Story: Classical and foreign-language studies

In 1998 Palmerston North woman Heather Mansell (left) organised a fund-raising garage sale, and one of the items donated turned out to be rather more important than the anonymous donor realised. It was a rare and intact Bronze Age baby feeder from Cyprus. Gina Salapata (right), a senior classics lecturer at Massey University, dated the feeder to around 2000 BC. How it came to New Zealand is unknown, but it had an index card inside, suggesting that it was purchased as an antiquity by a collector. Mansell donated it to the Auckland University classics department museum.