Roman Harbor Structures in the Maas: Underwater Excavation Yields Rare Finds – Live Streamed - Arkeonews arkeonews.net/roman-harbor...

Garbled exotic languages in curses are my favorite. Still works with modern magic “Latin.”

By the way, I’m not teaching this whole academic year, so I’m happy to send the temple robbers on tour!

Thank you, University of Warsaw Centre for Research on Ancient Civilizations (CRAC), for a superb 2 days on ancient thieving (and for a great first visit to Poland!)

I have no photos of these because I was too busy gawking at the underwater church.

the booker prize judges make a lot of fuss about having to read 153 books. but assuming an average weight of 750g per book, that comes in at 115kg of literature - or just under the weight of a single adult male ostrich

A brief stop on my way to conferencing on ancient thieving in Warsaw. They are sensational.

My temple robbers and I are on our way!

Welcome, Ralphie VII. Ralphie VI became a bison of leisure last month because of her “indifference to running,” which will make her forever my Ralphie.

"Anyone who works in manuscript studies or philology knows that these are thoroughly digital disciplines. ... Accusations of technophobia ... would therefore be completely inappropriate. It is precisely our technical literacy ... that must make us critical." @dehypotheses.bsky.social

6th annual Erich S. Gruen Prize for best graduate student paper on multiculturalism in the ancient Mediterranean world. Deadline for submissions: September 30. Spread the word! Or, better: throw your hat in the ring!

How to delete your account without agreeing to the new TOS: In the dialogue box asking you to agree, DO NOT click agree. Instead, click on the TOS link which will open another tab. In the top right of that tab you can go to your account settings and delete your account.

It's great to see my chapter get a mention here!

Looking forward to talking about ancient thieving in Warsaw next week!

That's unceremoniously that for the academia[dot]edu account. I hung in there remarkably long for ever-escalating terms of service, but the last round was a bridge too far. Not sure what's next. HumCommons isn't active enough, ResearchGate may be worth another look, we'll see.

Nothing screams "First day back on the job", like urging colleagues everywhere to delete their Academia Dot Edu pages. Which I'm about to do myself as soon as I got coffee in me.

I love Peopling The Past so much for teaching material and extra credit assignments!

About that $75 reimbursement…

The Association of Ancient Historians meeting will be in Iowa City from April 16-18, 2026. For those new to the AAH, we have preset panel themes; you pick 1 to apply to. The theme overall is Ancient Exchanges in a Global Antiquity. See CFP: abstracts are due by December 1. aah.conference.uiowa.edu

Yesterday Insta suggested a video for me where a girl had been invited to a 90s party. With "What did they wear in the 90s? I wasn't alive in the 90s!" she proceeded to order a "vintage dress from the 90s." It was a blue Hervé Léger bandage dress. I've been feeling extra-geriatric millennial.

That’s Senator Dodge Challenger to you.

“What are your feelings about safety?” is one of my favorite flowchart moments ever. Cracks me up every time.

Reading comes full circle: earlier this summer I enjoyed @vox-magica.bsky.social’s _Magic and Heresy in Ancient Christian Literature_, now I’m reading Jason Josephson’s _The Invention of Religion in Japan_, which, with similar theoretical biblio, discusses Christianity as a Buddhist heresy.

Kuang’s Katabasis (aka, hell’s academia people) is one of the finest academic satires I’ve read. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything with this bit about being required to write a dissertation (and pass the defense!) in hell, which makes me feel way too seen.

On today’s new #PeoplingBlog, @lylaahlb.bsky.social takes us through her research on elephants and how they, and their accompanying peoples, served as vehicles for cultural exchange and transmission of knowledge as they traversed land and sea in antiquity: peoplingthepast.com/2025/09/12/b... /1

If you're in the Boston/New England area, I highly recommend the Rachel Ruysch exhibition going on at the Museum of Fine Arts. It feels like magic, and also has specimens from @harvard alongside her work. #Stunday #RachelRuysch #Boston #art #lizard #peach #butterfly #painting #fineart #sciart

Hey, Apple, I don't want a thinner iPhone, I want a new mini with serious battery life!

Happy 150th birthday, apparently not on Bluesky Smith College.

I'm engaged in some slightly tedious committee work for this hour, which means I'm once more appreciating departments with clear "contact us" pages and even more appreciating departments with generic email addresses (chair, dgs, dus etc.) that come with administrative functions.

And if you also have a "no more mugs" policy, there's also a print. And a squirrel. I think I need to look into more office art (I definitely have space for that)

I have a story in the book where Augustus unknowingly eats dinner off the leg of a looted statue of a goddess while pontificating on the risks of temple robbery. So this is interesting to see (gift link, I hope)...

Happy Star Trek Day to all who celebrate!

Don't diss this fish* (*mammal actually) A Dolphin with Attitude (and a large trident) 🐬🔱 Detail from a late 2nd century AD #Roman mosaic excavated by John Turtle Wood in the Sanctuary of Artemis #Ephesus in 1872 © The Trustees of the British Museum 1872,0803.72 #MosaicMonday #GrumpyDolphin

In "that's not helpful" tech news-- why would desktop outlook disable drag and drop attachments for "security"? Apparently now they need to be uploaded to Outlook online and scanned. Or, you know, you can just go through the "attach" menu and do it that way, but drag and drop is gone now.

In our irregular “adventures with Robot” series… I think I just got an ad during a podcast advertising an “AI mosquito detector” that sends you a notification to your phone when a mosquito has been detected. Huh?

Why are so many university cuts targeting Religious Studies…? New article in CHE quoting @vox-magica.bsky.social & others = www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Word of the day is ‘tamalou’: a French name for an older person who no longer greets their friends with ‘how was your holiday?, but with ‘t’as mal où ?’, ‘where does it hurt?’. There follows an enthusiastic account of aches and pains and doctor’s appointments.

Stone Blind was one of my favorite reads of the year so far, so this sounds amazing. And I am now convinced that audiobook will be the way to go here.

Assistant Professor job with University of Maryland - College Park | 37879935 jobs.chronicle.com/job/37879935...

enshittification | noun | when a digital platform is made worse for users, in order to increase profits

My main professional organization, @medievalacademy.bsky.social, has just pub'd a statement about the use of AI in its journal. Basically, DON'T! "AI tools cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for their output or enter into legal agreements." www.medievalacademy.org/page/AIPolicy #MedievalSky

I maintain this list and celebrate each new addition and funding improvement to allow all to access our discipline. It feels equally important to mark the rollback of past successes. Programs at UVa, Columbia, Cornell, and Rutgers, now no longer exist. RT pls. 1/ livyarrow.org/funded-mas-a...

It's time to tell you to pre-order this! $34.95 for a handy lil' paperback! www.ucpress.edu/books/things...

There are lots of things about this morning that weren't on my bingo card, but McSweeney's choosing violence probably should have been.

Things I learned today... Also, there's a fabulous undergrad-written piece on the 1928 episode: villaludovisi.org/2020/06/12/n... On the whole, though, it looks considerably better to be a bear in Bern than a wolf in Rome.

Well. It’s official. You can now submit your proposals to the New Perspectives on Ancient Greek Religion book series, published by Edinburgh University Press! #ClassicsBluesky 🏺

Oy, some of us are trying to work on this fine Monday.

It’s a holiday weekend, so my library usage is limited to websites, but it’s rare that I have a day where I don’t use at least a piece of library material. As for playing favorites, I’m obligated to give that to Harvard’s Widener, but…

"It took her nearly two decades to find a permanent academic position. She found occasional work as a visiting professor, filling in for someone on leave for a year or two. She earned grants to fund her research... but she was often living on unemployment benefits" www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s...