Mary Valante

Oh, that is a creepy personal detail, whether she made it up or whether someone was collecting women's nail. iew

No accident he's in "full dress" uniform of robes and mitre, not just black clothes and a skull cap. He's there in his official capacity of bishop bringing the full authority of his office with him. *Very* powerful

JOB
Assistant Professor in the History of Knowledge Pre-1400,
University of Cambridge

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

Jet arm-ring

Northumbrian jet in Viking-Age Scandinavia?

It is likely this arm-ring, found in Birka grave Bj 860A, was produced from Whitby (Hvítabýr) jet, possibly either looted in a Viking raid, or made by a jewellery maker in Anglo-Scandinavian Jórvík.

My 📷 | Ref. Historiska museet; SHM

In 4 maps, see how NC split votes and where Mark Robinson underperformed North Carolina voted much like it did in 2020 for governor and president, with some 2024 election twists worth noting.

Map source. Many in NC didn't just vote for both Trump and Stein, they voted for dems up and down the ballot EXCEPT for president. They aren't "MAGA" or even diehard GOP. They found some DEM messaging appealing, but either Harris missed important things (housing), or they wouldn't vote for *her*

Here in NC Trump won, but so did Stein (gov), Hunt (Lt gov), Jackson (AG) and Green (state superintendent). There was a lot of energy from DEMs, yet Trump won our crucial 16 electoral college votes. What happened in '24 is complex, but I think O'Toole is close to right about where we are now.

Myself and my Hooch in 2018. Now I've got something awesome in common with Gov Walz and it's making my weekend.

You're all I can think of
Every drop I drink up
You're my soda pop
My little soda pop (pop!)

Perfection.

Thanks for sharing your work with us, Clare!!

How, exactly will you hold him to that, Senator? Do you plan to send him a sternly worded letter after currency with Trump's face on it appears?

Oh, some Class A history nerd humor right here and I love it!

1/3 - Just in time for #Samhain night: a parallel text of two editions of the otherworldly Ulster Cycle tale of Echtra Nerai ‘Nera’s adventure’, along with Kuno Meyer’s (admittedly antiquated) translation into English : codecs.vanhamel.nl/Source:TEI/E...

Dear students everywhere...

AI is great at polishing your resume -- but you need to check it. Which means AI is not great at polishing and add more work for you, so maybe don't that?

SkyMap is a decent app and has a night vision mode. I did astronomy as my lab science at college and dragged the kids out for late night meteor showers and comet watches, or just to see Saturn in the telescope, more times than I can count.

Go Lindy!

Friday #WeavingLikeAViking

On a floor loom, tha vertical warp threads are light green, and the ground is tabby weave on the same color. The pattern appears in a row of purple, a row of teal green, and a row of purple.

A close-up of a bit of the purple row. There is an "X" in the enter, and the arms of the "X" form a half circle that joins with the next "X" to form a full circle, which rings a sort of rounded equal armed cross with a circle in the center

In my modern overshot weave, the ground is tabby, the twill design supplements it, but again could be pulled out and the cloth would remain intact. I don't need an outline stitch because I weave a line of tabby between every line of the twill pattern.

A Viking ship, woven as part of a tapestry. The ship is woven in blue yarn with rusted red outline. There is a square sail and six "people" that look that pegs on the ship; they are orange with cream "heads," all outlined in blue.

Viking Age weavers used a supplemental weft technique for tapestries. In the 11th/12th century Överhogdal tapestry the background is tabby, the ship outlined in a soumak stitch and filled with tabby. If we pull out the ship yarn, the cloth would remain, because the ship is supplemental to the whole.

"Keeping the Hirschfeld 'awake' challenges forces that prefer queer histiories hideen or earased - memory is resitaence."

Many thanks to Páraic Kerrigan for delivering a fantastic Flatley Lecture and for advising our interested graduate students!

Not a surprise, but still

In a furious backlash against Nero, the people of Rome destroyed or buried much of the Domus Aurea. Today one of the best preserved sections contains 50 public toilets built for servants and enslaved palace workers. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04...

A golden coin issued by Nero. The front shows the Emperor's head in profile, the reverse shows the colossus statue of himself, with the su god's crown made of radiating light.

As Nero's economic policies caused inflation to skyrocket and he set impossible taxes on the provinces, governors rebelled and the Senate, finally, turned on him, declaring him a public enemy. He tried to flee more than once, and then ordered his secretary to kill him.

According to Suetonius, Nero was "carried away by a craze for popularity." Of the palace, Suetonius says "When the edifice was finished in this style and he dedicated it, he deigned to say nothing more in the way of approval than that he had at last begun to live like a human being."

It is true that Nero bought up much of the now destroyed public land cheaply and, instead of restoring housing or public temples, he built himself a palace. It included a 120' bronze statue of himself as the sun god and a rotating dining room. smarthistory.org/domus-aurea-...

So many that Nero blamed, arrested, tortured and killed a group of outsiders: Christians. Tacitus hated them and didn't blame Nero for the fire, but even he pitied them, "due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man."

Hubert Robert's 1785 painting "The Fire of Rome." It shows a distant fire burning brightly at night, with a shadowed bridge, temple and people in the foreground.

On my mind today: the Emperor Nero's Golden House. Pliny the Elder, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio all suggest that Nero may have had a massive fire set, one that destroyed homes and more near the Circus, in order to clear the space. They could be wrong, but many at the time believed it was true.

October 21, 2025 Mr. William Scharf, Chair National Capital Planning Commission 401 Ninth Street NW, Suite 500N Washington, DC 20004 Ms. Jessica Bowron Acting Director, National Park Service National Park Service 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240 Ms. Billie Tsien, Chair Commission of Fine Arts 401 F Street NW, Suite 312 Washington, DC 20001-2728 Re: Proposed Construction of White House Ballroom Mr. Scharf, Ms. Bowron, and Ms. Tsien, The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States (“National Trust”) is a private charitable, educational, nonprofit corporation headquartered in Washington, D.C. and chartered by Congress in 1949 to further the historic preservation policy of the United States. 54 U.S.C. § 312102(a). This Congressional charter obligates the National Trust to “facilitate public participation in the preservation of sites, buildings, and objects of national significance or interest.” Our mission is to protect America’s significant historic sites and to advocate for historic preservation as a core public value. President Trump has proposed the construction of a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the east side of the White House campus, adjacent to the historic Treasury Building. Site preparation is already underway, including the demolition of a portion of the existing East Wing. While the National Trust acknowledges the utility of a larger meeting space at the White House, we are deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself—it is 55,000 square feet—and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller, and lower, East and West Wings

The federally recognized Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation offer clear guidance for construction projects affecting historic properties. The Standards provide that new additions should not destroy the historic fabric of the property and that the new work should be compatible with existing massing, size, scale, and architectural features. Owned by the American people, the White House was designed by Irish architect James Hoban, whose winning proposal was selected by President George Washington. The building respects Georgian and neoclassical principles. It is a National Historic Landmark, a National Park, and a globally recognized symbol of our nation’s ideals. We respectfully urge the Administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes, including consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and to invite comment from the public. These processes provide a crucial opportunity for transparency and broad engagement—values that have guided preservation of the White House under every administration going back to the public competition in 1792 that produced the building’s original design. Doing so will help ensure that the project both honors the exceptional historic significance of the White House and acknowledges the investment that the American people have in the preservation of this beloved place. The National Trust stands ready to assist the White House, the National Park Service, and relevant review agencies in exploring design alternatives and modifications that would accomplish the objectives of the Administration while preserving the historic integrity and symbolism of the People’s House. As we approach the 250th Anniversary of our country’s founding, the preservation of historic places that represent our nation’s history has never been more relevant or important. We urge you…

The National Trust for Historic Preservation — a nonprofit created by Congress to help preserve historic buildings — also called Tuesday to pause demolition of the East Wing until Trump's project could go through a transparent review.

Honestly, tearing apart a large part of the WH just because they feel like it is the ultimate symbol of this administration