#Incredible ! There is good evidence that Greek literacy was relatively widespread among the ancient Arabs east of Ḥawrān. Here, our #Safaitic author partially writes out the Safaitic letters in the Greek order, omitting vowels! Find more on #OCIANA: ociana.osu.edu/inscriptions...

Looking forward to running a stall all about ancient alphabets at the public Read Between the Lines fair in Oxford next week (Cheney School, Tuesday 11th). Come by to learn all about the history of writing — plus a short play about emojis! @TheIrisProject @RumbleMuseum pub.marq.com/40443503-03d...

I'm reposting this for anyone who missed it on Halloween - an scary short story by Tian Tian, with a rather delicious intersection of Lovecraftian and hieroglyphic geekery 😊

Spooky! www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/3...

Check this out! multilingual.com/tim-brookes-...

Exciting news! A new open access book on erasing and rewriting in manuscript cultures, edited by Michele Cammarosano. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Also from Tian Tian on X: Ever wonder how the Chinese saw Halloween in the past? This is a small article about a Halloween party in 1929 at West Lake Villa. It was called 黑貓節 — the Black Cat Festival — very direct and descriptive. And I love the term 人面瓜, “human-face melon,” for jack-o’-lantern.

My friends, on this All Hallows' Eve, please remember... be careful what you digitise... A Halloween tale of terror by Tian Tian. viewsproject.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/h... #halloween

Just released a special episode of ALILI, which for the first time is a solo show. My publishers offered me a chapter of the audiobook of 'Why Q Needs U' to share, and so this episode is Chapter A (from Egypt to Greece) in its entirety. The narrator is me. pod.link/1703401848/e...

It's just two words, but a personal favourite find in a medieval manuscript is this signature of Anne, a princess of Kievan Rus and Queen (Regent) of France. Written on a 1063 charter, it reads "АНА РЪИНА" ('ana rъina' ~ 'Anne Queen'). The language is Old French, but the script is Cyrillic!

… it's time for another Kickstarter. I'm still hammering out some details, but plan to launch in November. If you have an interest in this area, I'd love it if you signed up to be notified and/or shared the link with someone who would be. Read on for more info… www.kickstarter.com/projects/maj...

Since when do I have a Wikipedia page?! Well thank you to whoever is responsible for that! (Now I can see why people really wish they could edit their own page 😂 It's mostly quite good, I just wouldn't be able to resist adding more /tweaking, plus a picture obvs) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp...

Postdoctoral opportunity for US nationals for a two-year position with the SEI, as part of an NSF-funded project on the politics of digitizing newly-invented writing systems. Deadline actually 18th November. Full listing here: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05167

So whatever happened to the AELAW (Ancient European Languages And Writings) database? Did it fizzle out? I'm wondering who on BS would know - maybe @katherinemcdon.bsky.social ? @davidstifter.bsky.social ? Others? Here is a web archive link for the database: web.archive.org/web/20220604...

Your annual reminder that the clocks changed in the UK and Europe last night but not in the US, so if you do transatlantic zoom meetings this week at least one person will get the time wrong. (Trying to make sure it's not me.)

An abominable horror is coming this Halloween... Don't forget that you can subscribe by email to our website feed, and be the first to be terrified! 😱 viewsproject.wordpress.com

In case anyone missed my seminar on Wednesday but wishes they hadn't, it's now on our YouTube channel: youtu.be/oqwzTSLCeBE?...

Shall I keep the Star Wars reference in my talk for Wednesday? You decide! (I mean, you express an opinion, I am obviously keeping the Star Wars reference.)

Bréaga a chreideann ríomhchláraitheoirí faoi teangacha, le samplaí. Ó @lexiconista.bsky.social www.lexiconista.com/falsehoods-a...

Our second autumn seminar, hosted by the Cambridge Mycenaean Seminar series, involves me (Pippa) talking about Linear A and B this Wednesday (22nd October). More information and zoom registration link here: viewsproject.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/v... I need to finish my powerpoint!

A symposium on paper! They say: "We also want to hear about your research into or with paper – whether you print on, make or create with paper, we want to hear from you." Sounds wonderful. cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/announcing-a...

Today I published a new section of my website with resources for those who wish to learn, study, and/or teach ancient languages using braille. It rests on work we did over the past year to expand screen reader access to these languages through the LibLouis library. Check it out and share around!

I saw this shared on Agade - a resource for studying ancient languages with Braille. Looks wonderful, I had no idea this existed. www.blindscholar.com/braille/

I'm sorry, but for budget reasons, your chariot to the afterlife is scheduled to be pulled by a chicken.

Two days of very stimulating VIEWS meetings, featuring a visit from Annick Payne to educate us in Anatolian Hieroglyphs. I hadn't heard of these painted inscriptions! www.anatolianarchaeology.net/painted-hier...

A reminder that our first seminar of the season takes place tomorrow and is hybrid. Annick Payne will be giving us an Anatolian Hieroglyphic Masterclass! Zoom registration and more information via this link: viewsproject.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/v...

Peak Halloween Classicist accessory! (Thank you Poundland 😱)

I've been working on this piece since last month! Please enjoy a dive into magnificent natural colours from Heian Japan, just published on #Caravanserai. majnouna.substack.com/p/kasane

@dannybate.bsky.social look what just came through the door! It's a good companion for Ben's alphabet colouring book 😊

Eating mummy's new business cards.

A live streamed conference on ancient epigraphy in the classroom, next Monday - I think lots of people will find this interesting. historia.uw.edu.pl/en/from-ston...

Very interesting sign reversals going on in Ben's dark side alphabet. He's discovering something about symmetry 😊

So interested in the general aesthetic of my new business card template that I nearly missed that my name was misspelt. Glad I caught that one before printing!

Our seminar line-up for the term, all hybrid! Three dates: 8th and 22nd October, 12th November, 16.30 UK time. Look here for details, especially if attending in person: viewsproject.wordpress.com/2025/09/26/v...

Just noticed that one of the inscriptions from the sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Hymettos reads "BEN" - I've been interested in these inscriptions for about the last ten years, so it's nice to find my two-year-old son's name on one 🥰 (I'm also finally writing about them!)

A scribe's dwindling willingness 😅 to write out the same characters time and time again (here hon'yaku 飜譯 'translation'): 飜譯 (right) 飜睪 (center) 飜ー (left) The funny thing is: This is from three consecutive lines on the same page of this manuscript. 🤓

some incoherent thoughts about Numidian BNS. in funerary inscriptions in the eastern script (the one we can read), the term BNS appears about 228 times, making it the most frequent word in the corpus. The literature normally interprets it as BN-S "his/her stone" with the Amazigh 3S suffix -s.

If you are interested in punctuation and spacing in text, from any world writing traditions, please join us for @timbrookes.bsky.social's discussion event: Sunday 5th October, 12.00 ET / 17.00 BST Registration link in next comment.

How do you use the terms "field" and "discipline"? I realised that I tend to mean something broader with field, whereas by discipline I often mean more like approach... So Classics could be a field and philosophy a discipline, or writing systems studies a field and archaeology a discipline...

Join me online on Tuesday, 30 September, 2.35 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) at the Calligraphy Summit where I’ll be giving a talk called “Carve a Letter, Save the World: the story of the Endangered Alphabets Project.” Sign up at go.eventraptor.com/summit/the-c.... Please RT!

A new SEI blog post: sei.berkeley.edu/2025/09/25/i...

It's one week until the release of my book 'Why Q Needs U'! geni.us/WhyQNeedsU To do something with my nervous energy, I'm doing a countdown – not with numbers, but letters, from G to A! Chapter G looks at G's Roman origins and uses, and the influence that specific people have had on the alphabet.

We'll be announcing our VIEWS hybrid seminar line-up for the term in the next few days - stay tuned!

This open access book looks exciting: Mesoamerican Narratives at the British Museum: Ancient Writing, Contemporary Voices www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

A new VIEWS blog post after a lovely visit to an event about John Baskerville at @cam-archaeology.bsky.social, musing on type design, the craft behind printing and a bit of classical allusion. viewsproject.wordpress.com/2025/09/20/t...

Just been sent this: my book is on display in the Bodleian art and archaeology library!

Two questions for everyone on two topics: Classics: If you wanted to give someone an easy introduction to Cicero vs Catilina, is there an obvious online resource you would point them to? Wikipedia tells is so boringly.

London art residency opportunity for Palestinian artists (from anywhere in the world), apply by January 12. www.gasworks.org.uk/opportunitie...

Alphabetum - this looks amazing, go if you can!

I knew about this website with Libyco-Berber texts but never looked at it in detail. It is wonderful! libyca-project.com/map.html