Dr Nicola Holm

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

Julia Doroszewska (UW) on Subversive Sainthood: Late Antique Hagiography as Evidence for Religious Mentality - at Warsaw Late Antique Seminar on 5 March 2026, 4.45 p.m. Warsaw time.

Australian Census on University Staff Wellbeing results are out. Every uni recorded scores indicating high/very high psych risk.

And in news surprising no one, "only senior execs and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk while all other staff groups reported high-risk conditions."

Seven Hills of Brisbane - #classicalreception - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_H... Walks: roseobrienwriter.blog/seven-hills-...

This looks super exciting! Congratulations Caillan!

Met Museum photo of an Ancient Egyptian artist’s painting of a swallow on a flake of limestone, dated to the New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, c. 1479-1458 BC. The sparrow stands in profile with head to the right. It is delicately painted with a pinkish body. The outline and details are highlighted in a reddish/brown pigment. Its legs, eye, and beak are painted black. Limestone flake dimensions Height 6.6 cm x Width 10.6 cm. This may have been a practice drawing of the sparrow hieroglyph which was used for words meaning ‘small’, ‘poor’, or ‘bad’. Egyptian artisans who decorated tombs and temples made practice sketches on flakes of limestone which are known by egyptologists as ostraca (singular: ostracon). Sometimes the drawings were used as a template when transferring an image to the wall of a tomb or a temple. Limestone flakes were readily available for this purpose as by-products of the construction of temples and rock-cut tombs. A number of ostraca were recovered at Deir el-Bahri during the 1922-23 MMA excavations.

Artists have always loved to sketch!

Sketch of a sparrow from Egypt dated c. 1479–1458 BC.

Some 3,500 years ago in Egypt, artists used flakes of limestone as sketchpads!

MMA excavations 1922-23, Deir el-Bahri. 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#Archaeology

Warsaw Late Antique Seminar on 22 January: Karl Dahm (Durham), Family Dramas in Late Antique Church Conflicts. BTW, it's -13C and sunny in Warsaw:)

See you all at IMC next year! Come along to the Civic and Personal Competition in the Roman East panels organised by myself and Yannis Brichant!

Research funding including #classicalreception: Institute of Classics, Jagiellonian University in Kraków through The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange - 2–4 year research stays in Poland for international scholars/ research group - see listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A...

Warsaw Late Antique Seminar on 6 November: David Addison (University of Liverpool), "Extraneae Feminae: Women, the Clerical Household, and the Legacy of Nicaea". In person and online, as always.

The deadline on this PhD scholarship on ancient monarchy at ANU has been extended until November 28. Full details here: study.anu.edu.au/scholarships...

CfP for a proposed strand ‘Civic and Personal Competition in the Late Roman East’ at next year’s @imc-leeds.bsky.social!

Take a look at the programme of our workshop on the subject of Elite Women and Systems of Dependency in Late Anitquity organised by Grace Stafford and yours truly, which will take place at the @dependencybonn.de next month.

Hey kids! First time at the #IMC2025 @imc-leeds.bsky.social?

Here are some of Old Man Kramer's Hot Tips!

#medievalsky

With @imc-leeds.bsky.social fast approaching, here’s a look at the ‚Urban Dynamics’ in the Late Roman East panels!

Tomorrow I'll be presenting a paper in the First St Andrews Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Workshop in Late Antique and Early Medieval Studies at the @staclassics.bsky.social I'm looking forward to this great initiative!

I am so sorry, Laurence. Thinking of all the brilliant people at Cardiff. Such a shortsighted decision 😞

Applications now open for 2 PhD scholarships at ANU as part of my ARC Future Fellowship Project, 'Why Monarchy Endures: Answers from the Ancient Mediterranean World'. Open to both Aus & international candidates. Informal inquiries to brainstorm topics very welcome! study.anu.edu.au/scholarships...

Congratulations!!!

Tobi providing excellent help in writing this article! He is apparently very interested in Constantinian dynasticism too!

She is so precious!

I have real soft spot for Cyprus so really hoping they manage to Q!!! Otherwise, completely agree with your list :)

This was a wild ride, and I loved it!

MQ Stop Cuts Petition - Better Workplaces = Better Universities Be part of National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) member' enterprise bargaining campaign and help create better workplaces and better universities.

Down under, Macquarie University is proposing to crease all ancient language teaching and to cancel the archaeology and ancient history degrees in favour of a "BA in History". A petition against the cuts below.

betteruniversities.work/stop-mq-cuts?

Thank you for coming! 😊

What a joy to present some of my PhD work for the Ewa Wipszycka Late Antique Seminar today 🥰 Truly lucky to be in such a wonderful department!

Congratulations! Looking forward to this a lot!

Absolutely! Our Tobiasz has his favourite on different days and some days is a major snugglebug and then others he’s hunting us both constantly! Loving the Boone content, she’s perfect 🥰

Where to no-one's surprise I'll be talking about Constantius and a bunch of cranky bishops!

This looks so useful and interesting! Congratulations! :)