Bronwyn Isaacs

The script is in Thai rather than in Burmese.

My photo shows a small Proto-Corinthian clay aryballos (perfumed-oil container) in the shape of an owl with a pouring hole in the tail. Height 5 cm, Width 6.4 cm. The owl is perched with its tail to the left and head to the right. It leans slightly forwards with head turned so that its large eyes face the viewer. The owl’s chest is painted black. The eyes and plummage are intricately detailed in black on a yellowy-cream slip. Three rows of feathers in the wing plumage are painted alternately in red and black. Dated c. 640 BC

It’s #InternationalOwlAwarenessDay
🦉❤️

To celebrate here’s an Ancient Greek clay aryballos (perfume flask) in the shape of a little owl!
Dated c. 640 BC.

The Louvre, Paris 📷 by me

#OwlishMonday
#Archaeology

100%!

Congrats!

That's huge, congratulations!

Five travel awards for scholars from low & middle income countries are available for this years ASAA/NZ #anthropology Conference in Whāingaroa, Raglan! www.asaanz.org/conference Priority will be given to applicants from #Oceania and #SoutheastAsia

"And while some may see the draping of flags and the placing of patu on desks as defiant acts, many rangatahi saw them for what they truly were: a peaceful but firm reminder that Māori and Pasefika voices will not be sidelined."

True! This one made it into my history of anthropology syllabus.

YouTube video by BBC Global Why did our friends stop posting on social media? | BBC Global

"The medium has got higher production value and normal people felt that they couldn't necessarily keep up with that. It wasn't a conducive space to put yourself out there anymore" www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN4M...

A silver vehicle parked on famously posh Ponsonby Road. The rear window is wound halfway down, revealing … a very unexpected and handsome goat.

Yep. Definitely a goat in the back seat.

Always plenty of fine pets to admire up and down Ponsonby Road, but this one might just be the GOAT.

I was a recipient of this scholarship and I remember how much it meant! A big congratulations!

The deathcap mushroom.
Gemini: "Yum!" 🙊

Ministry for Culture and Heritage confirms 80 percent cut in senior historian roles Manatū Taonga is going ahead with cutting the jobs of most of its historians.

No country for historians.

History matters but not to this government and this Minister who was himself once a historian. Et tu, Brute!

25 years ago the Ministry (my first job as a historian) was a powerhouse and now just a shadow. #HistoryMatters #history www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

"Like requesting the bullet points of grief. Like demanding the key takeaways about laughing until your stomach hurts. . . The early universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford) were built around the radical idea that complex ideas required communal struggle. . .
Knowledge wasn't something you collected"

The Pepsi‐Jenner disaster: Translation and collaboration in global image markets In 2017, Pepsi released a video advertisement online that became an international pop reference for ignorance regarding race relations and police brutality. This video offers a rare but theoretically....

Selfishly tweaking the algorithm 🙈 with this flashback to an article I wrote in 2022. Ethnographic exploration from Bangkok examining how commercial imagery and the push to scale up creativity can misfire across cultural and political contexts rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

"the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students. . . Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries - and, by extension, individuals and companies ...are required to curb emissions."

Public-use AI helping in surveillance and warfare Analysis from the University of Otago: Will ChatGPT users find themselves unwittingly contributing to increasing population surveillance, human rights violations, or warfare?

As Public-use AI helping in surveillance and warfare
Will ChatGPT users find themselves unwittingly contributing to increasing population surveillance, human rights violations, or warfare?
newsroom.co.nz/2025/07/18/p...

Beloved Auckland cinema faces backlash for ‘racist’ AI-generated Russell Crowe video The bizarre clip preceding a film at the Hollywood in Avondale this week was met with 'full-on pitchforks and torches'.

"The Māori in the beginning of the video wear tā moko that bear no cultural significance . . . most of the phone-obsessed young people in the video are depicted as Asian." thespinoff.co.nz/society/18-0...

This has been available for two years, but now officially published by @culturalstudies.bsky.social Exploring settler colonialism in Aotearoa: the fab @fmcc.bsky.social , Priya Kurian, Rolande Paekau, Cayathri Divakalala & Sharayne Bennett
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"there's a self-managed super fund with more than half a billion dollars.

If the person behind that fund is retired, in a half-decent year, the fund would be throwing off about $50 million or so in income, a little under $5 million a month."

What does decolonising AI really mean? An interview with artist Ameera Kawash "Technology is integral to the discourse on the future, and we need to be part of the future. We must be involved in shaping it, not cut out from it."

"There are . . ways to violence embedded in the very infrastructure of AI, such as the way prompts . . . are rendered into actual imagery. This process can contribute to dehumanizing people, making them legitimate targets by rendering them invisible" Ameera Kawash. globalvoices.org/2025/04/18/w...

"What is particularly alarming is that anyone with a ChatGPT licence and about a minute of spare time could very easily produce a document similar in content, tone and structure to the government’s strategy."

"I’m shocked by this announcement, bluntly, given my research group has been working with tangata whenua, iwi, hapū, rūnanga, and trusts around the motu for over 10 years, and there is very little support for de-extinction of New Zealand species for many reasons"- Nic Rawlence

"The world's oldest known dress is a simple V-necked garment that was overlooked as rags for decades" www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

"She celebrated her heritage, spoke about education, and simply existed in a digital space that is often hostile to women. That act alone, being visible, was enough for a man to believe he had the right to end her life."

Weaponising social media against academics: David Seymour's problematic posts

www.linkedin.com/pulse/weapon... (LinkedIn)

sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/06/23/w... (WordPress)

#nzpol

"So yes, I do think I have a better insight than the president of the company."

I am going to hang this in my office to look at every time I have imposter syndrome to remind me that some people need less confidence.

I feel you Eddie! Flights between Hamilton and Australia are back.

“I hear people say, ‘I guess it’s sleep for dinner’. When you're recovering, that kind of talk is triggering.”

While eating disorders have long affected Aotearoa, the dual pressures of financial hardship and food inflation are intensifying the crisis.

Trump Wants to Cut Tribal College Funding by Nearly 90%, Putting Them at Risk of Closing ProPublica found that Congress was underfunding tribal colleges by a quarter-billion dollars per year. Rather than fixing the problem, proposed federal funding cuts unveiled this week would devastate ...

NEW: A nearly 90% funding cut proposed by the Trump administration would likely shut down and devastate the 37 tribal colleges and universities created to serve the students disadvantaged by the nation’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous communities.

By @mattkrupnick.bsky.social