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'Time to defend' palaeography

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The UK's only chair in palaeography, based at Kings College London, is being threatened with closure. The possible move has outraged classicists who say it could be the death of the subject - the study of ancient writing - that has yielded so many of Britain's greatest historic discoveries.

Dr Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the department of the Middle East at the British Museum, and Alan Bowman, professor of Roman History at Oxford University, discuss the future of palaeography.

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