In Memoriam Wolfgang Schenkel (1936–2026). #Egyptology aaew.bbaw.de/projekt/nach...

"[For] about 1,500 years... [Buto] was practically abandoned... "That absence of occupation, possibly linked to changes in the course of the Nile, caused the oldest layers to become buried... making traditional research difficult." #Egyptology #AncientBlueSky www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/03/a...

Here is the cover of my forthcoming book with University of Arizona Press! Can’t wait to see it in person

Excited to share new paper w/ @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social: "Veiled Power: How Rosenwald Teachers Quietly Shaped the Civil Rights Movement" The puzzle: did ~5,000 segregated schools built in rural South emphasizing “manual labor” strengthen or weaken Jim Crow? 🧵 omarwasow.com/wasow_grumba...

Marvellous news! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

"[For] about 1,500 years... [Buto] was practically abandoned... "That absence of occupation, possibly linked to changes in the course of the Nile, caused the oldest layers to become buried... making traditional research difficult." #Egyptology #AncientBlueSky www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/03/a...

In Memoriam Wolfgang Schenkel (1936–2026). #Egyptology aaew.bbaw.de/projekt/nach...

In #Nobiin : "Tadpole" àmànégéd < ámán (water) + égéd (sheep) Lit. 'water sheep'

This is a masterclass in weighing historical evidence for a public audience. @zacharyschrag.bsky.social 🗃️

It’s publication day! The Missouri, America’s Longest River: A Cultural and Environmental History comes out today, featuring my chapter—“The Colonization of Montana’s Milk River Valley, 1879-1889”—that I began during my MA @umontana.bsky.social for my thesis. Check it out!

Fantastic cover story in this month’s NatGeo mag (I still get it in print) on the discovery near Croatia of a 7th c. Byzantine shipwreck laden with artifacts, like this signet likely bearing the image of Heraclius, whose reign, 610-641, witnessed an epic war with Sassanid Persia & the rise of Islam.

An article last year claimed that tree-ring data shows a link between drought and late Roman conflicts such as the "Barbarian Conspiracy" of 367. We show problems with such claims and appeal for interdisciplinary palaeoclimatic research to respect historical method. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

History without historians is doomed to fail. With an interdisciplinary team of scholars we show how the purported link between late Roman conflicts and drought has been misunderstood. We also outline a path forward in the use of sources in paleoclimatic research. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Please share widely!

A similar saying in Tamazight (SE Morocco): "iẓ̌ẓ̌iž ġf ixf-nnk a bu-tfullust" (feather on your head, chicken thief) The short story: stolen chickens, everybody gathers, village chief climbs on a bench, looks over the crowd, utters these words; the guilty reaches to brush-off non-existent feather.

Important new publication of historical Berber lingusitics, esp. onomastics. Edited and organized by the brilliant Carles Múrcia (not on here, I think), with, among many others, articles by @lameensouag.bsky.social and myself.

Hey, I reconstructed some #Aramaic letter names! Going back to around 500 BCE, I guess. The similarity to #Greek is usually explained via #Phoenician, but we don't actually have any Phoenician letter names AFAIK.

For #MosaicMonday a detail of a mosaic in the basilica of Aquileia depicting #snails in a basket. The meaning of the motif is unclear. It was suggested that it is a symbol of resurrection, as snails are hibernating animals. But it was also argued that the motif is a symbolic ...🧵1/2 📷me

Alexander Kluge, auteur et artisan du Nouveau cinéma allemand, est mort à l’âge de 94 ans

🗣️ new Element in Religion in Late Antiquity! 🗣️ @monikaamsler.bsky.social's EDUCATION IN RELIGIOUS CONTEXTS OF LATE ANTIQUITY ⚡⚡⚡ free through April 8! ⚡⚡⚡ www.cambridge.org/core/element...

No doubt you all knew this already

A 2023 article to know about...?: Yannick A. Wiechmann's “Why does the #Coptic script have the character ϯ? A lone syllabogram sacralizes the script” Very excited to read it! #Egyptology #ClassicsBlueSky doi.org/10.37011/lin...

A 2023 article to know about...?: Yannick A. Wiechmann's “Why does the #Coptic script have the character ϯ? A lone syllabogram sacralizes the script” Very excited to read it! #Egyptology #ClassicsBlueSky doi.org/10.37011/lin...

Tarifit borrowings from French often retain the article: lakab "basement" < la cave lakṣiḍa "accident" < l'accident lapisin "pool" < la piscine lafizit "ward round" < la visite lagar "station" < la gare laminyu "aluminium" < l'aluminium landris "address" < l'adresse lakriyi "market" < la criée

This find offers a fascinating glimpse into ancient trade routes and life in the Roman era. 🧵2/2 👇 www.derstandard.de/story/300000...

A remarkable archaeological discovery beneath the waters of Lake Neuchâtel! In November 2024, the remains of a Roman cargo ship, dating 1st c. AD, was discovered. The wreck contained hundreds of pottery vessels, Spanish olive oil amphorae, tools and weapons, including the #sword shown here. 🧵1/2 🏺

Been a long time since we had one of these, but here’s another etymology trivia quiz! Which of the following words is NOT etymologically related to the others? A) Ransack B) Rudder C) Barn D) Unruly E) Hermit

It was a great pleasure and a honor to act as the co-supervisor for Mariana Martins’ dissertation about the emergence of a new Sign Language in Guinea Bissau, for which she received the doctorate yesterday. The book is available open-access.🧵 www.lotpublications.nl/creating-a-s...

Public lecture on Thursday in Paris. I will deliver a lecture on the linguistic pre-history and history of the Mecca region, based on two seasons of epigraphic fieldwork carried out btwn '21-'22. Welcome.

120 year old sidewalk!

13,000 ostraca! "Demotic script [is] roughly 60-75% of the material, while between 15 and 30% are in Greek. Smaller numbers appear in Hieratic script (about 1.5%), Hieroglyphic script (0.25%), Coptic (0.2%), and Arabic (0.1%)..." #Egyptology #ClassicsBlueSky english.ahram.org.eg/News/563811....

The very first article is out, in the #OpenAccess Bibliothèque ouverte d'égyptologie! Further discussion of the phonetic value of Gardiner U23 (mr?). #Egyptology zenodo.org/records/1908...

The very first article is out, in the #OpenAccess Bibliothèque ouverte d'égyptologie! Further discussion of the phonetic value of Gardiner U23 (mr?). #Egyptology zenodo.org/records/1908...

Someone on Reddit asked me what the difference between "Quranic Arabic" and "Classical Arabic" is. It was fun to put my thoughts together on this (and the vexed question of what "Classical Arabic" even means. Perhaps others will find this of interest too.

13,000 ostraca! "Demotic script [is] roughly 60-75% of the material, while between 15 and 30% are in Greek. Smaller numbers appear in Hieratic script (about 1.5%), Hieroglyphic script (0.25%), Coptic (0.2%), and Arabic (0.1%)..." #Egyptology #ClassicsBlueSky english.ahram.org.eg/News/563811....

Willem de Kooning @artistdekooning #americanart #willemdekooning

There are bigger problems in the world, but the similarity between tone-marked [+ATR] /i/ and [-ATR] /ɪ/ in standard typefaces is very unfortunate

Do you remember how you found out that linguistics existed and was a thing you could get enthusiastic about?

Proverb of the day 🧬 "People resemble the times they live in more than they resemble their parents." an-nāsu bi-zamānihim ashbahu minhum bi-ābāʾihim

A charming #Egyptian drawing of a #cat acting as a servant to a #mouse. Drawings of animals acting as people were meant as satire of the society and politics. Dating 13th/12th century BC, probably from Deir el-Medina, #Egypt. 📷 Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels 🏺

Great exhibition on women and typing at the Houghton Library at Harvard. Spent some time there and also helped an undergrad with his manual typewriting! Melville is always watching.

It's taken far too long, but I'm so glad that I finally sat down to read @theodunkelgrun.bsky.social's incredible book on the Plantin Polyglot. It's on so much more than that - a whole chapter on Bomberg (those matrices 😍) lots on the burning of the Talmud/beginning of expurgation, & so much more!

Tiny terracotta aryballos (oil flask) in the form of a hedgehog. East Greek from Naucratis, Egypt, 550 BC. British Museum 📷 by me #Archaeology

Applications are now open for Trinity Term 2026 classes with our Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages! Be sure to #Apply by noon on Apr. 10th, UK time! www.ochjs.ac.uk/language-cla... #languagelearning #oxford #jewishhistory

Cubist Head (1917) by Belgian artist Marthe Donas, pioneer of avant-garde art #WomensArt

Picture XVI, The Great Gate of Kiev. Stage set for Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in Friedrich Theater, Dessau., 1928 #wassilykandinsky #vasilykandinsky

The NAPS program has been posted. I am chairing and presenting. custom.cvent.com/DADF18846EBF...

A new review reassesses lead use and exposure in the Roman world, integrating texts, archaeology, and bioarchaeology. The findings challenge long-held assumptions about poisoned wine and instead highlight everyday domestic sources. #RomanEmpire #Bioarchaeology #AncientHealth

I don't buy Blench's story on this. While the koine thing proposed by Carles Múrcia could very well be true, the Roman period seems way too late. (second half of the first millennium BCE looks better and would coincide with the Numidian states if you really need an imperial context)

I requested a bunch of chapters through interlibrary loan this morning. They all just came in some 10 hours after I placed the requests... courtesy of the University of Tasmania's ILL services. Man, I love international research collaboration.