Melody Jane

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Crochet a Battle-Ready Chainmail Coif Headdress For Medieval Cosplay: 👉 buff.ly/ouIXAjT - designed by Helen of OMadFruit #crochet #cosplay #handmade #etsy #affiliate #halloween #costumeideas

It’s #ScottishMuseumsDay! 🎉

This year’s theme is #MightyObjects – the biggest, tallest, heaviest & most surprising treasures in Scotland’s collections.

Head out, explore museums near & far, and share your monumental finds today! 🏛️✨

Plan drawing of the Links of Noltland red deer heap found on the island of Westray. 15 fully articulated, unprocessed deer were found in the settlement dating to the Neolithic Bronze Age transition period. Their deposition may be a response to a societal crisis linked to the introduction of metal to the Northern Isles, migration from Europe or cultural change that saw the end to monumentality and big house society. It could be a decommissioning deposit when the site was (temporarily) abandoned... whatever the reason 15 who deer is a massive statement to make, the deer presumably were special and had great meaning and/or value. The smell would have been overpowering as they were placed in a shallow pit. A bird wing and a fish were placed with them, adding an extra dimension to this intriguing deposit! Image: Clarke et al 2017

#FindsFriday, nothing shiny to show but a pile of dusty old bones. 15 articulated #RedDeer skeletons found at the the Links Of Noltland, Westray #Orkney. Why place so many deer into the ground? What prompted this action? What do they represent? Their #Chalcolithic date may give us a hint... see ALT

Title page from King James VI & I's book on Daemonologie

Daemonologie: A King's Obsession with Witches 🧙‍♀️

Join us and author Steve Veerapen, for an intriguing evening exploring how a king's paranoia stoked the fear that the devil was stalking early 17th Century Scotland!

📆Thursday 30 October 2025
🕙7pm GMT
🎫£10

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/daemonolog...

A dark brown spindle whorl, 3cm in diameter, held in a hand.

This little spindle whorl saw the daylight again today, after having been in the ground for over 1000 years! #FindsFriday 🏺

pencil drawing of two figurines, labelled 1 and 2. figure 1 is a kappa-like creature with a cup shape in the top of its head, holding a bowl in its hands. it has a grotesque face with bulging eyes and tusks. figure 2 is a headless figure, squatting with elbows propped on its knees and holding a large basin where its head would be. text under the drawings reads: 1. This grave Guardian from the Kapako region stood guard outside burial pools, in which the dead were submerged. Mourners were expected to bring gifts of fod or money for the guardian spirit, and water, to fill the secondary cup on its head. If either cup ran empty, the spirit would be too weak to protect the dead from mischevious floods, which would sweep them away to the sea. Look into the cup in the guardian’s head. Can you see if the stone is still wet? 2. This votive figure was excavated from the tunnels beneath the Great Spill. over 200 figures like it were found, each positioned directly in the doorway of a burial chamber. Many contained offerings of a variety of goods, including herbs, seashells, bones, coins and pieces of plastic. What would you place in the bowl? Do you think it is a present for the dead, or for the thing that guards it?

My first #objectober ! A couple of cup guys!

The deadline for Curran Fellowships is fast approaching: Oct 15 (letters due a week later). Who doesn't want money for travel & research? So much exciting work to do on British/empire periodicals of the long 19th c!

Director of QUEST and Lecturer in Archaeology (Teaching-Research) at University of Reading Discover Director of QUEST and Lecturer in Archaeology (Teaching-Research) jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

Director of QUEST and Lecturer in #Archaeology (Teaching-Research)
University of Reading - Department of Archaeology #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOW165/d...

There's a new flintknapping workshop at Kilmartin Museum if you fancy learning an ancient craft www.kilmartin.org/introduction...

Ronald Morris at Achnabreac rock art site

Ronald Morris at Achnabreac rock art site

I’ve started doing some work with the incredible Ronald Morris archive with a small team of @uofglasgow.bsky.social archaeology
students. I’ll share some gems in the coming months. Here’s Ronald himself! 📸 HES

Bårnhom maybe a hillfort island near Nauvo in Finland. It has steep slopes on three sites with two faint stone lines in the south-east. These may have been used as foundations of fences. It has not been excavated but it is in the Finnish site register. #HillfortsWednesday

Dairy window in Hurstwood, Lancashire.

Dairy window in Old Chamber, West Yorkshire.

Dairy window in Cropton, North Yorkshire.

Dairy window in Eastwood, West Yorkshire.

#WindowsOnWednesday Some workroom windows, including dairies and cheese rooms, were exempt from window tax if clearly labelled as such.

Happy October everyone.
View from Lodge Hill from my Ridgeway Series.
Oil on board.

We are so delighted to be amongst the first cohort of Museums Association Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund grantees.

Our project will expand our Trauma, Community and Compassion programme to foster trauma expertise and capacity across our staff team.

Breaking News: Early Medieval Gateway Found at Govan Old?

This comes just after last week’s find of a huge early medieval posthole, perhaps from a monumental gateway to the grand Viking-Age processional way at Govan Old.

Hear Annemarie & Prof. Steve Driscoll discuss the finds on the Govan Early Medieval Podcast 🎧

open.spotify.com/episode/06EP...

Very neat report on how archaeological data can help us understand environmental #resilience and #sustainability.

Europe's oldest blue pigment

Dating back ~13,000 years, it questions the long-held belief that Palaeolithic artists only used red or black and indicates a more vibrant Ice Age world than previously imagined

Read the original research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Museum hits target to buy Iron Age hoard unearthed near Henley - BBC News The hoard was found in a field in Rotherfield Peppard near Henley-on-Thames five years ago.

Thanks everyone who helped by donating or spreading the word!

Well done Oxfordshire Museum

Almost 5 years to the month from when I rescue excavated this hoard with the detectorist, it's brilliant to know it will have a local forever home
share.google/SBVFry6JFzwx...

Do you think we can get the "Tim Test" for archaeology into public awareness in the same way the Bechdel test is for films?

I didn't know this was a thing in archaeology, but can immediately think of two Tims from my previous local Archaeological Society.

​Help us turn £10,000 into £2,000,000!

​We're raising funds for a 2-year project to showcase the 1,500-year-old Govan Old graveyard.

​Hitting our £10k goal unlocks over £2M in pledged funding for our building's future. Your donation has a massive impact.

​ tghts.enthuse.com/cf/graveyard...

A dark, almost black ball of tightly wound thread. The thread is densely packed, creating a l complex interwoven texture.

The condition of fabrics from pile dwelling and wetland settlements is amazing. This charred ball of thread was found at the site of Marin-Epagnier/Préfargier. It was made of hemp or lime fibres, and dates about 3900 to 3300 BC. The thread measures a total of about 10 m in length.

📷 Laténium

🏺

Well, I guess I’m spending part of my day deleting my Academia account and migrating stuff to hcommons 😮‍💨

Be part of Within|Without, the archaeology conference exploring how partitions shape who we are.
🗓 Saturday 18 October 2025 🕘 9:15 AM – 5:30 PM 📍 Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin
🌍 In-person and online options
👉 bit.ly/Within-Without

#WithinWithout2025 #NMSArchaeologyConference

Classical building with many pillars lining its walls, with the text 'European Archaeology, Antiquity' overlaid.

Don't forget, our collection of European #Archaeology is completely free for the rest of September!
Explore the latest research on megalithic monuments, Ancient Greek chronology, medieval infection and more:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🏺 #Archaeology

🎙️ Episode 3 - Drawing a Hammer

In this episode, we are visiting the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (Netherlands), where an object stands right at the entrance, which Jona picked to take a closer look at: a medieval (ceremonial?) hammer built up based on an axehead from around 1000 BCE.

Pewter chatelaine designed by VictoriaGriffinsong (on Etsy) featuring an engraved dagger and 5 silver chains. Photographed agains red damask fabric with a small silver sewing scissors in the upper left, a spool of red thread in the upper right, and a small silver thimble in the middle right.

I would like to bring back chatelaines as everyday fashion items, please. I think life would be better if we could carry our little treasures around with us like magpies. “Here is my antique penknife. This is my emotional support acorn. And that’s my special super shiny rock. Her name is Elizabeth.”

Parts of it - there is great crossover with practitioners of experimental archaeology. Have you ever seen any of Sally Pointer's videos on YouTube?

I went to my first Derbyshire archaeology day this year and can recommend bringing some knitting or crochet as a great icebreaker!