This was excellent!

Got to see these beauties from Halton today! Ought to be in Lancaster museum by rights, but ofc it belongs to the BM, but it is temporarily on loan to the Museum of Liverpool until the end of the month, with some other excellent highlights of early medieval hoards from the North West! #archaeology

This is too good!

Bringing the Living to Viking Death: VALHAll:A 2026 howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2026/02/24/b...

Welcome to the brand-new social media page for the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age! The longship has set sail for new shores as we have parted ways with X (Twitter) and are setting up camp here on Bluesky. Follow along for updates on upcoming events, new research, and all things Viking Age!

What if your daily drive was 2,000 years in the making? 🚗⏳ 🔗👉 youtu.be/eRm3akdUQGE Watch the full video now! 👀 @nationalhighways.bsky.social @cotswoldarch.bsky.social #archaeology #a66ntp #ocaarchteam #cumbria #heritage

Sneaky peak from my and @bryderiet.bsky.social talk at the Vallhall:A conference this Thursday! #vikings #reenactment

It's been a genuine privilege to work with such excellent colleagues putting this video together. I'd really appreciate you giving it a watch at some point, then we can justify making more content like this in future! #archaeology #cumbria #history

A great opportunity for artists in Cumbria to engage with our archaeological work!

Our book 'Life in the Viking Great Army' is a contender for Current Archaeology's Book of the Year... so this is a last call for the voting from me. If you'd like to put us forward, then please follow the link below - and thank you!

If you know any 16-18 year olds interested archaeology or think it might be for them; look into our free ace courses. They do a range of great activities which gives them a taster or archaeology!

Looking at some reproduction viking oval brooches I have made, and seeing the variation and also some thoughts on how they look and the significance of keeping them in circulation in the early medieval period. #viking #earlymedieval #archaeology

These 'repaired' oval brooches are almost done. I've added silver wires with others 'missing' in area, worn the gilding down, and riveted the hinge fitting 'repairs' on the back. The rivets are a mix of silver, repaired silver, and iron. Just have the pins to fit. #vikings #archaeology

Off to speak to Glasgow archaeology Society. Everyone's overnight bag looks like this right?

Our latest #A66 video on the Roman cemetery: youtu.be/z_Zq9LASTqg?...

I haven't seen the episode yet, but think this might be one of the bottles from the A66 as we recorded it before Christmas ready for a video you'll be seeing VERY soon! If not, it's a dead ringer! Keep tuned to @oxfordarchaeology.bsky.social

Tune in tonight to see what the '66 gang have been up to!

Last Feb I spoke at a reenactment conference: Vallhall: during the Jorvik viking festival. I was asked to talk on viking age houses and the talks are up on the organisers YouTube channel where you can watch all the speakers! #archaeology #vikings #livinghistory youtu.be/4GCt_zsjz8Y?...

Starting to complete some of my reconstructions of repaired viking age oval brooches. #viking #archaeology #reenactment

We have worked so hard putting these videos together so everyone can see what we do and some preliminary findings! #archaeology youtu.be/E0nII2SklCE?...

First prototype of a repaired P37 viking oval brooch, with a replacement iron hinge fitting, attached with iron bosses. Similar to a single shell led brooch from Clibberswick, Unst, Shetland, they are different types. But both early styles and single shelled. #vikings #archaeology #earlymedieval

Multi-period handling kits done and off to their forever home! #roman #anglosaxon #vikings #museums #archaeology

A year; well that has flown by! #vikings

The last of few pairs of viking oval brooches in this latest batch done! #vikings #archaeology

A little video; the first of many, that the team and I have been working on!

A really stunning pair of gilded P37.12 viking brooches I have made for a very patient customer! I don't often get to gild the P37 series, but I am really taken wth these! #viking #vikings #livinghistory #archaeology

Working away on finishing off viking age oval brooches again today! #vikings #archaeology

Bit of a delay due to hols/Illness, I'm back with wire and silver boss work on these two viking age oval brooches. Top right are P51 double shelled type, the lower left are a custom adaptation of a single shelled P37; gilded with silver inlays soldered in the channels and engraved. #viking

A week away - and two Viking festivals - means I need to catch up on Viking camps #FindsFriday again! I can't think of a good Jórvík-related find for today's Yorkshire Day celebrations, but I talked weights with Howard @archaeodeathprof.bsky.social at Heysham festival... so let's look at scales. /1

However, our three scales show how busy our Viking camps were with trading: they were far more marketplaces than they were fortifications. I'm going to take this opportunity to re-post Adam @eblueaxe.bsky.social and my chat with Howard about scales and weights - and their links to the Great Army. /8

Viking Bling with Adam and Trix www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p9t... @trixranderson.bsky.social

𝗨𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 #𝟭𝟯: 𝗧𝗮𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘄'𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁 Scattered across the landscape like ancient sentinels, hillforts rise from the earth—silent, enduring, and powerful. Yet some slip into obscurity, veiled by the mists of time, until archaeologists breathe life back into their stories.

Another completed pair of viking age P42 oval brooches. Being able to make artefacts makes a huge difference to how you understand them from an academic perspective. It prevents poor interpretations as well as inaccurate writing regarding how things are made; prevalent within archaeology #vikings

So that is the assembly and polishing of the base shells done. I now need to degrease these and send them for gilding! #viking

Twi sets of silver plate soldered into the channels of these P37 brooches and engraved. Next to fit the face mounts, then they can be gilded! #viking

There seems to be a lot of younger academics talking absolute garbage about finds due to inexperience these days, with an awful lot of confidence and self promotion. I thought those days were past us, but perhaps that is just the circle of life!

My mate Ezra made a stonking video all about Vikings (with a little help from Mum and Dad!) Give it a watch and a like! youtu.be/twIDqfQQD1Q?...

My eldest did his work experience in our office recently and him and three other students put together this short video on some of the post-excavation processes they did and why we do them (including the video!) Please give it a watch and a like; I think they did an awesome job!

I've been making good progress with some problems with the P51 brooches I've been having: first four pairs underway! Two pairs of P42s are about to head out and the second two pairs are close behind! Aa way to go but the battle is slowly turning! #viking #vikings #craft #livinghistory #reenactment

To celebrate yesterday's anniversary of the finding of the Cuerdale hoard (15th May 1840), we're going to look at this little silver ring for our Viking Camps #FindsFriday today. This is database number T79, one of the earlier finds from the site, recorded by the late and great Mark Blackburn. /1

Adam @eblueaxe.bsky.social and myself are working on this theme at the moment, looking at how traces of the Great Army and the cultural influences of the force can be seen moving westwards. If you want to know more, you'll need to watch his presentation at the Midlands Viking Symposium tomorrow! /7

After a Melsonby-hoard-related delay, the announcement of this is finally official - I've been on tenterhooks waiting! Viking North is going to showcase a wonderful collection, including the first public presentation of finds from the Great Army camp at Aldwark. I'm very pleased and excited :)

The P42 oval brooches are polished, cleaned, and gilded, and I've started wiring them up now! The P51s are a little behind alas, but hopefully I'll have those back on track in the next month. #viking #viking #archaeology #livinghistory #reenactment #crafts #vikingjewellery

📈📺 1,000+ views of @eblueaxe.bsky.social's chat with me about The Power of Silver in the Viking Age: The Silverdale Hoard in Context! Thanks again to Adam Parsons for asking me to talk about #Viking silver economies and trade networks. 📺 Click the link below, and do subscribe to Adam's YouTube!

My weekend up at Moorforge historic craft weekend, doing some experimental work and education!

I had a go at interpreting this fragment as a weight, using one of the lovely Loch Glashan brooch reproductions made by @eblueaxe.bsky.social (and with his help). Adam had set an amber cabochon into the loop which I didn't have the heart to drill out - but otherwise I feel it turned out well. /6

Had a spare half hour this afternoon so I added the boss and handle to this viking age flat shield for my own collection! #vikings #archaeology #livinghistory

I have no way of explaining to anyone how satisfying this is to me and I am tempted to keep them all, but I know there will be a few people who understand where I am coming from! #cubo-octahedral #vikings

This is one of those 'if you know, you know' type pictures! It's rawhide (hence the pupsters interest) and I've soaked it and am cutting it into strips to edge a shield with