Was happy to give a talk on late Roman and Visigothic women in cinema + other art at St John’s College @stjohnsox.bsky.social, this weekend, as part of a panel on the Ancient World in Digital Media for Oxford Open Doors 2025. I talked about, e.g., Galla Placidia in Revenge of the Barbarians (1960).

a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel

A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...

A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...

ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT

We in academia are being inundated with a new fallacy: The all-tech-is-the-same fallacy. As educators, part of our job is to evaluate different technologies, using some & rejecting others based on their actual utility (or potential harm) in meeting properly *educational* goals.

Spotted this extraordinary comparandum on the Twitter account of @persiaantigua.bsky.social

I’ve been reading through Latin curse tablets (defixiones) and thought this one from Roman-period Britain was neat: someone seemingly cursing the person who stole their beehive ‘vas apium’)! 🐝 (Brit. 48.10 10; text and images: romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...; images by R.S.O. Tomlin)

Tomorrow!! 🏺🏛️

I was happy to speak at the Granada-St Andrews International Meeting ‘Sharing Perspectives on Late Antiquity’ at the University of St Andrews yesterday (@staclassics.bsky.social); I spoke about some aspects of the relationship between monasteries and crisis in late Roman and Visigothic Iberia

Went to see the newly-reopened Roman gallery of the Ashmolean @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social; liked this marble portrait of Livia (wife of Augustus). Left to the museum by Sir Arthur Evans.

For #MosaicMonday: a throwback to this unimpressed Medusa from late 2nd-early 3rd century Tarraco (Tarragona). MNAT 2921. 🏺

"The Dark Ages" violates the rule that historical periods are discretionary but not arbitrary. Periods can be redefined but not contrary to the evidence. Calling the period after the transformations of the Roman Empire "DA" is a value judgment inconsistent with the evidence. 13/

Late Roman historian here. Please stop perpetuating the narrative of a fall of Rome triggering Dark Ages. That’s not what happened at all.

Published in #Cambridge's #ClassicalStudies and #Archaeology journals, articles in this free-access collection bring together recent scholarly research on the #history, archaeology and cultural dynamics of #RomanBritain: ✅➡️ cup.org/3YMP1hO

So I think I need to do a sober thread on just how disasterously bad the new trove.scot website is, in comparison to the sites - especially Canmore - that it's replacing. tl:dr - the new site is not fit for purpose; switching off the old sites on 24 June 2025 is way way way premature.

A great resource :) “Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters… a collection of medieval Latin letters to and from women. The letters collected here date from the 4th to the 13th centuries, and they are presented in their original Latin as well as in English translation...” (epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu)

God exactly. The purpose of writing papers is FOR YOU TO THINK SOMETHING THROUGH, not because a prof has a deficit in their life that needs to be filled by reading 5-7 pages of mediocre bullshit. The bulk of things I recall from undergrad are things I wrote papers about.

Honouring the ancient plumbers, mosaicists, builders, and painters in an insula in #Pompeii (Region IX) who were tragically interrupted in their work. #LabourDay #MayDay

Two of my favorites from the late Roman silver found at Traprain Law (East Lothian, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), supposed to have been buried sometime in the 5th century. One is a dish depicting a nereid in an aquatic scene. The other is a small image of a woman from a piece of cut-up silver (hacksilver).

Two of my favorites from the late Roman silver found at Traprain Law (East Lothian, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), supposed to have been buried sometime in the 5th century. One is a dish depicting a nereid in an aquatic scene. The other is a small image of a woman from a piece of cut-up silver (hacksilver).

If you are in any way shape or form someone who both is *and* understands what it means for you to *be* in contact with an archive of material, you need to start doing whatever it takes to protect those archives, right now.

A tiny fragment of painted wall plaster found at the Roman fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire. Planned as the nerve centre of the conquest of northern Britain, Inchtuthil was constructed c. 83 AD but was abandoned before it was even finished. #FrescoFriday #FindsFriday

I was really happy to be invited back to St Andrews 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@staclassics.bsky.social) to speak at the Centre for Late Antique Studies this week. I talked about some of the research I’ve done on female patronage in Visigothic Iberia since starting my fellowship at St John’s (@stjohnsox.bsky.social).

Really enjoyed last afternoon's talk on the Visigothic queens and female patronage throughout late antique Iberia by @carrielarocco.bsky.social, featuring many interesting observations on a great collection of inscriptions! @staclassics.bsky.social

CLAS seminar, #tomorrow, 2 April at 4pm: "Visigothic Queens: Female Power and Patronage in Late-Antique Iberia" Carolyn La Rocco Hybrid event: Rm SO3 Swallowgate/Teams For meeting link, email Ann-Sophie Schoess ([email protected]) or Anna Kelley ([email protected]).

"this is fine" British Library Manuscript - royal ms 20 a ii f3r

A really interesting paper on Whitewashing the Samnite in #ResDiff6

Went to see the absolutely stunning reconstructions of Nubian early and high medieval textiles at the Dress to Impress exhibition that is now visiting Bode Museum in Berlin. The Warsaw team has done a splendid job bringing one of the most impressive bits of medieval history to life.

The subtle contours of ancient tapestry sections: detail of textile fragment showing Hermes, from Loulan, c. 3rd century AD [https://g.co/arts/kFcd9p5TabssiTb56]

hey has anyone got any neat hacks for writing when the world is on fire thanks

Some nice flowers outside the Chapel of St John’s College

Hard to go past the newly revealed fresco from Pompeii this #FrescoFriday. The lifesize scene shows a procession of Dionysius and this photo glorious frames a dancing maenad between two columns. The stunning scene is a feast of red hues! #AncientBluesky🏺

O 25 de febreiro na Facultade de Historia de Ourense da @uvigo.bsky.social, farase o seminario: "Continuidade ou discontinuidade? A arqueoloxía das fortalezas medieváis galegas."

Just a reminder that fascists, authoritarians, dictators of all stripes destroy archives— books, museums, databases, &c— because those things provide windows onto a plurality of other ways we might organize the world. And so preserving, defending, and spreading that knowledge harms those regimes.

A new (and gorgeous!) Witches of Scotland #tartan has been created to honor the thousands of people, primarily women, who were persecuted as #witches between the 16th and 18th centuries. wildhunt.org/2025/02/newl...

When I grade a student’s writing, I learn about the student. When the student reads my comments, they learn about me, but hopefully also start to see some of what I see in their writing. This is the job I’m trained to do. Replacing any part of that dynamic with generated text changes the job.

Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions theonion.com/historians-p...

[17] William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926), born into slavery, is considered the first African American classical scholar. He served as president of Wilberforce University between 1908 and 1920 and wrote a popular ancient Greek textbook #AncientBlackness en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wi...

Save the dates! The Centre for Late Antique Studies has an exciting programme of seminars this semester. late-antiquity.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/ All seminars are hybrid unless otherwise stated. For information email Sophie Schoess ([email protected]) or Anna Kelley ([email protected])

🏺 Texture in this is astonishing - the irises and pupils with the lightest touched (except for a tiny white highlight) make you feel like you're looking *into* her eyes, while her pearl earrings gleam tangibly out of the 4th dimension (high res image : commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mu...

There’s an even fancier flyer now, including a handy QR code.

It is my pleasure to announce the program for #ResDiff6 (March 21, 2025), an annual digital conference addressing inequity in classics, which I co-organize with Joseph Romero. Keynote: Sarah Derbew. resdifficiles.com/res-diff-6-2...

“I write to express my dismay at the continued silence and apparent inaction from the Royal Society over the Fellowship awarded in 2018 to Elon #Musk” #science #academia #HigherEd please consider signing

Great article on women in late antique Iberia by Henar Gallego Franco: “Domina mea: mujeres, protección y caridad en Hispania tardoantigua (ss. V-VII d.C.)”

Great article on women in late antique Iberia by Henar Gallego Franco: “Domina mea: mujeres, protección y caridad en Hispania tardoantigua (ss. V-VII d.C.)”

Wild how the category of “women” must both be ruthlessly defended by the right but also stripped from all direct research, support, or institutional funding.

A great resource :) “Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters… a collection of medieval Latin letters to and from women. The letters collected here date from the 4th to the 13th centuries, and they are presented in their original Latin as well as in English translation...” (epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu)

Please sign and share this student-led petition to save Ancient History here at Cardiff University www.change.org/p/save-cardi...

On the morning of 18 July 1811, farmer George Tupper hit a stone whilst ploughing Subsequent energetic soil clearance revealed this face, a 4th century #Roman mosaic portrait of the Trojan prince Ganymede It was the first bit of @bignorvilla.bsky.social to be exposed 📷 May 2015 #MosaicMonday