Since I have no pictures of places that I've been jetting off to, I thought I'd begin the blog by posting a picture of the primary source that is at the heart of my doctoral thesis: Papyrus Gissensis 40.
P. Giss. 40 is held in the collections of the University of Giessen, dates to the early 3rd Century AD, and contains copies of four decrees promulgated during the reign of the emperor Caracalla (AD 211-17). The first decree, in the top left hand corner of the papyrus, has been studied nearly continuously since the 1920s owing to the belief that it is the only surviving copy of the wording of the consitutio Antoniniana (CA).
As you can see, it is really not in good condition! Part of my thesis will involve trying to work out what this document is actually saying. A lot of work has been done on this subject in German, and I think that the time has come for English-speaking scholarship to start taking an interest in it! The fundamental question that still worries me a lot, though, is whether this is actually the CA or not!