Fiona Phillips

Unsurprised, but disappointed, to see that Newnham College's JRFs are being defined as explicitly trans-exclusionary: newn.cam.ac.uk/research/res...

If you are a trans academic, or an academic who feels you cannot apply for these fellowships because they are trans-exclusionary, you should consider writing to Newnham College to let them know.

The conference attendees pose at the front of the lecture theatre

*Such* an enjoyable weekend after so much preparation, hosting New Voices on the Polis here in Oxford

So grateful to our excellent speakers, to the inimitable @nakhthor.bsky.social, and to my fellow organisers for making this all possible

And now: an early night and a lie-in, I think

Babe wake up, new letter of the alphabet just dropped

"To Aulus Sergius Italicus, patron. His freedmen made this."

Oops, what we meant to say was: "To Aulus Sergius Italicus, patron. Maxsimus his son AND his freedmen made this."

Amusing case of a later addition to the stone. Maxsimus was NOT gonna be left out of this dedication!

#EpigraphyTuesday

‘Holistic’ care not hormones for children’s gender treatment on NHS Ben Spencer - Science Editor Camilla Kingdon, a paediatrician, says the subject has been “toxic”. No new prescriptions for cross-sex hormones have been issued to children since the controversial Tavistock gender clinic in London was replaced a year ago, NHS leaders have said. The new NHS children’s gender service prioritises “holistic” care for children with gender dysphoria rather than fast-tracking them on to hormones, an accusation that was levelled at the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) before it closed in March last year. The service, which is running at Great Ormond Street in London, Alder Hey in Liverpool and Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, has also prescribed no new puberty blockers, which are banned until a clinical trial starts later this year, pending ethical approval. It marks a fundamental switch in approach to the treatment of children with gender dysphoria, with doctors slowing down the route to prescribing hormonal drugs. Between April 2018 and December 2022, a fifth of patients referred to Gids were put on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or both. A year ago, a review of the Tavistock service by the paediatrician Baroness Cass criticised the “greater readiness” to use hormones for gender dysphoria despite “remarkably weak evidence” for their use.

Her report said: “Some practitioners abandoned normal clinical approaches to holistic assessment, which has meant that this group of young people have been exceptionalised compared to other young people with similarly complex presentations. They deserve very much better.” Cross-sex hormones induce physical changes to allow patients to develop bodily features that align with a different gender identity. Those born male take oestrogen to develop breasts and redistribute fat and muscle mass; those born female take testosterone to deepen the voice, increase muscle mass and develop facial and body hair. Children prescribed the drugs at the Tavistock are continuing to receive their prescriptions. James Palmer, NHS England’s national medical director for specialised services, stressed that the door for the new prescription of cross-sex hormones was still open. “There may be a circumstance where it is important for care,” he said. “The services need the option of taking someone into masculinising or feminising hormones, if that really is the most important thing to be done. But the services have not identified an individual yet for whom it would be a really important bit of their care pathway.” If doctors decide there is a case for hormones to be prescribed, the decision must be agreed by a national multidisciplinary team of experts, chaired by Camilla Kingdon, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She said the new service was about more than hormones. “This is not just about endocrinology. It’s about a holistic assessment of a child or young person within the context of their family. “That means very detailed assessments looking at the child’s wider physical health, mental health, thinking about the child in the context of their school and so on. It involves psychologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians, clinical nurse specialists, speech therapists, occupational therapists.”

Recruitment has begun to open a fourth gender centre at Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, with eight planned across the country, each seeing 25 new child patients a month. Kingdon, who also chairs the provider network of new NHS gender clinics, said finding staff has been a struggle. “That’s due to the politicised and sometimes toxic nature of this topic,” she said. “It’s not necessarily the sort of environment that has people queueing up to work in it.” Palmer said a particular challenge had been navigating “a hugely divided lobby of stakeholders”, adding: “There’s the very liberal end of the spectrum that think [we should focus purely] on access to a transitional arrangement. At the other end, people say NHS resources should not be spent on this area at all.” Great Ormond Street and Alder Hey children’s gender services opened in June and Bristol started seeing patients in November. So far, 250 children have been seen, with a waiting list of 6,000 that is coming down after peaking in February. “When we started, we had some individuals waiting for more than six years to be seen,” Palmer said. “By the summer, if our maths is correct, no one will be waiting for more than four years to be seen, but it will take another three or four years to get to ... something much more manageable.”

This is just the NHS admitting they are denying treatent to trans children

Sussex university fined £585,000 in transgender free speech row The university is fined by the higher education regulator for failing to uphold freedom of speech.

This is of very great concern. Labour has effectively declared war on trans academics and students. By defining transphobia as a “free speech” issue it is going to protect transphobes in higher education while preventing trans-inclusion. This is the opposite of “free speech”.

What pigments were used in the frescoes of Pompeii? Study published on the subject A study done in the Pompeii Archaeological Park revealed how ancient artists skillfully mixed raw materials to achieve a wide range of color tones.

What pigments were used in the frescoes of Pompeii? Study published on the subject
www.finestresullarte.info/en/archaeolo...

Mystery behind Viking-age treasure find in Scotland may finally have been solved A runic inscription on one of the Galloway hoard’s elaborately decorated arm rings has been deciphered

This is a cool discovery! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

YouTube video by Tolga Örnek The Hittites I Docu-Drama

I like Tolga Örnek’s 20003 “docu-drama” on the Hittites, with both Jeremy Irons and real spoken Hittite(!). A bit silly at times but very well-researched youtu.be/_9S40sXeJ2k?...

A handwritten letter from George E. Bean to Anne Jeffery, 28 February 1951, reading: “Many thanks for your interesting letter. I haven’t photographed the Cnidian inscription yet, but will certainly and you can print it when I do. Of course use it for your thesis; there’s no question of piracy. It’s ridiculous not to share knowledge freely; I’m feeling vexed with L. Robert at the moment for refusing me the use of some inscriptions he found near Muğla, which we need for our ‘Peraea’.

From the archives: George Bean, writing to a young Anne Jeffery, insisting on free & open academic communication by taking a shot at Louis Robert

oh dear! I hope you recover quickly

Who Really Invented the Alphabet? - The Ancient Near East Today Who really invented the alphabet? Although we are still uncertain about precisely where the world’s most influential communication system came from, we know more than we did 20 years ago.

A good summary by Seth Sanders in ASOR Today about the origins of the alphabet: anetoday.org/sanders-inve...

I didn’t make this

good luck!!

This is really interesting. I'm sure people will argue for years about whether it's alphabetic - 4 short inscriptions isn't enough to make clear judgements - but it lends support to the idea of non-cuneiform writing in the Levant very early on.

phys.org/news/2024-11...

my boy

Snow-covered trees and ferns in England, November

I choose to believe that snow in november is a divine reward for me finishing a chunk of my thesis last night. but who knows

rather the Venetic alphabet, borrowed from & closely related to the north Etruscan alphabet, but with punctuation and additional signs to represent sounds present in Venetic (an Indo-European language) but not in Etruscan. This is a (4th-2nd c. BCE) votive model of a school exercise tablet... (1/5)🏺

Stone inscribed in Lycian, 'hrppi ladi' / "for (my) wife"

Making my way back to this app! As a reintroduction, I just realised I never showed off my Lycian inscription here #ancientbluesky

I know the Cuneiform on Wax project has done more experiments than I have - may be helpful osf.io/urpuf/wiki/h...

The scratchings behind the Vindolanda/Bloomberg tablets suggest reuse, but it’s not massively practical (esp. in British weather!). There’s no reason to think they didn’t have to heat them to force a reset though. More experiments needed…

I did not! Ran out of time to source any pigments - I'll have to retry in future, though, because my tablets aren't functionally erasable without sticking them in the oven. Would be good to see if ochre, soot, or some combination is best though...

Melting beeswax over a stovetop

Ten lidded wax tablets left to dry

Spent far too much of my weekend making beeswax writing tablets for a project of ultimately tangible relevance to my thesis. Fun though! (Pure beeswax doesn't work very well - further research obviously required)

Se acabó! Voy a estudiar Hititología. La Filosofia no tiene estas galletas.

I’m worried I’ll never see anything like again

Update - the text is amazing. "Eat me and you will immediately be pleasing yourself" (aklāni-ma adanniš lū tadammiqū)
www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/chocolate

I can only try

absolutely unparalleled conference goodie bag - nothing matters to me but my chocolate cuneiform tablet