Luna reads Chaucer

My photo shows a Roman legionary ‘scutum’, a long, semi-cylindrical rectangular shield. It is painted with a red background and decorated with Roman symbols of victory, which include an eagle with a laurel wreath, winged Victories, and a lion. There is a central hole which is missing a metal boss. The central boss from a legionary shield protected the user's hand and provided a punching weapon in close combat. Dimensions: H. 105.5 × W. 41 × D. 30 cm. It is estimated it likely weighed 5.5 kg when complete. Excavated by a Yale-French team in the 1930s from Tower 19 of the Roman garrison at Dura-Europos (present day Syria). Dated early AD 200s. When excavated, the shield was in 13 fragments and without a central boss. It was reconstructed by the Yale-French excavation team. Now part of the collections at Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven. I saw it on loan at the British Museum’s Roman Legion exhibition.

An amazing piece of Roman military history!

The only complete surviving Roman scutum (shield) used by legionaries. Wood, leather, bronze edge binding. AD 200s.

From the garrison at Dura-Europos on Rome’s eastern frontier which fell to the Sasanians in AD 256.

📷 me

#RomanFortThursday
#Archaeology

four panel black and white doodle comic with a person and their cat. panel 1, the cat yells, "I WANT!". panel 2 the person says "What do you want". panel 3, the cat stops and stares blankly. panel 4, the cat yells "I WANT" again

what do you want

A book cover design with a photograph of a watch tower surrounded by leafless trees and green grass. The title, Unsilencing: The History and Legacy of the Bulgarian Gulag, is in white text at the top, and the author name, Lilia Topouzova, is in white text at the bottom.

Not only has the superb cover landed for Lilia Topouzova's upcoming "Unsilencing," but also her superb interview with @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social: newbooksnetwork.com/unsilencing.

More info, praise, and how to pre-order at @cornellupress.bsky.social: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Hello I've decided to use Blue Sky now. In unrelated news, my book 'Influencer Creep' will be published with University of California press in October 2025. It's about the ways influencer culture has transformed creative work.

Preorder here: www.ucpress.edu/books/influe...

academic nightmare genre #27: in a prominent venue, intellectual opponent publishes a hit piece on latest book, with single word headline "CLAMATO"

The loneliness epidemic is a byproduct of hypercapitalism. Hypercapitalism relies on intense competition, which can lead to social isolation, alienation, and loneliness. Collaboration is a core skill to teach & learn.

#hypercapitalism #collaboration #codeshift #wisdomwednesdays #academicsky

The takeover of Twitter was a preview of what we're all living with now and a stark example of why you can't let any one person have too much money: they go insane and make themselves everybody's problem

Goodbye 2024.

The Destruction of Medieval Manuscripts in England: Oxford University Press page

Delighted to announce that my second book, The Destruction of Medieval Manuscripts in England, is coming out with Oxford University Press in April

Details here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Spatha from the watery deposit at Illerup with a brass inlay figure of Mars set into the top of the blade with its feet nearest the tang. Image: Lennart Larsen, Nationalmuseet, Danmark (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Something shiny from a bog for #FindsFriday. One of the 2nd/3rd-century AD #spathae from Illerup (DNK) with an inlaid brass figure of Mars.

Proofs! Out in May 2025

A hemispherical cup with a round base and a single handle, carved from a single piece of Baltic amber about 3,500 years ago, during the Bronze Age. The cup is a deep burned orange colour, and the translucent amber glows as it catches the light looking like warm embers. A band of incised parallel grooves encircle the body of the cup, (except under the handle), about half an inch from the rim. There are two chips on the rim. Cup dimensions: height 2.5 inches, depth 2.4 inches, external diameter 3.5 inches.

The Hove Amber Cup for #FindsFriday

A beautiful and rare Bronze Age amber cup which glows when it catches the light.

Carved from a single piece of Baltic amber about 3,500 years ago.

Found in 1856 inside Hove Barrow, a large Bronze Age burial mound in Sussex.
📷 by me

#Archaeology

A meme of TinTin speaking to Captain. Captain, looking defeated, says "2020 has been a hell of a year" TinTin replies "Captain, it's almost 2025”

Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

i am convinced that these people are death worshippers who want to spread as much disease and sickness as possible (i also think this is all tied up in eugenic beliefs about the “survival of the fittest” www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/h...

I had polio when i was 9. I was taken from my parents & placed in a Hospital for contageous diseases- the polio ward. I would see them once a week - thru the glass window at the end of my ward. I could not walk. It was terrifying. Kids died. Iron lungs were awful. Dont let RFK Jr ban the vaccine

this seems to bother quite a few people but the answer is that i’m just yapping and i don’t feel the need to add punctuation or capitalization when it isn’t necessary for meaning

The 10 best movies of the century set in Maine – so far With the help of some Maine movie experts, we've put together a list – and a map – of notable movies set in the state since 2000.

The 10 best movies of the century set in Maine – so far

If you ask me, this would have been a much better choice for Time’s Person of the Year.

“In internet slang, rage-baiting (also rage-farming) is the manipulative tactic of eliciting outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue and support.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage-ba...

Are they *trying* to drive their readers away?

Millet and meals: the role and significance of Panicum miliaceum in culinary contexts at Bruszczewo, Poland - Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences The translocation of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) is an enticing subject of archaeological investigation. While the species was rapidly dispersed across Eurasia during prehistory, its adoption...

Tracking ancient millet's 🌾 journey through prehistoric cooking! Analysis of Bronze/Iron Age pottery from Poland shows broomcorn millet went from zero to hero - absent in Early Bronze Age but became a kitchen staple. #Archaeological 🏺chemistry reveals ancient food choices!
#archaeology

A photo I posted of graffiti in Syria in 2014.
"One day the war will be over and I will return to my poem"
I hope they will return to their poem

Long Covid victim year 5, Spence seeks help to stay afloat Dear friends, colleagues and philanthropic folk, my pleas for help continue. Year 5 chronic #LongCovid since 2020, now bed-bound and unable to walk, no income or support, bankruptcy close, house repos...

I used to be a Mesolithic archaeologist. In 2020 Covid19 hit me, crashed me. My pleas for help continue. Year 5 chronic #LongCovid, now bed-bound, unable to walk, no income or support, bankruptcy close, house repossession on horizon. Please help and share if you can 🆘
microburin.com/2024/09/06/l...

Waiting for Hoover, 1947

FROM THE ARCHIVES | Berlin, Germany, Feb. 6, 1947: Military Police wait at the snow-covered entrance at Berlin’s Lichterfelde-West train station for former President Herbert Hoover to arrive.

People say large language models are a watershed because, for the first time in human history, we've invented a technology we cannot control - but we haven't been able to control printers for 40 years.

The Lancashire Plague Petitions: Life after the Plague in Early Modern England Abstract. Historians typically explore the resilience of past societies in terms of large-scale outcomes like population levels. In contrast, this paper ex

My very first article has been published in the American Historical Review! ✨

In it I've transcribed a handful of petitions that help us to understand how people began to piece their lives back together following an outbreak of plague 👇

academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...

I just found out that around 20% of the neanderthal genome still exists today in living people!!

No individual person has more than 3 or 4% but we don't all have the same bits. If you add up all the bits we've found, about a fifth of the Neanderthal genome is still present on earth today.

Watching the Neanderthal documentary on Netflix. Fascinating how much we still don't know or have misconceptions about them. For instance, while we thought they went extinct due to conflict with Homo sapiens, the documentary suggests climate change at the time may have played a significant role