At Haneda about to head home. Already reminiscing about the time I spent in jazz kissa while in Tokyo—each with a different, but impeccable vibe. Even got to see Dug before its final day in operation (people were queuing in a typhoon to get in)!

After my talk today, I drove up to Katsuren-jo, one of many Ryukyu castles on Okinawa, dating to the 15th century. This one has the added bonus of turning up a small hoard of fourth-century Roman coins, which was in the news a while back. A cool mystery!

Got to see some Kofun tumuli near Todoroki today—at least from the outside. Very helpful archaeological drawings of the burial chambers and funerary deposits!

Some absolute gems of ancient Japanese art in the Tokyo National Museum, including haniwa of the Kofun period (mid-first millennium CE), terracotta figures which accompanied those buried in large tumuli. Also a lovely clay conch from the second millennium BCE!

Fighting the jet lag and the stormy weather on my first night in Tokyo with some ramen and a jazz kissa

The Met put its entire collection online for free so I made a game out of it! 10 artifacts a day, and you guess where and when each one's from. Anthropeum.com if anyone wants to give it a shot and leave feedback :) #history #archeology #arthistory #museums

Allow me to expand. There are examples of pre-modern states ruled for the greater good. City states are surely a prime example. I wrote a book on one particular form, the Greek polis 1/ press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Some stray thoughts on gap-filling. Take them for what they are 1. Gaps in archives are not like rips in clothing; they don't have a well defined and wholly known, or in the broadest sense wholly knowable, shape or extent. You can't cut a patch for them or fill them with putty and smooth them over.

<center-right spends half a century waging a war to discredit humanities knowledge bc it challenges their counter-majoritarian political project> Media: “why is nobody majoring in English? Because it became too woke.”

I did a thing: chicagomaroon.com/52978/viewpo...

The tell of ai generated text isn't the em dash or three-part list or any other feature of English grammar, syntax, or punctuation. It's the vagueness. The lack of meaning. The inability to refer to specific experiences. Because it doesn't understand meaning and it has no experiences.

I’ve taught both composition and literature courses at Stanford for three decades, published six books. Struggling to find the right words improves both writing and the ideas. Writing is thinking.

Got word from the team @princetonupress.bsky.social that advanced copies of my book are arriving at the press (they sent me this photo of it in the wild)! So excited to be able to hold it in my hands!

📖 Newly published: B. Hellings, M. Spoerri Butcher (@gordien3a.bsky.social) and C. Howgego (eds), Roman Coin Hoards across Frontiers (Oxford, 2026). doi.org/10.1093/9780... An impressive amount of new evidence for our understanding of the reach of Rome and the connectivity of the ancient world!

Incense burner from Pompeii, decorated with appliqués of three anthropomorphic female figures and still containing the residue of incense burnt in it #FindsFriday Analysis of the ash revealed the surprising substances burnt in Roman domestic rituals. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

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/...

So excited to dive into this new book, now out online @academic.oup.com. Congrats to Jesse, a close friend and excellent scholar! #ancientbluesky 🏺

Two perforated altar reliefs from the Mithraeum at Mundelsheim. One depicts Sol, the sun god, with the radiant. the other shows Luna, the goddess of the moon, with the crescent. In Roman times, they were illuminated from behind, creating a striking play of light and shadow that must ...🧵1/2

More South Asian epigraphy in Egypt!

Reorganizing the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Announced today by the president.,

Trainspotting

In mid-2023 I was invited to speak about the 3rd Century Crisis at a conference in Copenhagen. By the time I was writing the paper later that year, the irony of writing about ancient crises from a position of safety in a world full of real violence (in the very same places) was almost too much.

Today is our last day at the @archaeological.org & @scsclassics.bsky.social meeting, but you still have time to stop by our booth (113)! Not only do we have fascinating new classics titles, but we’re also giving out code EXH30 for 30% off (in the US & Canada) through 1/31! #AIA2026 #SCS2026

It is indeed on the banner 😊 bsky.app/profile/prin...

Hey historians, if you're sick of AI and digital slop then come to our Jan 9th #AHA2026 panel at the Field Museum to explore artifacts of the Java Sea Shipwreck collection! 🌊 12th-13th cen recovered objects will be on special display for the session. aha.confex.com/aha/2026/web... @historians.org

People keep writing me that the cover for my book (out later this year) is on the @princetonupress.bsky.social booth's banner at the AIA/SCS, so I thought I'd share it here! Just overjoyed and so grateful to the PUP team for bringing it to life

I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...

I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...

Studying history and reading novels both get us out of our own heads, the first by helping us to imagine different worlds, and the second by prompting us to inhabit different subjectivities. Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.

The search for the next director of the Classical Summer School at the AAR, to start in 2027-28, is now open. Be my successor! www.aarome.org/about/open-p... Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!

📖 Feiertags-Lesetipp: Jahrbuch des DAI Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden. 👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi

today is all about watching people come up with entirely new ways of being wrong like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations

Managed to stop by the Met’s “Divine Egypt” exhibit. Some of my favorites were on the later side!

Some important monkey business!

Excited to dive into this new book by @berangere.bsky.social on the routes through Egypt's Eastern Desert! #AncientBlueSky 🏺 books.openedition.org/momeditions/...

Nice to see all these recent finds—including an edition of the inscription—in a single publication!

This essay by @johannawinant.bsky.social is beautiful on what can happen in the classroom, and on the importance of *argument* to literary studies. I especially like how she writes about helping students to "believe in their own significance" www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

End of an era in American Jewish history.

Happy start to the autumn quarter to all who celebrate!

This is much more comprehensive than my own list, and reassuringly familiar from my experience of marking. I’ll be sharing the list with my students, both to think about writing for different audiences (encyclopaedia articles) and being aware of the weakness of LLM generated text.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...