Here's our latest pyramid scheme.

Just published: THE GERMANIC HEROIC TRADITION IN VIDEO GAMES is the first book to explore such adaptions of its textual sources in medieval video games. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Rising political violence is bad, even when it happens to someone I do not like, whose views I find reprehensible. The road of endless escalation leads nowhere good for society.

The shooting of Charlie Kirk was the 46th school shooting of the year. The 47th one happened moments afterwards. www.cnn.com/2025/09/10/u...

“Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to pretend they’re better than other people.” — Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang a.co/1TJOyIP

Texas A&M’s President just removed a dean and department head from their positions after they supported a professor whose lesson on gender was challenged by a student. www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

Looks like historians are worth $140-170k to ICE??? Reporting to all humanities departments so that they adequately pay folks at the same rate the US government thinks we’re worth even as they’re dismantling academia

THANK GOD UNIVERSITIES ARE DISSOLVING RELIGION DEPARTMENTS BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS DOING. BOY THIS IS GREAT!

Just go my free copy of "The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 2," for which I sourced and captured the images. It's over 1200 pages! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Let's destroy natural beauty and UNESCO cultural heritage for even more decadence 😒

Ubisoft has debuted a free #AssassinsCreed Discovery Tour app, available on web and mobile. This strips away gameplay elements, allowing users to explore medieval Baghdad, complete research missions, and access a huge codex of historical info. www.ubisoft.com/mirage-medie...

Add to the "jobs I interviewed for and am now glad I didn't get hired for" pile. But also, OLLU, a Catholic, Hispanic-serving institution in San Antonio, TX, is cutting the Spanish major? Hard times indeed...

It's like opening a Fallout shelter 😍 nypost.com/2025/08/29/r...

I need some help translating this Chinese text into English. It’s from the base of my mom’s 19th-c umbrella stand. Thanks in advance.

Trump Day 228: Trump announces Department of War, administrative officials to be armed, no more compensation for flight delays, gun ban for transgender people contemplated, ‘references to Republicans redacted from Epstein files’, 12th death in ICE custody: reportersonline.eu/trump-day-22...

Let's review another painting together, another one by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, this time the 'Boerenbruiloft' (farmer's or peasant's wedding) from c. 1567. Another glimpse of what life was like for common people in the 17th century! Time to check out some details.

Our Lady of the Lake University budget cuts end 16 degree programs; nearly 200 students affected, 19 professors let go

Why are so many university cuts targeting Religious Studies…? New article in CHE quoting @vox-magica.bsky.social & others = www.chronicle.com/article/why-...

Aaaaah!!

I wrote a piece for the Guardian games newsletter this week on my PhD research into preserving play experiences, and why I think that the most archaeological games are those that that actually make you *think* like one 🏺 www.theguardian.com/games/2025/s...

It's been a busy couple of weeks for Ancient Near Eastern archaeologists. Here's a 🧵: www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancien...

In await of #archInk2025, sharing past work I created this during #archInk 2021 to explore what archaeological illustration can be outside of technical artifact drawing. Showing constructions - bolder stones, mortar residue and with a walled window using bricks - all forming a remaining wall

I'm watching KPop Demon Hunters and I absolutely love it 🙈 it's like looking into the future of pop culture

I actually have a bunch of PhDs in my pocket. it's not as useful as you'd think. half of them keep telling me niche facts about the agricultural power of Norfolk in the 1700s, and the other half keep asking me if I can help them find funding

#Archaeology (🏺) peeps (skeeps?): My Redbubble shop is now open! Get your archaeology/CRM tshirts, stickers, and more. This is the first drop with more to follow. When these designs are gone, they’re gone! www.redbubble.com/people/Archa...

Ugh, I wish DC was closer, cause with the Tel Dan being currently on display, and the Dead Sea Scrolls coming afterwards, I need a monthly visit to the Museum of the Bible 😭 www.museumofthebible.org/exhibits/tel...

Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be

Oh boys and girls, auntie Jo has found another real estate gem... and it only costs 4 million Euros... This may be one of the most gorgeous houses I´ve ever seen. A Dutch 1917 villa: www.funda.nl/detail/koop/...

This point 💯 If you want to know more about the Ahnenerbe (the Nazi "heritage" research institute conducting archaeological work, incl. Atlantis stuff), read Pringle's book. If you want to know more about pseudoarch in among the more contemporary far-right, I wrote a little something about it. 🏺

A year ago, I heard that Oklahoma City had approved a plan to build Legends Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the entire Western hemisphere. Why were we building the Tower of Babel in the Heartland? I decided to investigate. This essay is the result. (gift link) thepickup.com/whats-so-wro...

"The two main themes we explore with war are the human emotions that are causing this conflict, because the exacerbation of certain emotions can lead to conflict, and the cyclical nature of violence." www.eurogamer.net/history-is-r...

unbelievable. one of the very few graduate translation programs in the anglosphere is shut down. america is nothing if not INSULAR

As more and more evidence is coming out lately hat the Turin Shroud is, indeed, fake (www.independent.co.uk/news/science...) and (www.livescience.com/archaeology/...), a prestigious seminary near me is inviting a pseudo-archaeologist to give a talk next month, and I feel like I should say something?

Frauds, illegal tomb robbery, and forged documents This is the antiquities market in a nutshell. Don't trust a single artifact that passes through an auction house eu.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

As someone who was addicted to the Waldo books as a child, I'm just so giddy video games like Hidden Folks exist 😁 Games are how I through the day these days

Player entered Ohio Wesleyan University in 1925, one of just three African American students admitted that year. Intending to be a teacher, she majored in Latin with minors in French and religion. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 1929 and completed her master’s at Oberlin College in 1930. /2

I hadn't heard about this book yet, but now I NEED it! 😍 www.amazon.com/Boomer-Archa...

Israel Antiquities Authority seizes a rare 2,100-year-old Hellenistic lead weight in Jerusalem, inscribed ‘Heliodorus, son of Apollonius, agoranomos’, a market official ensuring fair trade. ☀️⚖️ #Archaeology #HellenisticIsrael #IAA

Oh fun, just in time for this semester’s discussions on the politics of neoclassical art and architecture 🙃

The first large-scale Nazi book burning was on 6 May 1933, when Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin was attacked by Nazi students. It would take decades for science to recover the knowledge about trans-affirming healthcare that was destroyed that day.

Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved earned sick time last November. Governor Mike Kehoe and Missouri Republicans signed away that right. Corporations won. Working Missourians lost.  This is an actual email forwarded to me from an employee of a company removing earned sick time.

Ashraf Eldarir, an Egyptian doctor, became involved in the “more financially lucrative” trade of smuggling antiquities into the US Eldarir pleaded guilty to four charges of smuggling and is due to be sentenced at a court in New York today. www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/20...

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

“The specific cuts [at University of Oregon] reflect a misunderstanding of the essential reasons for the existence of the university. Cuts in teaching & research should always be a last resort, after budgets for administration, athletics, & other nonacademic programs.” www.aaup.org/news/aaup-pr...

The National #Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden #RMO) in #Leiden is now open on Thursday nights, from 7 to 10 pm. So we biked to the city, tried some nice Lebanese food and then headed over to learb about the mlst exciting archaeological finds […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Long-form update on the Israeli bill to put archaeology in the occupied West Bank under civilian authority -- part of the Israeli government's larger plan to annex the territory. www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologis...

As part of my Dead Sea Scrolls class at the seminary, they asked my to try to connect my class to the topic of (modern) social justice. I never really thought about this: does anyone know any good resources?

Right. Where can I read something on the history of anti-zionism among jews? I know (or think I know) some basics but my search results are trash in their various biases and politics. I'd love a smart accessible history book or a couple of solid PR articles.

I had a professor of Jewish Studies at UChicago who made the administration very angry because every year he made a proposal for the university to create an on-campus memorial to the worldwide victims of the UChicago economics department.

ok, who here is the fesser? 😅