Such an honour to be at Nagoya University for this fabulous event, talking about a project I am conducting @dependencybonn.de using data from Connecting Late Antiquities

I've been so disgusted by everything that's come out about Epstein that I can only handle it in small portions, but this article is such a good survey of the times we live in. It's really worth reading www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Our great thanks to Professor Charles West for his excellent Society lecture yesterday evening: ‘”Alike in Appearance but not in Scope”: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe’ bit.ly/4tluezd The recording of Charles's lecture will be available shortly. @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social #Skystorians

Actually, the main news story should be how a large group of men abused women and girls over many years while everyone was looking away. Because by making this about current Uk politics, Peter Mandelson or whatever, we are still looking away. As Marina Hyde says. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Explore Roman Bonn through the eyes of Bassiana, a free Ubian woman living near the legionary camp of Bonna. Our new self-guided digital heritage trail is now online via the free app – with places, stories, and small challenges along the way. More: buff.ly/4QtrLc9 @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de

A big welcome to Anita Kporkpor Pobi, who joins the BCDSS as a Predoctoral Fellow! We are excited to have Anita’s important perspective at our Cluster! 👉 To learn more about her work, visit: buff.ly/U8k9TAd @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de

The rebuilt foundations of three buildings that formed part of the settlement (vicus) that developed around the Roman fort at Manchester (Mamucium). The foundations and reconstructed North Gate are located in the Castlefield area of the city. 📸 My own. #RomanSiteSaturday

This 👇 took me at least 4 solid working days, several library trips and ILL, and 6 pages of response. Each of the comments forced me to rethink, rephrase, and find new evidence to support my points, even where at times I felt annoyed by them. The revised ms is infinitely better. ❤️peer review.

"The problem of the lack of papyrus [after c.1000] forced a receptiveness to new forms of papal government which the high medieval 'reformers' were able to move into and exploit from about 1050"... Absolutely enthralling new article by @cjg70.bsky.social and Ben Savill (Open Access). #medievalsky

Final call for the @bsrome.bsky.social and Early Medieval Europe early career fellowship, for a month's stay in Rome plus some travel costs to get there. Deadline tomorrow. bsr.ac.uk/awards-resid...

New book: Susan Ashbrook Harvey. Ministries of Song: Women's Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (University of California Press, 2025) ttps://maryjahariscenter.org/blog/ministries-of-song-womens-voices-in-ancient-syriac-christianity

#TombTuesday the Weiden Roman #tomb is today one of the best-preserved and most impressive burial sites from #Roman times north of the Alps. It shows a large part of its original furnishings - pure antiquity. 🧵 (1/2) 📸 A Thünker #Archaeology #History #RomanArchaeology

NEW 🙌 'A Companion to Rome c. 400-c. 1050' edited by Caroline Goodson and Julia Hillner. A new urban history of late antique and early medieval Rome - the result of over seven years' scholarship by 32 contributors from across Europe and America. 🔗 brill.com/display/titl...

We are happy to welcome Jakob D. Jung, who has joined the Bonn BCDSS as a Predoctoral Fellow! 👉 To learn more about Jakob's work, visit: buff.ly/7duWJtn @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de

CFP for a Special Issue of Gender & History on childhood and crises to be edited by Katie Barclay and Emily Ward. Abstracts due 31 May 2026; then hybrid workshop; full articles due 31 Jan. 2027. Please share widely. #Skystorians #GenderHistory #HistChild 🗃️

We had a blast yesterday launching A Companion to Rome (c. 400-1050) into the world. Thank you to our kind hosts, the KFG Religion & Urbanity, Jörg Rüpke and Susanne Rau, our respondents Mateusz Fafinski and Cinnamon Ducasse, and the audience. And our authors and further collaborators, of course!!

Tomorrow, 21 January, 4-6pm, in person and online! Until March, you will also be able to get a 35% discount, see below. (I realise that the volumes are still prohibitively expensive 😢)

Deutsche Bahn encouraging passengers to take a smoking break while waiting for a train’s delayed departure is peak Germany.

I would like to point to a forthcoming workshop on "Introduction into nodegoat" (nodegoat.net), anyone is welcome, please register per email. www.igw.uni-bonn.de/de/institut/...

For real!

Come and join us, we will have a blast celebrating this massive achievement in late antique and early medieval studies!

The Brill Companion to Rome, c. 400- c. 1050, co-edited by Caroline Goodson and myself, will be published on 22 January (online) and on 19 February (print). There will be a hybrid book launch on the eve of the online publication. More info here 👇 www.uni-erfurt.de/fileadmin/Bi...

I am very late to this, but here goes: as a PhD student I worked in Bonn city archives. Looking for something in the magazines with my boss, we entered a room stacked full of ancient Roman roof tiles. My boss said I could take one. It's been with me ever since, featuring often in my teaching. 1/

Our first RHS lecture of 2026 is '"Alike in Appearance but not in Scope": Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe', with Prof Charles West (Edinburgh) bit.ly/49GlmMR 6pm, Friday 6 February. In-person booking is now full but registration to attend this event online remains open #Skystorians

There is time to apply until 30 January for this opportunity sponsored by Early Medieval Europe to spend one month at the British School in Rome

2026 started splendidly for our 'Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World' series with these two mighty fine new tomes. Congratulations to the editors and all authors involved!

It's the run-up to Christmas and as every year I'm reposting my own Xmas miracle story - of the Apollo 8 mission that set off on 21 Dec 1968, their iconic reading from Genesis on Christmas Eve, & how we found the name of the woman who had this genius idea. writinghelena.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/t...

Soon to appear, Eric Fournier and Maijastina Kahlos (eds.), Women and Gender in the Post-Roman Kingdoms, see www.brepols.net/products/IS-... and www.academia.edu/145456266/Wo... (incl. my paper on "Secular Women in the Lombard Kingdom“).

And another, less relaxed one, also Antikensammlung Dresden Both sculptures probably originate from a funerary context.

A very cute little Roman, in the Antikensammlung in Dresden

Our Special Issue @genderandhistory.bsky.social is now out!! Many congrats and thanks to stellar co-editors @writinghelena.bsky.social, Lisa Hellman & Rachel Jean-Baptiste, and to all our fabulous authors. Fab seeing all 140,000 words brought together! 🌟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424...

Rome will open two new Metro C subway stations today - at the Colosseum and Porta Metronia - showcasing the archaeological finds unearthed during construction works.

some news 👇 we're going to find out how to overcome the numerous practical and ethical problems we face when researching the nameless.

Although I agree with the sentiment, I love and own a copy of this rip-off of the original: Mancunian workers taking a break from building St Mary‘s hospital in Manchester (where both my kids were born) -1968

Antonio Felle shows two inscriptions from 3rd-cent. catacomb. Latin was used for daughter and Greek for her mother. Language choice interpreted as related to Greek as main language of Scripture at this time rather than geographical origin. Learning a lot at conference on Rome and the Others

A GIS visualization of foreigners in Rome between AD 300 and 1000 as shown at conference “Rome and the Others”

Das neue Heft der HZ ist erschienen, komplett im #OpenAccess, mit Beiträgen zu Neuro-History, der Erfindung der revolutionären Schweiz von 1847/48, und dem Deutschen Kulturverband in der Tschechoslowakei (1918-1938). www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/... #skystorians @writinghelena.bsky.social

So pleased this is finally out: "Social Network Analysis", with my favourite writing buddy, the incomparable Máirín MacCarron, in Brill's Companion to Roman Prosopography. We hope it will be useful, also for teaching! The whole volume looks great, congrats to the editors! brill.com/display/titl...

Looking forward to giving a paper next week in Rome with the archaeologists who excavated parts of the Schola Saxonum, just opposite the church built over Sancta Maria scola Anglorum, as Archbishop Sigeric called it. Lots of interesting 10th-cent evidence attesting to life in the English quarter

Someone just sent me this pic they took of me when I was in Rome back in May. Kind of sums up how I feel about my scholarship at the moment :)

Agree! I think there is an awful lot of academic fragility out there. I think anyone who takes their own work seriously should be disappointed by "Excellent. Publish as is". It suggests the reviewer hasn't read the thing properly and has robbed you of an invaluable development opportunity.

I should also say back when I was young my wonderful colleague Kate Cooper sat down with me and explained how to read peer review and how to craft a response. I think we should all do this with our mentees; it does wonders for building a less antagonistic academic culture.

Because peer reviewer complains are making the rounds (again): I do a lot of peer review & also receive peer review; just now (in sum) about 7 pages of tightly argued and detailed comments. Yes, some of it will be impossible to apply, but omg - I feel privileged people are reading my work so closely

A lovely duty of the Vertretungsprofessur for the History of Ancient Religions is to deliver a series of lectures on your project. Tomorrow I will begin with my take on how monasticism revolutionized the late antique Mediterranean. www.uni-erfurt.de/universitaet...

This coming Wednesday, I have the great honour to discuss Jörg Rüpke's latest book Studies on Roman Priests and Priesthoods: Fasti sacerdotum 4 with its author, at the official book launch in Erfurt and online www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-ko...

Not long now until the full special issue 👇🏻

This is a late ancient (5-7th c.?) Greek account of the life of a rich woman who was raised Jewish, converted to Christianity when her parents died, lived for 20 years as a male monk named John, was discovered & made head of a woman's monastery, & was later martyred

Although Uta is the star here, I am more intrigued by the female founder figures who appear in Naumburg cathedral’s coir without a husband or male companion: above all, so-called “Gerburg”, not a nun, perhaps a widow?

Up close with Uta at Naumburg cathedral today, aka the “most beautiful woman” of the Middle Ages. Remind you of someone?

Many congratulations to my colleague and very old friend Marios Costambeys and his entire team for winning one of these! Early medieval monasticism rulez 💪https://www.dfg.de/de/aktuelles/neuigkeiten-themen/info-wissenschaft/2025/ifw-25-96