, if several seasons go by without a report it is far better to report on these in a single FOLD&R article than laboriously reconstructing the missing sequence.
A note on illustrations
The first illustration should always be the position of the site in reference to known geography. This does not mean an extract from the 1:25000 map: it means a map that positions the site for people that do not know the hinterland of, viz., Ancona. Ideally this should be drawn fresh, rather than a dot on a google map – Fasti Online does that for us.
The second should show a plan of the the whole of the site: we do not publish articles without a plan. This is the reference for all other plans. It does not have to be stone-by-stone, but all of the walls should be on it. If accompanied by a drone overview so much the better, but the one does not substitute for the other. All plans and orthophotos should have a scale and a north arrow. This seems obvious, but it is surprising how many don’t.
Phase plans can be compressed by using different colours. Ideally, each plan should show new walls and features in a different colour than those retained from a previous phase. Consideration should be made of the scale at which it will be reproduced (in any case at A4, whether portrait or, exceptionally, landscape), and any text adjusted accordingly. Plans of similar objects (rooms or buildings) should be presented at the same scale.
Finally, photographs should be clearly relevant to the text. Please examine the photo in Photoshop and crop as necessary, as well as adjusting the contrast and bringing up deep shadows (select, and then go to immagine/regolazioni/curve. 3D images are welcome, but not in excess, as the article will then take forever to load.
Fasti Style
Our style preferences run to simplicity of expression. We prefer to avoid the use of anglicisms (or italianisms) when a substitute can be found. We also avoid the use of ‘muratura’ except when referring to building technique, as opposed to ‘muro’.
Peer review
Reports are read and commented on by the editors, and by one or two peer-reviewers, who are asked not to judge the contents of the report (many sites are unexceptional, but not less important for that) but their presentation, and the correctness of any conclusions. Ideally, the review process should take two weeks, but sometimes as much as a month is needed. Once you receive the reviews you should fix any problems and return the text: it will be published within another two weeks.
Citing FOLD&Rs
The FOLD&R publication is licensed by AIAC under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license. Please cite and attribute all authors accordingly. For permission to publish illustrations from the text please apply to the author directly.