This beautiful Minoan gold bee is decorated with the most minute filigree work. It almost defies belief especially as the pendant is only around 15mm high. 🕰️1,700-1,350BC 🏛️BM 📷 my own

Detail of a beautiful bird from a Roman mosaics from Mount Nebo, Jordan. It is an elevated ridge located in Jordan. Mount Nebo is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land before his death. #MosaicMonday

The 14th century nave of Exeter Cathedral - one of the longest continuous medieval stone vaults in the world. 📸 My own. #MedievalMonday #ExeterCathedral

'A nos vieux quartiers disparus', a 1954 bas-relief by Charles Leplae at the entrance to Brussels Central Station commemorating the old buildings it replaced. Upper right is the house with the entrance to the two passages below.

We are celebrating #InternationalMuseumDay 2026 today. You may have noticed we are not a museum, but we do have collections and run free exhibitions. Come and see them at the Weston Library in Oxford!

Ancient Kamiros, Rhodes

This cameo intaglio portrays Julia, the daughter of Titus. The engraved aquamarine is signed by Evodos. The radiating frame is populated by 9 sapphires and 6 pearls. It was added in the early C9th. It’s a truly striking item. 🕰️C1-2nd AD 🏛️📷 Bibliothèque Nationale 🇫🇷

1/2. This remarkable object is a 5000+ year old carving of a swallow from (very) ancient Egypt. It’s dated to the Naqada III period, c3325 to 3000 BC, and made of calcite and basalt. It’s about 10cm long.

To Noroway, to Noroway, To Noroway o’er the faem; The king’s daughter o’ Noroway, ’Tis thou maun bring her hame… The ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” is probably based on the 1290 mission to Norway to fetch the 7-year-old princess Margaret, heir to the Scottish crown #Norway #Nasjonaldagen #poetry 🇳🇴🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Some great images of the San Siro in Milan from @ftweekend.com, b/w shot from 1965. The insanity of demolishing this building. Milan should be ashamed of itself.

Swallows coming down to collect mud to build their nests on a Norfolk farm yesterday #ukbirding

The Magdalen Reading, c. 1435, delicately turning the page, beside her alabaster jar of ointment, oil on panel, fragment of altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, influential Flemish artist (c.1400-1464), pupil of Robert Campin, court painter to Duke of Burgundy. ALT National Gallery London

“…my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.” Bertrand Russell, British philosopher,mathematician, Nobel Laureate, born #OTD 1872. Letter to Sir Oswald Mosley

Un détail de l'une des œuvres les plus célèbres et ambitieuses d'Auguste Renoir, "Le Déjeuner des canotiers" (1880-1881), que l'on peut actuellement admirer au @museeorsay.bsky.social, dans le cadre de l'exposition "Renoir et l'amour", grâce à un prêt de la Phillips Collection. #HDA

"We used to picnic where the thrift Grew deep and tufted to the edge" John Betjeman / Trebetherick

Nonetheless domestically things are moving in the right direction (though the prints here are probably a bit gothic for Soane).

Two things should be true in a democracy: 1. Being rich should not help you get elected. 2. Getting elected should not help you get rich. How’s your country doing on these criteria?

May 17, 2026 Notting Hill, London #weekend

Golden (thornless) rose By Minucchio Jacobi da Siena. 1330 Created in Avignon to reward piety & services to the Pope. This particular version was given during Lent to the Count of Neuchâtel. From the treasury of the Basel Cathedral (Switzerland) Displayed @museecluny.bsky.social, Paris

Behold, the laburnum arch. At 55 metres long and more than 140 years old, the arch at Bodnant Garden is a spectacle to behold. If you want to see it for yourself, please pre-book to ensure you're able to visit.

This beautiful cloisonné brooch is made of gold, garnet, multicolored glass and pearls. It dates to the time of Charlemagne & was discovered in a well in Dorestad. What a great find. 🕰️ c800 AD 🏛️📷Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 🇳🇱 #FindsFriday

Edward Jenner, physician & father of immunology, who saved lives worldwide; born #OTD 1749, he administered the first smallpox vaccination in 1796. Portrait 1803 (finished 1823) by James Northcote, NPG London | The Jenner Museum, The Chantry, Berkeley, Gloucestershire

Madonna del Libro c 1480, by Sandro Botticelli, Florentine Renaissance artist, died #OTD 1510; tender Madonna & Child sit before a window, with open Book of Hours. Beside a bowl of cherries, plums & figs, Jesus holds a small crown of thorns & three nails of the cross. Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

And as that wonderful last sentence in Middlemarch shows, the quality of George Eliot’s English prose is matched, I think, only by Jane Austen. (Who is I think, the only writer in English to match her wisdom.)

Spotted the rather run-down Great White Horse today in Ipswich. Features in The Pickwick Papers & Dickens himself stayed there. Photos are front entrance & shabby side door to the long-closed 'Nickleby's Restaurant' (1/2) #DickensianOnTour

A Sheep Stealer on the Leschman Chantry in Hexham Abbey, c1410. The Sheep Stealer was a medieval trope, a wily felon who elicits some sympathy for his artfulness from the audience in a mystery play, but is caught and punished by being tossed in a blanket. In fact, sheep stealing was a capital crime.

Ancient amber pendants worn by hunter-gatherers during the Danish Mesolithic some 10,000 years ago! 📷 National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen en.natmus.dk/historical-k... #Archaeology

#RomanSiteSaturday — The Roman bridge over the Guadiana River at Emerita Augusta (Mérida, Spain), built soon after the city’s foundation in 25 BC under Augustus. With 60 surviving spans and a length of 721m, it remains the longest surviving bridge from antiquity.

Une très belle exposition au musée Jacquemart-André que l'on ne peut que conseiller aux candidates et aux candidats aux agrégations externes d'histoire et de géographie, en lien avec la nouvelle question d'histoire moderne (les circulations culturelles entre l'Espagne et l'Amérique espagnole).

As was this. The Pockthorpe Cope, dating back to 1480. An amazing artefact.

Quite. I’d have been hard put to decide between it and Anna Karenina - but those two, certainly. One aspect of their greatness - I’ve reread both about once a decade since my teens, and each time see a whole variety of different wisdoms in both. They are life companions that grow and change with you

#Roman blue #glass Amphoriskos (circa 1st Century AD. 3 1/4 in. (8.2 cm.) high #AncientGlass #artwork

The lovely Church of St. Mary, Kilburn, North Yorks, is home to a wide array of the famous ‘Mouseman’ furniture - not unexpected really, as the workshop is literally next door! It’s fun trying to find all the mice throughout the church! Here’s a small selection 🥰

The fleeting nature of life, in flowers 🌹 Rachel Ruysch created this meticulous still life in 1687. Known for her intricate and detailed still lifes of flowers, Ruysch achieved international success and became the best documented female painter of the Dutch Golden Age.

Vikings Traded Falcons with Medieval Baghdad, Study Finds. www.medievalists.net/2026/05/viki...

At Leighton House. Fun.

A peacock is curled up within the initial 'P'(aulus) at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians. BnF MS Latin 313; Epistolae Pauli cum glossa ordinaria; 12 century; f.108v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

A stunning #Roman amber flask, found in Aquileia, dating 1st/2nd c. AD. Aquileia's position at the end of a main amber trade route resulted in its becoming a centre for the carving and distribution of Baltic amber across the Roman Empire. 📷 Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Aquileia 🏺

Il était une fois...Charles Perrault, French poet, writer, author of Mother Goose fairy tales including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard; died #OTD 1703. Portrait by Lallemand (1671) after 1665 painting by Le Brun. Château de Versailles

Divine Providence: acclaimed illusionistic frescoed ceiling, Palazzo Barberini, painted di sotto in sù by influential Italian Baroque artist & architect, Pietro da Cortona. Trained in Florence, he worked in Rome, died #OTD 1669. Palazzo Barberini

One of those London buildings that can escape notice. John Oldrid Scott's S. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Bayswater. Opened June 1879.

Détails de Renoir, issus de tableaux que l'on peut admirer actuellement au @museeorsay.bsky.social dans le cadre de la merveilleuse exposition "Renoir et l'amour". Quelle délicatesse et quelle virtuosité dans la touche et l'utilisation de la matière picturale ! #HDA

THE SHAH'S GREAT TOUR has a cover (and please judge the book by it...) - out on 8 October! @lsehy.bsky.social @academic.oup.com

Liebfrauenkirche #Trier

This summary of different early medieval literature is still one of my favourite things on the internet. #medievalsky

#FindsFriday Frankish Disk Brooch, 7th Century. Gold, filigree, mother-of-pearl, garnets, blue and green stones. Metropolitan Museum of #Art

Ah, Suckling Spendlove. The man with the longest inventory in our probate archive. He had a shop so it includes all your everyday grocery items such as brandy, raisins, spices, soap, 'Wash balls', coffee powder, 'glaized pypes', Naples 'Biskettes', gunpowder, mercury, and 'one box of Druggs'.

#FindsFriday The Halton Moor Hoard, silver gilt cup, silver torc of twisted wire and gold disc. Buried around AD1025. Discovery method: Ploughing or digging in 1815, Halton Moor, Lancashire. (See Alt. For more 📷 my own) Treasure exhibition Liverpool Museum

🧵This LiDAR imagery shows the Scheduled Monument of the deserted medieval village of Hilderthorpe on the southern edge of Bridlington. It shows the “ghost” layout of the village before its long slow desertion. A hollow way runs through the centre, marking the main

Further to yesterday's closeup of Fingal's Cave, here's one from farther out, on the water. The rock formations (columnar basalt) are incredible. #landscape #photography