I'll be at the Folkestone Book Festival next week talking about Fall of Civilizations, my book and why societies rise and fall. Come and join me! www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/whats-on/pau...

⛰️🏔️ Episode 20 is now live! 🏔️⛰️ In this episode, we look at the amazing story of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Find out how the world's largest empire rose, flourished, and finally fell in ash and flame. YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRYd... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6AeH...

⛰️🏔️ Episode 20 is now available for all subscribers! 🏔️⛰️ In this episode, we look at the amazing story of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. With readings in Old Persian and Ancient Greek, find out how the world's largest empire rose, flourished, and finally fell in ash and flame.

The first episode of my new series Truly Tradly Deeply is here! We dive into the evolution of the tradwife subculture, how hyper-feminine aesthetics are weaponised by the European far right, and why Phyllis Schlafly was a Lean In Girlboss 💅💖 on.soundcloud.com/srccAxW4hXnc...

My favourite stretch of the Antonine Wall, the Roman frontier in Scotland, can be found at Dullatur. Here the Wall's enormous ditch is remarkably well preserved, tangible evidence of the impressive scale of this 38-mile-long monument. #RomanSiteSaturday

Little Holy Island retreat. Hiked for hours in the dunes. Prayed in the ruins. On the outcrops. By the sea. Watched the sunset. Waited for the stars to open up. Saw the milky way. Saw a comet fall from the sky. Split into two. Burn up over the land. Red and white coals in the darkness.

Took an extended lunch break today to enjoy the #autumn colours before the coming winds and rain blow the foliage away. The river Wear in the #Durham area is lovely in any season, but particularly so in elusive autumn sunshine. 😊 #FinchalePriory

I’m going to have to go back to the Hafod y Porth copper mine high on the slopes of Cwm y Bleiddiad (valley/hollow of the wolf), Eryri for a more detailed look as I didn’t have time yesterday. I passed a powder store on the miners track, the managers house & smithy & a nice circular powder magazine

🧵/4 After threading the razor-thin cornwall roads, got to Treyarnon & caught the Winecove Point Complex at sunset Not clear if this was always 2 promotory forts or one which has eroded clean down the middle Incredible either way #HillfortsWednesday

The vaulted undercroft at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire. The abbey was originally established by Benedictine monks from St Mary's Abbey in York in 1132 and became one of the largest Cistercian houses in England. 📸 My own. #MedievalMonday #FountainsAbbey #Yorkshire

damn. hoping it at least signifies something

Sitting down today to record for Fall of Civilizations Episode 20!

Really proud Fall of Civilizations has been named a Waterstones paperback of the year. Get it at your local Waterstones! LINK: www.waterstones.com/book/fall-of...

One day, nearly 2000 years ago, a cat dashed across some drying tiles, somewhere near Hadrian's Wall. It's immortality of a kind, isn't it?

St Catherine's Hill, Winchester, rising high above the Itchen Valley floodplain. On the summit of then iron age hillfort is a beech clump and nearby buried remains of a Norman chapel.

Also this one

Not sure any work of art haunts me like this one

Holy smokes, FASCINATING thread about Caligula's "pleasure barges" and their attempted recovery by Mussolini.

A Moment In The Ruins

After the fire. #Photography #Urban #Street #Ruins

Ruins of Eldena Monastery near Greifswald, 1825, by Caspar David Friedrich, born OTD 1774. Love the little house nestled safely among the huge ruins!

Maybe @lukeoneil47.bsky.social is the poet laureate of our times...

Near Beetham you’ll find the Fairy Steps. Carved into limestone rock, local tradition says that if you can negotiate them without touching the sides, fairies will grant you a wish! more in: "Folklore of the Lake District" bardofcumberland.com/folklore/ #bookologythursday #booksky

Little meander around the ruins of St Mary’s York this afternoon

Some of the most remarkable lost artefacts from the ancient world were the titanic wrecks of the Nemi ships, built for a Roman emperor. In their first-century heyday they held gardens, palaces and baths in a floating wonderland. But barely a decade after their recovery, they were lost forever.

Blakethwaite Smelt Mill in Gunnerside Gill, Swaledale. The area was a lead mining centre in the 18th and 19th centuries, this plant being built in 1821. The landscape is still scarred by spoil heaps and 'hushes' where dams were built and breached to strip soil from the bedrock.

British Camp, with Pinnacle Hill and The Malverns stretching out behind. This was a huge Bronze/Iron Age hillfort.

Another iconic monument ticked off the bucket list. Poulnabrone dolmen is one of Ireland's most photographed and photogenic monuments. It is set in the desolate and magnificent landscape of the Burren, Co Clare. #TombTuesday #Neolithic #Ireland

Painting for a railway poster of the Yorkshire Dales by Leonard Russell Squirrell (1893-1979). An accomplished printmaker he is also known for his paintings of East Anglia.

Some more angles on the industrials ruins of Wales

My good friend @infrabeige.bsky.social has just launched a new edition of his RPG Vaults of Vaarn I've watched this grow from the start, and if you're into tabletop RPGs, mad sci-fi, exploring ancient ruins & vast deserts I can't recommend it enough Support here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/v...

We love being on the train don't we fellas

That time in 1902 when the medieval bell tower at St Mark's Square in Venice crashed to the ground. And was caught on camera!

Who up stroking they sword while lamenting social realities

Late evening of work in Pompeii yesterday but the reward of an empty site bathed in glorious warm light was a privilege.

The rock resisted. The tree persisted.

From Gabriel Zuchtreigel's "Buried City." When I finally get to Pompeii, I think my favorite part will be these anonymous intersections. The warren of a normal city. Look at the stone bollard in front of the fountain, so a cart wouldn't accidentally destroy the whole thing! We still do that!

After every war someone has to tidy up. Things won’t pick themselves up, after all. Someone has to shove the rubble to the roadsides so the carts loaded with corpses can get by. -Wisława Szymborska, “The End and the Beginning” (t. Cavanagh & Barańczak) #everynightapoem #war

Happy Solstice from Stonehenge. Trilithons, pyramidal orchids and dyer’s greenweed

A photograph of Rievaulx Abbey now some 175 years old taken 1852-54 by Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1815-1894) who was one of the first British amateur photographers. Born in London, he became a ‘tallow-chandler’ and helped to run his family’s business.

September 1, 1939, W.H. Auden poets.org/poem/septemb...

📍Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy (Oct 2024) #Photography #photographersofbluesky #travelphotography #rome #italy #history #ruins #architecture #europe

Rough brushwork to match a rough, strong fortress in ruins: Hadleigh Castle, 1828, by John Constable. His day has been today.

Today's offering for #HillfortsWednesday is the enigma that is Carl Wark. The promontory is faced by vertical cliffs on all but one side, which is protected by an embankment, ditch and stone rampart, believed to date from Prehistory. There is no evidence of settlement within the enclosure.

'...most people experienced the fall of the Roman Empire as, “One day a bridge collapsed, and no one came to fix it.”'

☀️We're giving away 5 special edition mugs, plus a free copy of the Sunday Times bestseller Fall of Civilizations! ☀️ To enter, just repost this and follow the publisher @duckworthbooks.bsky.social! Giveaway closes at midnight on Friday 23rd May. Good luck!

Today's love from the Roman world! Amazing Herculaneum!!!