Another entry in my occasional series ‘What does the artefact see?’ Today I’m visiting Vienna’s Natural History Museum, home of the ca. 30,000 year old Willendorf figurine. This is what the Palaeolithic Venus sees day in, day out, in her own special display room. (plus tourists like me) 🏺🧪🎨

Delighted that from January 2026 all research articles published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org will be Open Access view.updates.cambridge.org?qs=85c24bbd7...

Some 1,500 years ago, a child was buried with a set of game pieces made of animal bones. Single game pieces are frequently found in early medieval graves in south-west Germany, but complete sets are rare. Found in Herbolzheim, 500-550 AD. 📷 Landesmuseum Württemberg 🏺 #archaeology

Like a time capsule: a #Roman tile marked with #finger lines, hobnail #shoe prints, #dog's paw prints, and a #stamp of the LEG(io) XIIII G(emina). Tiles with imprints are very common, since tiles were laid out to dry in the open air ahead of firing, where...🧵1/2 #TilesOnTuesday 🏺

This is coming up soon! Free lecture and reception, on Friday 10th October. There are still places left - please come along and/or pass onto your networks

Come work with us!🏺 Together with my brilliant colleague Georgia Barker we are looking for a project curator to research how childhood is represented in the collections of our two departments at the British Museum, Egypt & Sudan and Greece & Rome. 👇👇👇 bmrecruit.ciphr-irecruit.com//templates/C...

If you'd like to find out about the Classical Collections Network here is our website. It's free to join and open to anyone who cares for/about classical collections in UK museums classicalcollectionsnetwork.co.uk

Timeless humour! A 2,000 year-old Roman souvenir pen with a joke inscription roughly equivalent to: “I went to Rome and all I got you was this cheap pen!" 😂 Dated circa 70 AD, this iron stylus pen was recovered in London during excavations by MOLA. 📷 Juan Jose Fuldain/MOLA #Archaeology

Excited to announce that after a lot of editorial work our volume "Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean, 100 BCE - 300 CE" is out now. @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social @illdottore.bsky.social academic.oup.com/book/60683

Are you interested in writing and its visual appearance and/or visibility? If so, please consider sending an abstract for our conference! CFP deadline 5th September 2025, dates of conference 26th-29th March 2026. viewsproject.wordpress.com/writing-as-v...

Last year I ended my project about Roman stylus tablets, which was funded by the @gerda-henkel-stiftung.de, early – for my dream job. But before I did, we filmed a series of short videos about the project, and the first episode is now live. (English Version available) ⬇️⬇️⬇️ #ancientbluesky🏺 1/3

Dorset Museum @dorsetmuseum.bsky.social is fundraising to acquire, conserve and display the Bronze Age *Crichel Hoard* www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... which includes a twisted gold ribbon torc Fundraising details here: www.dorsetmuseum.org/the-crichel-...

CfP: The Ancient Mediterranean and the British Museum: Pasts and Futures A conference exploring the past impact and future potential of the Museum’s ancient Mediterranean collections, in-person in Senate House 25 - 27 Feb 2026. Abstracts (300 words max) due Mon 16 Jun 2025. https://bit.ly/4lCkltp

Apply for our Alexander the Great AHRC PhD opportunity with The British Museum: "Disruption and Diversity: Understanding the Impact of Alexander the Great Through the Material Culture of the Hellenistic World." Application Deadline: 17:00 (UK time) 15 May 2025 phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2239...

Delighted that the volume ‘Empire and Excavation: Critical perspectives on archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878–1960’, edited by Thomas Kiely, Lindy Crewe, and me, is now available open access. Huge thanks to all our contributors: www.sidestone.com/books/empire...

Monumental three-volume Handbook of Epigraphic Cultures to be published by De Gruyter, early next year hopefully. Open Access eBook! Includes chapters on Khitan and Tangut epigraphy.

Final hours of install before press descend on #GladiatorsOfBritain @dorsetmuseum.bsky.social One of the amazing BM objects is this #Roman lamp with a personalised name written into the wet clay - Gaius Maximus. A rare instance of a named #gladiator, or perhaps a fan of this retiarius? #FindsFriday

Children loved to play with toys in #Roman times too: some 1,800 years ago, a child in Cologne was buried with a terracotta with a rider on wheels. It was certainly a much-loved which the child was also supposed to play with in the afterlife. 📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln 🏺 AncientBluesky

The beauty of an attempt to erase stuff in clay is that it can leave behind ancient smeared and smudged fingerprints. This tablet from Uruk, dated to the 600s BCE (or later), might be a school exercise text showing some partially erased cuneiform signs collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Recor...

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)🏺

📣 Call for Articles! 📣 We invite submissions for TALATNA volume 57 (2025). Closing date is the 30th September 2024. Author guidelines and style guide can be found on our website (talanta.nl). For enquiries and submissions, please contact us via [email protected].

[Current Epigraphy] Postgraduate Course in Epigraphy, Rome, June 27th–July 6th 2024 currentepigraphy.org/2023/11/24/p...

And another Cambridge Elements book, on Egyptian scribal culture: twitter.com/ManonYSchutz...

Also this looks fun artsandculture.google.com/story/everyd...

Delighted to have this fantastic opportunity to carry out research on early Irish epigraphy, not just ogham but also Latin insular script inscriptions @maynoothuni.bsky.social #EarlyIrish #DigitalEpigraphy #EarlyMedieval

For my very last #ClassicsTober23 post, here are some thoughts on my month of finding myth in Pompeii. 🏛️🏺 pompeiinetworks.wordpress.com/2023/11/01/c...

📣Publication klaxon📣 This volume edited by Tibor Grüll was just published, in which I discuss depictions of Roman bone ‘spatulate’ strips, sometimes called bone ‘rules’. 1/3 #ClassicsTwitter #RomanArchaeology archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/P…

The Celtic personal name ⟨ateratos⟩ is inscribed on the shoulder of a so-called "spinning-top shaped" bottle (fiasca a trottola) from a late Iron-Age necropolis at Solduno in the Ticino (CH); object and inscription are dated to the late 2nd or first century BC. The name Ateratos ... 1/2

This looks exciting - lecture on literacy and power in the Roman world, free online attendance, 8th November. Information and booking here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-an...

Today is the Institute of Classical Studies' 70th Birthday!!🎂🎉 @ics.bsky.social

Very excited to launch the website for my new project Tabulae Ceratae (TabCer) for EpigraphyTuesday (is this a thing on here?)! The project is funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung and takes a new, object-focused approach to Roman stylus tablets from the north-western provinces. ✍️ tabcer.wordpress.com