The news isn't half depressing. Have a swan.

HUMP DAY ANNOUNCEMENT 📢📢📢 Next month it'll be 10 years since we posted our first #MuseumBums over on Instagram (scroll back, it's true!) So we're having a little get together 😁 Wanna come? 👍🏛️🍑🥳

📢🔬New #PaperAlert! on the cover of @ScienceAdvances : Emergence of clay personal ornaments in Southwest Asia A butterfly clay bead from #Natufian Eynan-Mallaha, colored red with ochre and marked with the fingerprints of the child (≈10 y/o) who modeled it 12,000 years ago doi.org/10.1126/scia...

No one could have guessed that it turns out that Hatshepsut, one of the few women who became pharaoh in Ancient Egypt, was not as bad as 19th and 20th century historians believed her to be. Surprise surprise. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/s...

The Cotton Genesis (Cotton MS Otho B VI, 5th century) was left barely legible after the Ashburnham House Fire in 1731. Multispectral imaging on the MS has now uncovered texts and images unseen for hundreds of years. Join us at our upcoming conference to learn more. events.bl.uk/events/multi...

Happy Birthday to Carol Kaye, First Lady of the bass, member of The Clique, one of the most prolific bass players ever, Kaye played on over 10,000 recordings, including Pet Sounds, “These Boots”, “The Batman Theme” and “La Bamba”. Born in the rock 3/24/1935. #CarolKaye #TheClique #GreatWomenOfRock

Happy #MosaicMonday Tetrastile Atrium House, Nora, Pula, Sardinia, Itaky

Oystercatcher chasing his date comes close to coming a cropper but he'll say he was just checking the water temperature on his way past 😂🙈 #birds #nikonZ8 #nature #wildlife #photography #ukbirds

The Entry into Jerusalem #PalmSunday BL Add 49598; Benedictional of Æthelwold; 963-984; England, S; f.45v @blmedieval.bsky.social

Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.

A valkyrie with drinking horn greets a horseman - who appears to have ridden from the longship below - on an eight-legged horse, probably Odin's Sleipnir 🐎 This Gotlandic picture stone from Garda, Bote, almost certainly depicts the welcome of a fallen warrior to Valhalla. My 📷 Historiska museet

We were crucified nearby… how often can you say that?

March 23, 283 CE: A baby named Pichime is born at 6 am in Oxyrhynchus in Roman Egypt. This is his horoscope. His sun is in Aries and moon in Cancer (P. Oxy. 12 1564: papyri.info/hgv/21930). At the end, the astrologer says Εὖ Τύχη ("Good Luck!") to the little Aries. 🐏🦀 www.slam.org/collection/o....

Ghost, Hester Cox.

#ancientbluesky #romanhistory #classics Votive relief of Cutius Gallus, #Greece, first century BC to first century AD. "Cutius has auris Gallus tibi voverat olim Phoebigena et posuit sanus ab auriculis"

Ruben Smit geeft een sneak preview van zijn nieuwe film over het #Kempenbroek, het "best bewaarde geheim van Nederland en België". De film gaat over de metamorfose van zowel het gebied als de betrokken mensen, dankzij #rewilding. De film verschijnt in 2028.

Happy World Frog Day. A day for all frogs, but Kermit leads the pack. Singing about rainbows, keeping everything together, always showing up. That’s the frog we look up to. #WorldFrogDay 💚

And here is the 🐘 broadside in full glory:

"Quatre femmes créoles" (Four Creole Women) by Joseph Savart (French) - Pastel on paper / 1770 - Musée départemental Victor Schoelcher (Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe) #WomenInArt #JosephSavart #Savart #MuseeVictorSchoelcher #VictorSchoelcherMuseum #Guadeloupe #CaribbeanArt #arte #artText #FrenchArtist

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 🪶☘️

Mon Dieu! Maison des acrobates is for sale! Just look at this stunning 15th century house, so tempting to buy it and bring it back to its original state... proprietes.lefigaro.fr/annonces/mai... fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_... Enjoy the photo thread:

Not long until we reopen on the 1st of April! Will you be visiting this Spring?

The US just denied a visa to a Tanzanian man coming to visit to remains of his grandfather in the American Museum of Natural History where they're - bafflingly - still held. You can still support him by coming to a free screening of this gorgeous doc about his quest in Manhattan on 3/26!

By popular demand, here is the full, glorious message from Aberystwyth University Library, on their blog: wordpress.aber.ac.uk/librarian/?p... Hat tip to @walkyouhome.bsky.social for prompting me to realise it was a blog post, and thus available to you all ❤️

Happy St Patrick’s Day! The most brutal Irish curse I’ve ever heard is go ndéana an diabhal dréimire de chnámh do dhroma ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn. It means “may the Devil use your backbone as a ladder to pick apples in the garden of Hell.”

This is such good news. Amazing, otherworldly birds. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Genesis begins in spectacular fashion in 'The Parc Abbey Bible'. BL Add MS 14788; 'The Parc Abbey Bible', vol. 1; 1148 CE; Leuven; f.6v @blmedieval.bsky.social

Ceramic wall or floor tiles Seville, Andalusia, Spain 15th Century I like how the white glaze highlights the simple designs such as a rabbit or elephant. Now in @museecarnavalet.bsky.social Paris #TilesOnTuesday

Bees and Bears BnF MS Français 1877; The Book called Flower of Virtue, translated from Italian into French, by Françoys de Rohan, archbishop of Lion, primate of France and bishop of Angiers; 16th century; f.21v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

close reading in 1478

The eagle of justice, needed now more than ever, with open wings, made by the congregated souls in Paradiso Canto XIX Bodleian Library MS. Holkham misc. 48; Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri; 1350–1375; Italy, Genoa (?); p.137 @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

I’m delighted to see ‘The Caliph and the Falcons’ take to the skies at Early Medieval Europe! I had a blast writing this with @medivalist.bsky.social as we followed the extraordinary journey of falcons from Scandinavia all the way to Baghdad. #medievalsky onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A moment of pure joy, captured in miniature. Europe’s smallest bird, ruffled and soaking, pausing mid-bath to glance up with that spark of alertness that makes the Goldcrest impossible not to love. #BirdOfTheDay #Goldcrest #Goudhaantje #birds #natuurfotografie #SonyAlpha #EastCoastKin

Welcome to Super Seabird Sunday where we ask you to share photos, videos & artwork of seabirds to brighten up timelines. Here are sone Puffins to get us started #SuperSeabirdSunday

One of the most remarkable objects in #Pompeii is a marble table support with P. Casca Longus inscribed on it. Longus was the 1st assassin to stab Julius Caesar on #IdesOfMarch (today in 44 BC). On his death Longus’ possessions were auctioned & this table was bought by a Pompeian

Please help spread the word #medievalsky! Funded PhD position on medieval literary and artistic representations of disability as part of a Vidi project I will be leading that is funded by the Dutch Research Council: www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3592...

Elk jaar weer een leuke grap. #pidag

De Vlietzone is een woonwijk in Leeuwarden, waar een aantal straten vernoemd zijn naar beroemde personen uit het verleden. Vanaf 2015 is in 11 straten een bord aangebracht, als ‘eerbetoon‘ voor de naamgever van de straat

@alan678.bsky.social @robcrank68.bsky.social #BirdOfTheDay #GreyDay Shoebill - Lake Victoria Uganda

A marginal figure drags an omitted portion of text into place in this copy of Thomas Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes (Arundel MS 38).

My books cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com

#OtD 14 Mar 1883 Engels sent a wire to Friedrich Sorge saying simply "Marx died today!". Karl Marx died in London, aged 64. Marx's magnum opus, Capital, is still the most devastating critique of capitalist political economy. Works by and about him here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

The Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo Deadline: Sunday, March 22, 2026

Saturday morning preening 🪶 (ID in alt text)

Lecturer in Medieval & Early Modern History The School of History at the ANU seeks to appoint a Lecturer in History. Applicants working at the forefront of gender history between the 12th & 18th centuries, and on regions beyond Europe & Australia, are encouraged to apply. Applications due 19 April.

Holy family, w/ Christ being nourished. Fruit & wine offered to us as well. Joseph elderly & a bit toothless, poor he. By Joos van Cleve, 1512.

We have an incredible new PhD placement opportunity to help support the development and curation of our major exhibition on the Norman Conquest, opening in October 2027. Learn more and apply through the link below! www.bl.uk/services/res...

Nog een foto van het hermelijntje in winterkleed, om de boel op te vrolijken.