A hoard of 21 silver pennies, dating back to the mid-7th to 8th centuries, has been saved for Oxfordshire’s museums following a successful community fundraiser. Villagers from Stoke Row, together with local businesses, raised £1,300 to acquire the treasure. news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/stoke-row-co...

Any thoughts about the date of the Wollaston princely burial? Written up as later C7th but the evidence for seems slender - essentially on the basis of the belt buckles. Still, it's wonderful to have two boar-crested helmets, of about the same date, buried some 80 miles apart.

Last day of term! #sunset #LongMynd #ChurchStretton #Shropshire #weather

I've just gone down an unexpected rabbit hole having happened upon this arresting image of a woollen shroud/ 'leaf cocoon'. Image from here www.heartandsoulfunerals.co.uk/funerals/bel... and made by: www.bellacouche.com

Still seems weird to be sufficiently interested in military history that I'm excited about a new Osprey!

New book out in January: Beacons and Military Communication from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period ed. @br00kes.bsky.social et al. 'it reveals a world where ordinary people, not just armies, played a central role in responding to the threat of war.' brill.com/display/titl...

Reconstruction of a pair of shoes - new, unworn, 'a spare pair for the afterlife' - from Sutton Hoo mound 1 by Marquita Volken from Alexandra Makin's brilliant blog. alexandramakin.com/2021/10/01/e... Article: @antiquaries.bsky.social Journal 2021 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Christmas! This is the report on the C6th-8th cemetery in the sand dunes below Bamburgh Castle: 'the comprehensive isotopic analysis adds further detail to the interpretation of the cemetery as one primarily serving the working population of the royal site.' www.barpublishing.com/book/the-bam...

Fast-forward to 2025 and Sir Stephen Fry is supporting our appeal to safeguard the Giant’s lair. Your donation today will help us raise the funds we need to rise to the occasion: buff.ly/j1w0Mbn

New podcast! David McGovern in conversation with @victoriawhitworth.bsky.social on the Pictish Arts Society's Pictish Shorts: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzFB...

A knight has been spotted in Summertown. (We have the best readers). A Clarion correspondent wrote in to report the sighting, saying “He was having a little difficulty with the pelican crossing when I caught up with him. Pressing the button is tricky when you’re wearing metal gauntlets."

Help! Banbury Museum has been told that Cherwell District Council is cancelling ALL of its core funding. There is a very tight deadline - Friday 19th December - to tell the Council what you think. Please respond to the consultation and share this post www.banburymuseum.org/news/no-fund...

Hamnet! Such weepful joy: the up-close tracking-shot narration; its depiction of writing as about solitude and graft; the heavily-pregnant search for a warm, safe place in the woods; the frantic efforts of the left-behind to go back to change the thing that would change everything. #Ihopeit'llbegood

Today's @thetimes.com is reporting that this new book published by Springer, on sale for £180 hb, contains 'footnotes that cite scientific publications that appear to have been invented....' Who'd have thought it! www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

Postdoctoral fellowships available to study medieval liturgical history in Hungary with the Usuarium project. momentummsca.mta.hu

'I'd left school at 16 with 4 O Levels... I felt quite punchy towards academic people... I loved the idea of ripping a discipline open... but it also coincided with my passion for history...' A super @timeteam.bsky.social vodcast with @sirtonyrobinson.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce1J...

"This document outlines the reasons why we don’t currently use AI in archival processes – including archival appraisal, acquisition, arrangement and description (processing), digital preservation, and access – as well as how we support our user communities who want to employ AI..." (via Nate Hill)

The tower at Little Ouseburn, NYorks, originated as a late C10/11th free-standing turriform church, as discussed in this new article in Early Medieval Europe by Duncan Wright @newcastleuni.bsky.social et al. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

That was yesterday. Today brings this: 'Examples here might include learners using the AI assistant to summarise reading materials and save time, or staff asking the AI assistant for content recommendations to make the student experience more engaging' www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/12/12/a...

‘We’ve got a library with no books, no readers, no digital content, no front-facing staff & absolutely no clue!’ ‘I can’t pay my rent with prestige,’ ‘They started running the library as a shopping centre,’ ... posters... appeared ... a few years ago: ‘If it happens in the library, it’s research’

Today. A blistering column in @thetimes.com on 'alleged fabricated evidence' by W Midlands police; BBC news report about errors in a high profile employment tribunal ruling; message from VC who 'encourages thoughtful use of AI tools'. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

The ad for the second postdoctoral position on our @leverhulme.ac.uk Britain’s Early Medieval Letters project is now live. We’re looking for an Old English specialist (who also works with Latin). 32-month FT post. Deadline for apps is 16 Jan 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

In the tenth century a charm to control a bee swarm was added, upside down, in the margin of an earlier mss. It's one of the earliest Old High German texts. Tim Hertogh argues in recent article it was intended as an amulet to cut out & place in a hive - explaining the margins excised elsewhere.👇

After 10 years of work on this, it’s both a pleasure and a relief to finally hold the finished book in my hand! I’ve enjoyed taking little snapshots of the index, which give some sense of the crazy amount of cultural ground this covers. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526103574/

An architectural complex next to a Sasanian fortification confirms the peaceful coexistence of Christians and Zoroastrians in the 5th century AD www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/12/a...

And then there's this: 'We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms & what we let fall will be picked up by those left behind. The procession is very long & life is very short but there is nothing outside the march. So nothing can be lost to it.'

Christmas! Here's the original cast recording of Arcadia as broadcast on Radio 4, 1994. 'What happened in 1834?' 'My hermit died.' 'Of course he did. What else happened in 1834?' 'Are you a journalist?' 'No?!' 'I've been in the Ha Ha. Very squelchy.' 'Ha Ha! A theory of mine. Ha Ha! Not ha-ha.'

'I worked with Tom when I was quite young, on Arcadia in 1993, & again on Rock’n’Roll 13 years later. In the interim it slowly dawned on me that not all jobs were like that.' 'We were swimming in the mind pool of Tom Stoppard – a very privileged place to be.' www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d...

While there is an understandable desire for accountability about the past this will not give, in terms of the future, I also think this is 'the best opportunity in a generation to finally put maternity services on a safer path.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I was absolutely delighted to remove St Oswald's from the HAR register this year. Probably my favourite site in my entire patch, and a brilliant partnership with the city council. If you can get to Gloucester, go and see the golden minster for yourself - www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/glouces...

Recommendation 1 of Bill Kirkup's report into maternity @ekhuft.bsky.social was to establish a better early warning system. Today a new real-time signalling system, MOSS, is being launched across the NHS. May it help! Now for the other recommendations... www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Delighted to learn my wonderful colleague @jk-viking.bsky.social has been nominated for @currentarchaeology.bsky.social's Archaeologist of the Year award! @oxmedstud.bsky.social @oxembi.bsky.social archaeology.co.uk/awards/archa... Voting is here 👉 archaeology.co.uk/vote

A reconstruction drawing of the Old Minster, Winchester by Simon Hayfield from the fantastic The Search for Winchester's Anglo-Saxon Minsters by Martin Biddle (2018) a mere £15 from @archaeopress.bsky.social. www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

A party @ox.ac.uk on Thursday to celebrate the work of Ros Faith with a magnificent book edited by @hannah-boston.bsky.social & @richardpurkiss.bsky.social. Speakers emphasized her commitment to 'treating the peasantry as people with minds of their own'.

To celebrate @nationaltrust.org.uk's acquisition of the land around the Cerne Giant, here's a link to the new @timeteam.bsky.social Special on @hugh-willmott.bsky.social's excavations in Cerne Abbas. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY68...

It’s that time of year again. Advent and waiting for the light to return. So I thought I’d post an image of my work a day until the solstice. Here’s The Green Knight, a panel I made in 2022 but it’s a subject that has entranced since I first studied the poem at Stirling University in the 1980s.

Can you help @nationaltrust.org.uk buy- and care for - the land surrounding the Cerne Giant to help protect this numinous landscape? www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/cerne-abba...

Irving vs Lipstadt: a 25th annniversary exhibition: vimeo.com/1088405869

Bill helped me find some images from the production, including Caliban's submerged tank shown above, and this picture of the superb galleon in action.

'Tom & I were friends for over 50 years. We relished each other’s plays, & we loved each other’s company. The French have a word confrère, which means someone in your own line of work who is your loyal & unfailing brother. Tom was my confrère, & I will miss him beyond words.' Confrère.

A portrait of the playwright Tom Stoppard (RIP) for The Irish Times 20 years ago… #TomStoppard #theatre #Ireland

No! Not Tom!

Booking for our dig in 2026 is now live! Check it out through our blog bamburghresearchproject.wordpress.com/2025/11/29/w...

... finds from the Mortar Wreck go on display: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Just in time for ... 👇1/

'we write the best history when the specificity, the novelty, the awe-fulness, of what our sources render up bowls us over with its complexity & its significance. Our research is better when we move only cautiously to understanding...' CWB 'Wonder' AHR 1997. Thanks to @hagenilda.bsky.social

This is powerful. An Autobiographical Essay by Caroline Walker Bynum. 'That very summer, with unpacked boxes all around me, I wrote the article that became the title essay of Jesus as Mother and I filed papers to adopt a child as a single parent.' www.ias.edu/sites/defaul...

Just out! As @sarahsemple.bsky.social says, '544 pages and 190 images of pure sculptural joy!' A fantastic cast list and a tremendous achievement @ascorpus.bsky.social. boydellandbrewer.com/book/early-m...

The OMGC committee is delighted to announce this year’s Call for Papers! We look forward to receiving submissions for 20-minute papers from graduate students on the theme ‘Sounds and Silence.’ Please submit abstracts of 250 words to [email protected] by 8 December 2025. Details Below

* NEW PUBLICATION * SANHS is delighted to announce a new publication: Somerset Churches and Chapels: The Romanesque Style by David Dawson and Bill Stebbing Available now from the SANHS online bookshop for just £4.50 sanhs.org/product/some...

This morning's @thetimes.com... 'Some academics suggest that even prior to the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxon Britons had a rudimentary system of jury decision making.' (!) Discuss.