Amongst much appalling news about Trump's war, I think this wins the award for the last thing anyone would think of doing (after public money has been spent flying them out) www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Having recently exchanged thoughts about criticism over human remains in UK collections, I hope this is not where we are heading (though there are some quite concerning parts about S Asian 1980s human remains trading, used to create part of this). Governance (or lack of it) is an issue here.

New (short) article in @uk.theconversation.com: here, I explore why many British people (esp academics it seems) in Egypt and the Middle East wore indigenous dress in the C19th/ C20th. Cultural appropriation doesn't capture everything. theconversation.com/cultural-app...

Our next season for The Oxford Seminars in Cartography ... #TOSCA @bodleian.ox.ac.uk @oxfordgeography.bsky.social Register at: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/tosca More info at: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/tosca @bcsmaps.bsky.social @ordnancesurvey.bsky.social 1st speaker is @drpragyaagarwal.bsky.social

Robert Morkot is sadly no longer with us. Three months ago he was as energetic as ever, sharing research on forgotten byways on the history of Egyptology, keen to talk about anything I wanted to do so. His Black Pharaohs, was a key postcolonial work before we came up with the term. Rest in peace.

The absurdity of their argument is basically: "It's too hard to figure out how to pay everyone we stole from." arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Congratulations to @issegyptomania.bsky.social for hosting a great conference this weekend. Conferences always bring new insights: pyramids in Ukraine; faux Pharaonic fantasies at the British seaside; and the popularity of ancient in modern Egypt. Look forward to more to come in the future.🎉

Staff at the Louvre go on strike due to too many visitors. The Louvre is a first-class museum in many ways, but having only one entrance and exit doesn't help visitor flow. And the Mona Lisa doesn't just need its own room, it should be in a separate building. news.artnet.com/art-world/lo...

This International Archives Week (9-13 June), BILNAS is celebrating the #ArchivesAreAccessible campaign by spotlighting the Libyan Archive Project, focused on enhancing the Archive’s descriptive metadata to better reflect Libyan cultural contexts and lived experiences. 1/3

Some quite extraordinary scenes in the House of Commons: former hardliners denounce Israel's actions. The ground is shifting. A chance for the government to take leadership www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Some interesting stats on reading. Not much of a gap (as is sometimes reported) between men and women for amount of reading, but a more significant one for fiction vs non-fiction. 45% don't have an organizing system, see the page for size of personal libraries. yougov.co.uk/entertainmen...

Sad to see damage to Sudan's National Museum in Khartoum as a result of the civil war: traces of the ancient kingdom of Kush, indigenous to Sudan, have been destroyed alongside Egyptian artefacts. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Exciting plans for displaying the newly-discovered parts of the Roman Basilica in London. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/mor...

Can't wait to visit this new exhibition, especially as our colleague Sophus zu Ermgassen is featured there in a short film about biodiversity, humanity's role in biodiversity loss, and the policies of the future which are needed to turn the tide on nature loss.

The rationale behind the tariffs is nonsensical and not remotely reciprocal. Running a year-on-year trade deficit signifies a strong currency and hence a privileged position. No other country can buy the world's labour at cut prices on such a huge scale. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is a big problem, and not just for books. What to do when the companies that own the big academic journals which we want to publish in have AI harvesting written into the Ts & Cs?

Fellowships! The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, has published a new Fellowship call for research proposals, for maritime historical research relating to objects in the museum's collection. Deadline: 20-5-2025. Call texts: www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.com/collection/r...

The Weston Library’s Blackwell Hall is the festival hub for this year’s Oxford Literary Festival. We're running extended opening hours at the Weston from Sunday 29 March to Sunday 6 April. Blackwell Hall & the café will be open: Monday – Saturday: 9am – 6pm Sunday: 9am – 4pm. Image: Joby Sessions.

Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post. This cutaway illustration began as a personal project in 2011, and I updated it in 2015. Although it deals with a rather bleak subject, I'm amazed at how much attention this image has grabbed. It's been shared millions of times, and usually out of context!

Amazingly it's a decade since Richard III was interred in Leicester Cathedral. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Failing to enforce copyright legislation in favour of a wild west style free-for-all also sets the absurd precedent that AI has more rights than people in this regard (who cannot appropriate knowledge like this). www.publishers.org.uk/publishers-a...

For the final part of our lecture series with the Historic Towns Trust, join us on 29 April to hear Tom Pickles give a talk entitled 'A City of Flows?: Chester, 400-1500.' Find out more: ow.ly/YuV950TOiSb #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

Great digitised resources on the Egypt Exploration Society's Flickr account!

Come to our free lecture this Thursday and learn all about satirical portrayals of antiquarians being confounded by inscriptions! www.sal.org.uk/event...

More news on the Thutmose II find at Thebes! Is there another tomb? You wait 102 years for another New Kingdom royal tomb, then get two at once... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Now it's official: the archaeology building is now the Kathleen Kenyon building. A great choice, as Kenyon was one of the great archaeologists of the C20th, with important work at sites including Great Zimbabwe; St Albans, Jericho, Jerusalem and, of course, Leicester. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

First post on the new account, which I intend to replace RFrost_1 on Twitter.