This has been a slog but I’m pleased to day that I’m currently checking the proofs, which means this book will soon be out in the wild!

non mihi prima haec rodeo est

Finally finished this excellent book by @garethdennis.uk, highly recommended to all interested in modern society! It got me thinking how do people doing infrastructures now and in the premodern period can have a conversation? There is clearly loads to talk about here, many similar observations.

Not all that Kubler wrote has stood the test of time (pun intended) but this is perhaps the most fitting diagnosis of creative endeavors for the times of AI

The Institute for Archaeology at the Humboldt University of Berlin is threatened with closure and with it a two-century long tradition of archaeological research that shaped the entire discipline. Please sign the petition to oppose this plan: weact.campact.de/petitions/sc... #medievalsky

vienna: escalators move fast munich: escalators move slow berlin: what do you mean an escalator that 'moves'

the stemma codicum of any texts that survive the Digital Dark Ages will be like [original] | [uploaded PDF] | | wikipedia chatgpt redaction summary | | chatgpt | summary ---- Papyrus of wikipedia nukecraterus N. 47

12. Sommerkurs Paläographie. Lateinische Schrift in Heidelberg. Der Kurs vermittelt die Grundlagen aus zwei Jahrtausenden Schriftgeschichte (Datierung, Lokalisierung & Lesekompetenz). Wir freuen uns auf die Bewerbungen (bis 31.05.2026) 📖 #medievalsky

We've been on the Northern Line. The idea that it's 2000 years old seems completely reasonable.

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center: If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

We are baking here

We are baking here

Great, now we also need the peer-review option and every post by an academic will be delayed by two to three years (or just desk-rejected by the moderation team).

Great, now we also need the peer-review option and every post by an academic will be delayed by two to three years (or just desk-rejected by the moderation team).

All welcome to our next research seminar. Elaine Treharne (Stanford) on handwriting, women scribes, digital tools and manuscripts. 10 February 5.30 pm GMT, Laidlaw Library (hybrid). To register: forms.office.com/e/iP5qRb5GSk #medieval #manuscripts #palaeography #digitalhumanities

Marc Bloch, historien et résistant juif, entrera au Panthéon le 23 juin

Such an honour to be at Nagoya University for this fabulous event, talking about a project I am conducting @dependencybonn.de using data from Connecting Late Antiquities

"Data in itself is not knowledge. Even the greatest concentration of data will not on its own bring us closer to getting to know the past. Concentrating data does not write history." I wrote this five years ago and it is more relevant then ever in the age of AI. academic.oup.com/dsh/article-...

Cabbage rolls stuffed with buckwheat, potato, and twaróg cheese, baked in cream tomato sauce and sprinkled with buckwheat popcorn.

Our great thanks to Professor Charles West for his excellent Society lecture yesterday evening: ‘”Alike in Appearance but not in Scope”: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe’ bit.ly/4tluezd The recording of Charles's lecture will be available shortly. @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social #Skystorians

This is important on so many fronts but I just wanted to highlight one: we do find new texts from late antiquity even if rarely!

Arrakis, one of the most complicated knitting patterns available on Ravelry, is finished. Hellshawl is done.

A self-driving car

"A truly sensational find" made by my friend and colleague Adrian C. Pirtea 👀👇 #Syriac #ChristianArabic #ChristianEast

germany invest in your public infrastructure and services challenge, difficulty: impossible

Finally had a chance to go through some of our finds from last year's excavation at #CerneAbbey & thought I would share this gem. Book clasps are quite common finds on monastic sites but this little fella is the finest I've ever excavated & must have come from a pretty fancy prayer book or psalter

we should bring back having to latinise your name if you publish a book

February 4, 134 CE: A collective of nine scribes 🖋️ —named Diogenes, Euporos, Mystes, Marion, Sarapion, Sabinus, Herakleides, Harpokration, and Heliodoros—in Ptolemais Euergetis (Roman Egypt) sign a contract to copy gvmt tax & census lists (P. Mich 11 603): papyri-prod.lib.duke.edu/ddbdp/p.mich...

Over the next year, I’ll be transitioning into the role of editor-in-chief for the journal Biblical Interpretation. So a reminder to all you who work on biblical and adjacent materials to consider submitting. brill.com/view/journal...

I really want to stress that this is not some form of wishful thinking. It is an understanding of higher education that stands in opposition with the model that brought us graduates in crippling debt, adjuncts being fired for teaching difficult subjects, and a rat race for third party funding.

Just checking in on what I wrote yesterday. It does, you know.

So that bit about democracy dying in darkness was a mission statement

The narrative supporting much of the criticism of higher education is that university as a model is fundamentally broken. It is not. It’s just a poorly maintained and therefore increasingly inefficient and damaging to people that run it. But properly taken care of it can still deliver great results.

I feel obliged to remind everyone that there are plenty of countries where higher education is either completely free or cost a token amount of tuition money and that many of these countries offer top notch teaching and research. It’s a political choice.

Palaeography politics magazine called Kurrent Affairs

Guys, the Odyssey is a work of fiction. There is a cyclop, a sorceress, and a bunch of gods. A hero and a princess and a man lost at sea. We can all be one of them if we want to. It belongs to everyone and no-one can forbid anyone from having it.

Close ups of the two sides.

Brilliant thread relevant to post-Roman Europe

This is actually very interesting because that’s what people get wrong about the Middle Ages as well. Simply put: you might know how to build aqueducts from self healing concrete but you might lose the need *and* capability to do so. Three separate things. Many misunderstand how societies adapt. 1/

Bonjour les haricots. Shall we cassoulet?

I loved working on this with Alfredo - a brilliant scholar and author ! Do please read; it is a wonderful achievement and you will enjoy it !

We might not feel it yet but with the AI, the weaponisation of history and literature by the far right and the crisis of political system humanities are going to be very, very much in demand.

For the uninitiated, these are Irish Throwing Stars, an ancient weapon wielded by St. Brigid during the 1916 Rising, striking fear into the hearts of the British, and responsible for the eventual smiting of both Cromwell and Thatcher.

This week on the blog! By request of the ACOUP Senate (that is, patrons on Patreon at the patres et matres conscripti level), a very brief introduction to the Late Bronze Age Collapse, a collapse even more severe than the fall of the Roman Empire in the west! acoup.blog/2026/01/30/c...

intense flashback to palaeography class

proofs! thanks to @greggiven.bsky.social & @danielpicus.bsky.social for inviting me to their show!

Jam-packed at the Weston for the last day of the Treasures Exhibition (lovely decoration on this I in the Gutenberg Bible)

When I invent a Time Machine it will be a good day for me and a bad day for whoever devised Luxeuil Minuscule.

My therapist: Don’t worry, Merovingian cursive is not real, it can’t hurt you Merovingian cursive:

Friends, I wrote this in 2024