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This paper investigates the link between Bitcoin and macroeconomic fundamentals by estimating the impact of macroeconomic news on Bitcoin using an event study with intraday data. The key result is that, unlike other U.S. asset classes, Bitcoin is orthogonal to monetary and macroeconomic news. This disconnect is puzzling as unexpected changes in discount rates should, in principle, affect the price of Bitcoin even when interpreting Bitcoin as a purely speculative asset.

Dedicato alla memoria di Mireille Cébeillac-Gervasoni, scomparsa il 29 marzo 2017, il volume raccoglie 22 contributi di amici e colleghi presentati al Quinto seminario Ostiense (Roma – Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica, 21 e 22 marzo 2018). Dopo un’introduzione che mette in risalto il ruolo degli studi su Ostia nell’opera scientifica della studiosa, il volume contiene una prima serie di saggi dedicati alla storia istituzionale, sociale o religiosa della città porto di Roma e che si avvalgono di dati nuovi o rivisti di natura epigrafica o archeologica. Sulla linea del percorso intellettuale e delle ricerche di Mireille Cébeillac-Gervasoni, e talvolta riallacciandosi esplicitamente ai suoi studi, la seconda parte del libro tratta più specificamente il tema delle élites dell’Italia romana, ma allargandosi alla storia del Mediterraneo romano con l’esempio dei riti funebri della colonia di Filippi. Tutti i contributi vogliono offrire un riflesso sfaccettato e nello stesso tempo, anche se non completo, almeno fedele dell’iniziativa dei Seminari Ostiensi da lei sempre sostenuta con particolare impegno, e delle ricerche che ha ispirato nella sua lunga carriera.

In epoca antica l’utilizzo del suburbio orientale di Ostia è stato condizionato dal passaggio dell’antica via Ostiense e dal percorso del Tevere, che in questa zona era caratterizzato da un meandro, scomparso dopo la piena del 1557, dando vita all’odierno tracciato. Nel suburbio orientale della città il lobo meridionale dell’ansa fluviale veniva a dividere il territorio extraurbano in due parti, una in riva sinistra (la zona dell’attuale Borgo medievale ed aree circostanti), utilizzata prevalentemente come necropoli, ed una parte in riva destra (cd. Trastevere ostiense), inglobata all’interno dell’ansa e separata dalla città di Ostia dall’alveo fluviale. Lo studio interdisciplinare messo in atto in questi ultimi anni dall’équipe italo-franco-inglese, grazie alle ricerche d’archivio riguardo ai vecchi scavi novecenteschi effettuati nella zona, alle prospezioni geofisiche e ai carotaggi realizzati in tempi passati e recenti, ha permesso di ricostruire con maggiore chiarezza il contesto insediativo antico in relazione ai condizionamenti ambientali, permettendo di proporre alcune ipotesi circa l’utilizzo di questa parte del suburbio della città di Ostia in periodo tardorepubblicano ed imperiale. The organisation of the eastern suburbia of Ostia in the Roman period was strongly influenced by the ancient via Ostiensis, the main road connecting Ostia to Rome, and by the waterway represented by the Tiber. In this area the Tiber was characterized by a meander that was converted into an oxbow lake after the flood of 1557, that created the present river course. The river channel divided the extra-urban territory of Ostia into two distinct parts, one on the left bank (the area of the present medieval Borgo and the surrounding area) mainly occupied by a necropolis, and the right bank (called Trastevere ostiense), located within the palaeomeander loop and separated from the city of Ostia by the river channel. This multidisciplinary study was conducted in recent years by the Italian-French-English team based on the archival research from previous twentieth century excavations conducted in the area, combining the results of previous and new geophysical surveys and new sedimentary coring. This work reconstructs the archaeological context in relation to environmental changes, thereby making it possible to create some hypotheses about the use of this part of the suburb of the city of Ostia in Late Republican and Imperial times.

Despite numerous studies focusing on Ancient Roman concrete especially petro-chemical characterization and provenance investigations of aggregates and mortar, less is known about the raw materials used for the construction of harbour structures where concrete had not been used. Recent geoarchaeological investigations of the northern mole of the Claudius harbour (Imperial port of Rome, Portus), revealed ten meters of continuous stratigraphic succession of raw materials employed for the foundation of the mole structure where the water column at the time of construction was reaching more than 16 meters of depth. The material succession consists of volcanic tuffs of different quality and hardness, carbonate and quartz rich sand, fragments and boulders of magmatic rock and Roman sherds. Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy and principal component analysis have been applied on drilled core sediments and local reference outcrops including tuffs and pozzolana in the vicinity of Rome with the aim to: (i) characterize the mineral composition of samples and (ii) provide insights about the lithological provenance of raw materials. The results revealed that the majority of materials have a close spectra resemblance with “Tufo Lionato” and “Pozzolane rosse” except leucitite fragments occurring at the top of the harbour structure. By providing spectra similarities between the raw construction materials and the local outcrops, this study provides insights about the sources of materials and building strategies during the construction of the Imperial harbour of Rome and therefore constitute a starting point for further archaeological, geoarchaeological and restoration projects.

This volume has been produced with the aid of funding from the British School at Rome

The Gandharan archaeological sites are mostly located in the Indus Suture Zone and in the lower Swat. In a recent past, scholars observed the use of local different type of schists to build buildings and sacred artworks. In this new research we highlighted the use of limestone for stucco artefacts and architectural decorations. This limestone is not a local rock in Swat but its main, ex- tended and closer outcrops are located in the mountains northwest of Islamabad. Indeed, through specific analyses carried out by our team, the compatibility of these outcrops with the rocks used for stucco artefacts and stucco decorations of buildings was observed. This stucco was made by a mixture of different kinds of local crushed rocks (i.e. schists and granites)., Restauro Archeologico, Vol. 27 No. 1 (2019)