6 January is Epiphany, marking the visit of the Magi from the East to the infant Christ (Matthew 2.1-12). It always prompts me to reflect on how late antique Christians imagined this episode, repurposing iconographic tropes from secular art to visualise this key moment in the Nativity story.

After nearly 19 and a half years, I must be beginning to look somewhat native to these parts. A woman just approached me in Greggs in Pontardawe and said: "I thought you were Michael Sheen for a moment." Luckily for her, there is an optician just across the road....

We had snow. The kids loved it!

Happy New Year! Ianuarius from a calendar mosaic, c.200, from El Djem, Tunisia. Image: Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons.l

Meanwhile on Irish breakfast television.

After Islamic State militants took Mosul, Iraq in 2015, they vandalised the Mosul Cultural Museum and its collections. Now, the museum is gradually being brought back to life so that the citizens of Mosul can again identify with and learn from Iraq’s rich cultural heritage. 🏺 #Archaeology 1/2

More defaced images of Constantius II and Eudoxia from Friday's Being Human event in Cardiff.

Really busy week, part two. I was invited by colleagues in Cardiff to participate in a Being Human Festival event on satire for high school pupils. I got them to deface images of Constantius II and Eudoxia in line with how those figures had been lampooned. The results were fabulous.

Really busy week, part one: on Wednesday I participated in an online discussion of Hendrik Dey and Fabrizio Oppedisano's new book in Justinian's Legacy. Thanks to colleagues at Perugia for honouring me with the invitation.

Pedagogical highlight of the week: (1) discussing Ammianus Marcellinus' account of the death of Valentinian I, in which the emperor, in his fatal seizure, attempts to communicate by flailing his arms like a boxer; and (2) having one of the students voluntarily acting out what this looked like.

And now for something completely different: more proofs! This time featuring: how I became a historian of the ancient world thanks to the combined effects of a trip to Egypt and growing up in Belfast and Dublin.

This is a terrific novel. The cadences of the language brought me back to a Belfast I left more than forty years ago.

All set for an orchestral concert for the first time in goodness knows how long. I used to go quite frequently to such events. I couldn't pass up a chance to listen to the mighty Seventh: it must be twenty years since last I heard it performed live.

#readingcharitably Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, from the Swansea Oxfam Bookshop. A lyrical exploration of the meanings of humanity and existence. The looming presences of the Earth and the space station impressiveness not as much as the astronauts carrying all humankind's dreams and anxieties.

In my lunch today, I found a happy chickpea with a very unconvincing comb over.

More proofs. This time for a review of a gem of a book.

Exciting new series from @livunipress.bsky.social , Translated Texts from Antiquity (TTA to join TTH and TTB) , launches with two excellent volumes on #pomponiusmela and #suetonius I'm very honoured to be involved in this new venture.

#readingcharitably I just finished Bernardine Evaristo's _Girl, Woman, Other_. (Purchased for a quid in the Swansea British Heart Foundation shop.) What a revelation of a book: a life affirming, celebration of a Britain enriched by multiculturalism and intersectionalities.

Summer reading 2025, eclectic as ever. (Not shown: articles, typescripts, student drafts.)

Hunting the (bitter and belligerent) legacy of antiquity in Place Vendôme, Paris.

Not only have I made the TTH book cover drawings into t-shirts, but today I wore one (Conference of Carthage 411) to visit its inspiration, Van Loos' Augustine disputing with the Donatists, Note Dame des Victoires, Paris @livunipress.bsky.social

Congratulations to Dr Croman @croeuan.bsky.social

Further adventures in wearable book covers: tie-dye Hormizd II #TTH @livunipress.bsky.social

This dropped into my inbox from the Climate History network and might be of wider interest. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

#readingcharitably A surprise purchase (from Oxfam Books in Swansea, naturally). I think Mario Vargas Llosa was the first "grown up" author I read for fun, with his "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter". This one gripped me from beginning to end.

Wearable book covers! I turned a few of my Translated Texts for Historians cover drawings for @livunipress.bsky.social into summer attire.

I know it's only part time, since this is cover for Alison Cooley being made head of Warwick Institute of Advanced Studies (take it up with the powers who decide these buy outs), but there is a 3 year teaching gig at in Roman history at Warwick. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNX770/a...

Celebrating 40 years of Translated Texts for Historians with @livunipress.bsky.social

Happy International Day of Ogham! Although the OG(H)AM project has sadly now finished, work on ogham continues. Here is a sneak preview of our digital corpus, still under development, but due to be launched in September! #InternationalDayOfOgham #OG_H_AM

Coming to a bookshop or more likely a library near you later this year, in 2 volumes brill.com/display/titl...

With the team from @livunipress.bsky.social at the @imc-leeds.bsky.social

Research fellowships in Early Christianity at ACU in Melbourne: an opportunity to work with a fantastic team! candidate.aurion.cloud/acu/producti...

Open access version of Harry Mawdsley‘s & my study on the changing reasons for & conditions of the banishment of women from antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Based on our dataset of 84 cases from 260-641 and 45 early imperial cases collected by Frank Stini. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

In the midnight hour she cried Moore, More, Moore With a rebel yell she cried Moore, More, Moore

Thanks to the amazing team @livunipress.bsky.social for putting this together in honour of the 40th anniversary of Translated Texts for Historians. More details at www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

Guess what? Because I am still pretty rubbish at Blue Sky, I completely missed this. My thanks to the brilliant team at Liverpool University Press @livunipress.bsky.social

🎨 The Translated Texts for Historians Colouring Books is available now! To celebrate 40 years of the iconic series, we have collected a selection of Mark Humphries' incredible line drawings that adorn the covers of TTH volumes for readers to colour in. Discover more here ⬇️ bit.ly/TTHColouring...

Translated Texts for Historians at 40: 1985-2025 liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2025/02/10/t...

My drawing of Gaza depicted in the eighth-century mosaic pavement from the church of St Stephen at Umm er-Rasas, Jordan. For the cover of Childers, Rapp, and Whitby (intro., trans., and comm.), Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyry of Gaza.