Laura C.

If you’re working on any area of fantasy and the fantastic, come and join us at Glasgow in June 2026 and do consider presenting or running a workshop! All the info you need and the full CFP is here:

fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...

@uofgfantasy.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social

Cover of book called Framing Devices and Global Legal Traditions

finally

I'm sure your pictures would have turned out far better 😂

Magic City, Toshkent

Jome Mosque, Kokand, Uzbekistan

Itchan Kala, Khiva, Uzbekistan

yes

Summary of food eaten in Khiva, Uzbekistan (shivit oshi)

How about this little guy in Nadir Divan Begi Khanaka, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Khujand, Tajikistan

Samarkand

Sanjarshah, outside of Panjikent, Tajikistan

Mud things.

Hey, did you know there's an alternative to ChatGPT that makes sense economically and doesn't destroy the environment?
It's called English majors and they will happily fix all of your documents for the low price of health insurance and a living wage.

Cover of The Museum Detective: A Novel by Maha Khan Phillips

Great read: "The Museum Detective: A Novel" by Maha Khan Phillips. A thriller with a protagonist who's an Egyptologist, a mummy mystery, and a scathing critique of patriarchy -- all based on a real-life archaeological scandal (that one should not dive into until finishing the book!)

coming soon!

PUBLICATION DAY - finally!

Why does nearly half of humanity speak languages descended from a single common ancestor?

That question fascinated me enough to write a book about it, hopefully it will fascinate you enough to read it.

Photo of a fragment of a clay tablet shaped a bit like a diamond. Although it is only a fragment, the cuneiform text on it is well-preserved. There is a vertical line down the centre which indicates it once had at least two columns. The colour is reddish brown

“Do not bend your neck for that which cuts necks.”

A Sumerian proverb, as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.

Where are all the people on public phone calls who are just sitting quietly and listening?

One of my favorite books ever ❤️

The Mystery of the World's Oldest Writing System Remained Unsolved Until Four Competitive Scholars Raced to Decipher It In the 1850s, cuneiform was just a series of baffling scratches on clay, waiting to spill the secrets of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/myst...

Two rectangular slips of bamboo viewed from the front and back, painted with Chinese characters.

Bamboo slips from the Chengba site, eastern Sichuan Province, China. They cover topics like judicature, finance and education, providing a window into education systems, local administrative systems and daily life during the Han Dynasty #EducationDay

🆓 https://buff.ly/4feYx3p

Inventing Writing in South-west Asia - The Ancient Near East Today The shift from symbols to writing represents a major advancement in human cognitive technology. What role did Mesopotamian seal imagery play?

Wonderful intro to early writing and its origins in Uruk and the wider region. (You can even learn to read some of the signs in the earliest tablets.)

“Inventing Writing in South-west Asia” by Kathryn Kelley, Mattia Cartolano, and Silvia Ferrara anetoday.org/writing-sout...

Ceramic tile in the shape of a star, with two figures in the centre enjoying a drink.

This star-shaped tile is today’s #AshmoleanAdvent object. It was made in Iran in the 13th century and shows two figures, dressed in richly patterned tunics, enjoying a drink together.
 
Open today’s door to learn more: www.ashmolean.org/advent
 
⭐ Star-shaped tile, c. 1271–1300, Iran. EA1978.1560

This manuscript was copied by عبد الله بن محمد بن مسعود الرجراجي, as noted on page 559 (pictured), and is now in the collection of the Mamma Haidara Library, Timbuktu.

This page is in the oldest manuscript that HMML has cataloged so far in the collections digitized in Timbuktu, Mali.

It is dated December 5, 1598 CE, which is around the end of the Songhai Empire and during the lifetime of Aḥmad Bāba.

Learn more (SAV BMH 35398): vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/173249

Here is Lady Gagâ’s name in cuneiform

“From death there is no deliverance”, one of my favorite #Safaitic inscriptions. I just updated its card on the OCIANA DB with new images of the text, the site, and bibliography, along w metadata.
AMSI 41: ociana.osu.edu/inscriptions...