---
conjecture: r2-edh-b1-06
family: codex
model: "gpt-5.6-sol (codex-cli 0.144.0-alpha.4, ChatGPT-subscription auth)"
model_stamp_corrected: "2026-08-07 — archives were first written stamped gpt-5.5 by a runner bug (the stamper read config.toml's default instead of the -m flag actually passed). The calls themselves ran on gpt-5.6-sol throughout; only the label was wrong. Corrected in place, noted here rather than silently."
received: 2026-08-07
template: PROMPT_TEMPLATE_v1.md sha256 4344aabfacfe88362c56d89b6c89d594a7bf3a221e18a16b0e351482447e512f
rivals_parsed: 3
validation: VALID
---

{
  "rivals": [
    {
      "mechanism": "A catalogue-wide EDH normalization rule may reserve single-year values for unusually stringent cases while converting uncertain, inferred, or conflicting dates into ranges. The apparent ceiling would then be an editorial encoding convention rather than a property of Roman epigraphic practice.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "The same schema, evidentiary thresholds, and editorial workflow apply across EDH province codes, so an alphabetical split would reproduce the pattern in both halves. Province-level maxima near but below 40% could reflect varying mixtures of records processed under that common rule.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "cataloguing and data-entry practice",
        "date-field normalization",
        "shared editorial policy across training and holdout"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Independently parse inscription transcriptions and linked dating evidence for year-resolving features such as consular pairs, numbered tribunician powers, or explicit calendar dates, then compare those inferred years with EDH's normalized date fields and stratify the mismatch rate by editor or import batch. The proposed mechanism predicts that genuinely year-resolving evidence is itself uncommon; the rival predicts many year-resolvable texts recorded as ranges and potentially strong workflow-level variation.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "A substantial class of inscriptions whose textual evidence resolves to one year but whose EDH fields contain ranges, especially if the mismatch rate varies systematically by editor or import batch."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "Differential preservation may erase or fragment the clauses needed to identify a single year while leaving enough script, formula, archaeological context, or object style for a broad date. Exact dating could therefore have been commoner in the original inscriptions than among the surviving and legible objects catalogued by EDH.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "Fragmentation and surface loss operate across provinces rather than following EDH's alphabetical ordering, so they would depress exact-date proportions in both training and holdout. Because broadly datable fragments remain eligible as dated rows, preservation loss specifically enlarges the denominator without preserving comparable numbers of exact dates.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "survival and preservation bias",
        "differential loss of dating clauses",
        "legibility-based selection into the catalogue"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "Classify EDH records by textual completeness, lacuna density, and object condition, then estimate the exact-year rate within genre and period across preservation strata. The rival predicts a strong monotonic increase in exact dating with completeness, potentially exceeding 40% among complete or nearly complete inscriptions; a genuinely intrinsic convention ceiling predicts that the minority pattern largely persists after conditioning on preservation.",
        "computable_on_held_data": true,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "Well-preserved inscriptions have an exact-year rate above 40%, with a strong within-genre decline as fragmentation or lacunae increase."
      }
    },
    {
      "mechanism": "EDH's source and publication coverage may disproportionately include broadly dated funerary, votive, and fragmentary monuments while underharvesting administrative or other specialist corpora rich in explicit annual dating. The ceiling would then arise from catalogue selection and genre mixture, not from Roman epigraphy generally.",
      "why_it_explains_the_same_evidence": "A common acquisition policy or shared dependence on the same kinds of published corpora would affect provinces in both alphabetical halves. If exact-date-rich classes are consistently underrepresented, every provincial aggregate can remain below 40% even when those classes or more exhaustive local corpora do not.",
      "named_confounds": [
        "selection into EDH",
        "uneven source-corpus harvesting",
        "inscription-genre composition",
        "province-level aggregation"
      ],
      "discriminating_test": {
        "description": "For several provinces, construct an independently exhaustive inventory from regional and specialist corpora, reconcile duplicate objects, and compare exact-year proportions by genre and overall with the EDH subset. The rival predicts that EDH coverage is lower for exact-date-rich genres and that coverage-adjusted provincial proportions can exceed 40%; the proposed mechanism predicts that the minority pattern remains after exhaustive genre coverage.",
        "computable_on_held_data": false,
        "what_result_favors_rival": "Exact-date-rich genres have significantly lower EDH inclusion rates, and at least one reconciled exhaustive provincial corpus exceeds 40% despite its EDH subset remaining below the ceiling."
      }
    }
  ],
  "no_viable_rival": false,
  "notes": "The alphabetical holdout tests geographic generalization within EDH but cannot discriminate the proposed mechanism from catalogue-wide editorial, preservation, or acquisition processes shared by both halves."
}
