Help to get a nationally-important monograph printed. A pledge of £34 will get you a print copy of the Rhynie book + UK shipping if the full £10k is raised. A bargain price for what will be a very detailed account of this major Pictish site and its environs. (The ebook will be free.)

We've just added more historic Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland to our website. You can now compare first edition one-inch to the mile maps dating from the 1860s to 1870s with second edition maps published between 1898 and 1902. maps.nls.uk/os/one-inch-...

Still v. tickled that Jane Geddes's theory about the conical structure on Sueno's Stone has inspired a t-shirt! The 'furnace of the damned' interpretation is elaborated in her award-winning 2024 PSAS article (now open access): journals.socantscot.org/index.php/ps...

After wrestling with some difficult sources, I'm quite excited about my paper next Saturday at the Scottish Place-Name Society conference. New research on the cult of Curetán/Boniface in the Black Isle, and the possible layout of early medieval Rosemarkie. Details here: spns.org.uk/spns-autumn-...

Scandalous that Furnace of the Damned are SHUNNING Kinloss, Rafford and Alves on their 2026 tour.

The next lecture in our 2025-2026 season is coming up on Friday 21 Nov! Professor Jane Geddes will present her research on the lost libraries of Pictland. (Lectures are for PAS members only - find out about the many benefits of PAS membership here: www.thepictishartssociety.org.uk/join-us.)

Important new article re-evaluating the demographic transition from Pictish to Norse in Orkney. Material previously categorised as 'Norse' or 'Viking' is now shown to date to the earlier Pictish period (pre-800).

Idly wondering if I could get a travel bursary to go to Scotland to check the gender of a single Latin word in a fourteenth-century charter. #PhDLife

Just in time for Halloween, a new Pictish vision of hell In PSAS 153, 2024 @socantscot.bsky.social Jane Geddes argues the weird 'beehive' surrounded by headless corpses on Sueno's Stone, Forres, is the furnace of the damned Nice shout-out to #CrucibleOfNations as a bonus doi.org/10.9750/PSAS...

And just because it's that time of year, I held my nose and dived back into the bad place myself to rescue one of my favourite threads: the original Pictish Vision of Hell: A Halloween Thread twitter-thread.com/t/1057601508...

To mark the launch of Colmán Etchingham's Vikings in Early Medieval Ireland, Boydell & Brewer are offering a **65%** discount on the book until the end of November. Enter the code BB158 when ordering it from their website (individual not institutional orders): boydellandbrewer.com/book/vikings...

I always find it extraordinary that we have a copy of the Life of Columba dating almost to Adomnán's own time. (The image here shows the BEST chapter of the Vita Sancti Columbae - the one with the River Ness monster.)

An excellent and eye-opening read about the growing tensions between metal-detecting and archaeology/heritage conservation in England and Wales. Feels like something has to give here.

I almost posted this on LinkedIn for all my fellow freelance copywriter friends, but it's just too sweary. But also very accurate.

Fantastic trailer for @jamesbluecat.bsky.social's paperback launch in Jan! Excellent work by @emmajwaring.bsky.social.

Scottish Society for Northern Studies day conference!! lots on Picts and Vikings www.ssns.org.uk/events/ssns-... #scotland #history #archaeology #medievalsky

Broch-tastic news. Taking experimental #archaeology to the extreme! Such a fantastic project, great news for #Caithness and Scottish archaeology. #IronAge #Broch #Scotland www.northern-times.co.uk/news/scotlan...

Finally got the chance to meet this guy last week. A completely unique and haunting cross from Riasg Buidhe, Colonsay, in the gardens of Colonsay House. Its dating remains up for debate, ranging from the 7th to the 10th century AD www.trove.scot/image/384171

Also this morning I popped into the North Coast Visitor Centre in #Thurso to see the two #runic inscriptions which have been found in that town. They're very nicely displayed in a room with some cool Pictish stones too. See app.raa.se/open/runor/i... and app.raa.se/open/runor/i...

Oh, is this what happened to Choco Leibniz too? Because they changed their recipe and my favourite-ever biscuit is now inedible.

At @ihr.bsky.social we can now offer PhD by Publication in History! For those with a substantial body of existing published research (within past 10 years), but without a PhD, should be of particular interest to #heritage professionals and independent scholars!

A bargain price for this huge, well-researched and well-written book on eleventh-century Scotland.

Hi #PortfolioDay! I'm an Architectural Illustrator from Edinburgh. I visually reconstruct heritage buildings and monuments in #Blender3D guided by archaeology, measured survey data, and by working in collaboration with historians and archaeologists. Website: bobmarshall.co.uk

25% off the husband @jamesbluecat.bsky.social's novel PAGANS if you pre-order the paperback from Waterstones by Friday.

'It's a good start'

Joe Fitzpatrick and Gordon Noble will be updating us on 'Excavations at East Lomond' at our conference in Glenrothes on 1 November. Exciting finds include a Pictish axe, pin and a rare carving of a human face. Photos courtesy of G Noble/Aberdeen University/Northern Picts Project

We are #hiring! #TeamCFA has a busy autumn ahead, with excavations scheduled across the UK. From prehistoric settlements to a medieval city centre, we have a wide variety of sites which would interest any archaeologist! To find out more, visit our website: https://www.cfa-archaeology.co.uk/careers

Anyway, my most N London story is when son went to new friend's house for primary school playdate he said there was a Nobel Peace Prize for the mum framed in the bathroom and I said "haha that's because she has four kids and they're making a joke" but it turned out she'd won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Have hit the limits of both sites now - if anyone knows where I might find issues of the Irish Times from 1946 and 1948-50 without buying a full newspaper subscription, please let me know. (The Internet Archive has nothing after 1945, and FmP/BNA has 1947 but nothing else in the 1940s).

More great research help from Google AI Overview.

If you enjoyed the @pictishartssociety.bsky.social conference, you may like to know that our online lecture season is about to kick off. Talks on textual influences in Pictish art, aDNA and isotope analyses of Pictish burials, and a new approach to the Pictish symbols, among others. Details below.

I came across a huge queue last Wednesday night in Glasgow, and assumed people were queuing for a concert or a club. Turned out they were queuing to get into a new branch of Uniqlo!

Looking forward to day 2 of our online conference today, diving into the latest archaeological discoveries from Pictland with @northernpicts.bsky.social, and new research on Pictish sculpture from Prof Jane Geddes, Dr Victoria Whitworth and Dr Susan Youngs.

My new laptop has a special Copilot button - I think I can safely say that's never going to be pressed.

A write-up of my talk from last weekend's Highland Archaeology Festival Conference. Featuring some new (and still developing) thoughts on Curetán's late seventh-century bishopric of Ross, and whether we can see a glimpse of it in Adomnán's Life of Columba. All thoughts and feedback welcome!

Full-on day - did two bits of client writing work, had a briefing call with another client, conducted seven online soundchecks for the @pictishartssociety.bsky.social conference tomorrow, and did some urgent amends for a third client. Time to lie down now.

The Journal of Wetland Archaeology has moved from Twitter/X to BlueSky! Follow @jnlwetlandarch.bsky.social for the latest news and updates and please spread the word!

Looking forward to seeing lots of Pictophiles at this weekend's @pictishartssociety.bsky.social conference. If you don't have a ticket yet, there's still time!

Just paid THREE POUNDS THIRTY NINE for a takeaway peppermint tea in Wolverhampton train station. It's barely more than a cup of hot water!

The University of Glasgow groundspeople are going to be quite annoyed when they come in to work tomorrow...

Bluesky if I wanted to sell some of my comics as a digital download is there a best site for that? like Ko-fi, Gumroad? any in particular? Thanks!

Nooooo ProQuest Ebook Central has gone down JUST as I was about to find out how many saints are named Colmán in Pádraig Ó Riain's Dictionary of Irish Saints. How can I live with the suspense?

The result of Dominic Cummings's ludicrously 'entrepreneurial' attitude to government procurement.

Still time to get your ticket for this weekend's online conference! Full agenda and booking link at the link below.

My husband on a podcast! On what it's like to go from screenwriting to writing a successful novel (while also doing the childcare, cooking and ironing, oh no, this is making me feel terrible).

Excellent news for independent researchers. Great to see academic work made more accessible.

I wrote a massive TTRPG setting guide encyclopaedia about the ancient Scotland and the Picts who lived in it. It covers everything scholars currently know about life in the 7th century, from landscapes to kingdoms to faith, magic, settlements, and so much more. Check it out! carvedinstone.scot

If you were intrigued by yesterday's Guardian article about the Book of Kells, why not come and hear more of Dr Victoria Whitworth's research at our online conference next weekend? Dr Whitworth will be speaking on Sunday 5 October about the Pictish cross-slabs at Skinnet and Ulbster in Caithness.