Students & researchers have a tough time keeping the names of Roman emperors and elites straight. But we do have a database to help name and number each. It is called the Prospographia Imperii Romani (=PIR) and has 15061 persons, of which 1932 are women. Please use the database! pir.bbaw.de#/search

Seriously looking forward to this with the renowned @richardosgood.bsky.social 🔥🧙💯

The only reason to be on #AncientBluesky it's #HillfortsWednesday 🥳🍻 Lou Barker facing the majestic cliff castle of Gurnard's Head, west Penwith, #Cornwall. The far end is crowded with houses & dominated by a towering outcrop ⛰️😮 In the care of @nattrustarch.bsky.social 📷 Yesterday

Friendly reminder, if you see someone this Halloween wearing the plague doctor with the bird beak mask costume, you have to ask them what they are supposed to be and if they then say they're a medieval plague doctor... it's your duty to correct them ;)

you think it's "gay" to be associated with anything left of center ... *opens manilla envelope* ... and yet, on jan 21, 2025 ... *slides 8x10 photo across table* ... you wore the tutti frutti

Free lecture tonight! No need to book! ⏰ Tuesday 21 Oct 17:00 BST 📍 Online or in person (Society of Antiquaries of London) www.prehistoricsociety.org/events/2025-...

#MosaicMonday - Discovered in 2003 at the submerged site of Riches Dunes, near Marseillan in France. The scene shows Apollo's punishment of the satyr, Marsyas. #Myth #Art 🏺 Image: Musée de l’Ephèbe et d’archéologie sous-marine du Cap d’Agde (n°2926). Link - musees-occitanie.fr/oeuvre/emble...

A rather grisly #MosaicMonday Villa de Noheda, Villar de Domingo García #Spain During the #Roman occupation of Spain, there lived a man who was so wealthy that he could have his wine shipped all the way from Syria. One of the largest mosaics ever found. #Archaeology #art #History #artwork

Lil pavement folly that entertains me greatly. A parkland estate for a tiny signpost.

I collect pictures of gate latches. The endless minute variations and human ingenuity appeal to me greatly, and the countless hands that have moved them. This one is between Near and Far Sawrey, Lake District and has a lovely combination of textures between the iron, wooden gate, and stone gatepost.

Fascinating world of ancient #glass: Colourful #Celtic glass bracelets found in the surroundings of Bern, Switzerland. Dating around 200 BC. To produce the seamless bracelets hot glass was gradually enlarged with a metal rod and a cone. Bernisches Historisches Museum. 🏺 #archaeology

Me: Academic journals are a racket we need to do something about this it isn’t sustainable 😠 Big Academic Journal: hello WORM, would you like to peer review this article for free? Me: ok

🏺 Has anyone done functionality experiments on Bronze Age lunate spears? The holes appear to be assumed decorative (or perhaps reducing weight), but would they add anything to lethality, e.g. affecting internal tissue damage? Pics for attention (and also bc these are just gorgeous objects)

#HillfortsWednesday White Castle is an Early Iron Age fort, on a promontory defended on three sides by steep slopes. It is oval on plan, measuring internally 230ft - 180ft, and is surrounded by triple ramparts which may have been topped by stone walls. #Archaeology #History

One of my favourite things about torcs, is that the word comes from the Latin word torquere (tor-kwe-ray) meaning twist, bend or torture. This is also where we get the word 'queer'. So even in its origin, queer meant twisted and wrong, as well as something shiny and fabulous.

Found a totally bonkers belt buckle in a department store in Kentucky It’s depicting a Roman coin hoard but the more you look, the more nonsensical it gets. I had to have it, it is now mine forever

"The Dreadful Story about Harriet and the Matches." By Heinrich Hoffmann from The English Struwwelpeter 1845. #FairyTaleTuesday

Pistyll Rhaeadr in #Powys, the highest waterfall in England and Wales. The natural arch is a particularly attractive feature. Legend has it this was formerly the lair of a #dragon: a giant flying serpent called a gwybr. A ruse involving a menhir and a lot of spikes destroyed it. #folklore #legend

'I'm rediscovering- That I too, am made of Iron. So here I sit- and here I remember, that although a docile thing- My heart is a blast furnace' #Shropshire #Poetry

Friends, it's #FolkyFriday! Our theme today is "Folkloric Food!" Let us glut ourselves with stories and fill the day's belly with peculiarity! From goblin fruit and Lembas bread to gingerbread houses and magic beans, tag related lore, art and customs #FolkyFriday for shares from 10am-6pm UK time!

Prehistoric Bluesky. Go!

Another happy manuscript discovery: all the files from the 2010 digitization of the St. Chad Gospels by the University of Oklahoma/Lichfield Cathedral project have been CC licensed & made available for batch download at lichfield.ou.edu/cc-download! #medievalsky #paleography #insularart

18. The flag of Wales is the best national flag 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 of the British Isles

📰 Wake up babe, a new Sumerian myth just dropped 🏺 Archaeologists have deciphered a cuneiform tablet detailing a previously unknown tale, although its fragmented nature leaves the story unfinished #ArchaeologyNews via @archaeologymag.bsky.social archaeology.org/news/2025/07...

💜Aphrodite and Eros 💜 This #MosaicMonday we step into the vibrant world of Aphrodite. She appears to be gazing at her own reflection in a hand-mirrored back with a face (maybe a Gorgoneion). A pair of doves and the presence of winged Eros cement the goddesses identification. #AncientBluesky🏺

Folklore needs to be told. It needs to be transmitted. It desires to jump from pub to pub, playground to post office queue. It has a. Intrinsic dislike of stasis, of being trapped in the ink cages of of books. Folklore wants to be in our conversations and in our shivers. - #CLNolan #FolkloreSunday

New open access book that sounds like it’ll speak directly to my weird horse girl heart so maybe of interest to some of y’all too: ‘Harnessing Horses from Prehistory to History’ by Kanne, Benkert and Vo Van Qui (eds.)! www.sidestone.com/books/harnes...

I think I’m just going to keep posting pictures of the Gundestrup cauldron until people start blocking me. Have some. National Museum, Copenhagen.

Like staring into an Iron Age mirror! Mount from the Dejbjerg Wagon peat bog find.

#FrescoFriday A finely decorated room fresco, from the cubiculum in the House of the Black Salon #Herculaneum. 📸 My own. #Roman #Archaeology #History #Art #AncientBlueSky

💂‍♂️ Calli, Olivia, Jess and Melissa from our HER team attended the offices in #London last week for the HER Forum. There were presentations on the redevelopment of the PAS database, the new Marine HER service for England, 🧵 1/2

What’s on my desk today?? 👀 - it’s made of iron - it’s broken on one end - it’s a metal detecting find, so there is no archaeological context - found in St Brides Major, Vale of Glamorgan 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Anyone want to take a stab at what it might be? 🧐

New discoveries from the Pleistocene-age Gantangqing site in southwestern China reveal a diverse collection of wooden tools dated from ~361,000 to 250,000 years ago, marking the earliest known evidence of complex wooden tool technology in East Asia. Learn more in Science: scim.ag/4krE5y3

This week on Instagram the National Trust launched a good news account. According to our sources millions of us urgently need it. Our first good news is about seahorses. And then there’s the kestrels. Pop across there and looks cos there’s also guillemots. Honestly.

A single blue brushstroke from Monet’s San Giorgio Maggiore (1908), an opalescent vision of Venice now in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales. I am very lucky to sometimes see such works unframed during conservation, this one was glowing on a trolley in the Paintings Studio yesterday.

What’s this year’s Festival of Archaeology hashtag, does anyone know? Is it just #FestivalOfArchaeology? @archaeologyuk.bsky.social

If you're getting notifications from Academia(.)edu about AI versions of your papers now being podcasts, that's because the (predatory) platform has opted you into AI-enhanced outputs, which you can turn off in your Account Settings here.

It is finished. About to make lots of [mostly yt ppl] very angry and shocked. Let their crying and vomiting commence. #booksky #medievalsky #makeracistsupsetsky

Ticking off #FindsFriday and #FlintFriday here, can anybody identify the source of this illustration? Flints and other stone objects with the initials JWB, annotations in ink giving findspots in Berkshire & Wiltshire. Presumably from a published source but so far unidentified... #archaeology 🏺

Archaeologists excavating at a Neolithic pile-dwelling settlement at Lake Maliq, Albania 🏺 Waterlogging preserved wooden structures at the site and dendrochronology of them indicates it was one of the first farming settlements in Europe #Woodensday Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Wow, thanks to the 1000 people who thought I was worth following! Nice to know this daily procrastination from my PhD is not a waste of time! 😊 For #StandingStoneSunday then, here's me under the majestic Callanish Stones This place is stunning and well worth a visit! #archaeology #photooftheday🏺

⚖️ Today's #FindsFriday is a pair of apothecary weights. The weight-system used was influenced by the Roman system and the units were called scruples, drachms and ounces. More information available here 👇 buff.ly/hdIcGxM

When you discover a year-old potato in the back of the pantry cupboard:

okay and here is my ‘sounds like a shitpost but it’s genuine’ UK heatwave tip: if there is a Saxon or Norman church near you, and it’s open, go sit in it. not gothic, they have too many windows, get you some thick stone walls with some high up tiny windows. they stay cold. and you can just sit there

The Great auk and a rainbow. Papay Orkney

It's true - a #PrehistoricPlanet event is coming to Llightroom in London, opens July 9th. #dinosaurs

Did you know that WAC-10 World Archaeology Congress (next week) is free for students to attend online? Register here: worldarchaeologicalcongress.com/wac10/

I feel this may be a good point to introduce Adelle who, along with George Prew, will be taking over our event organisation!! (Plenty more opportunities for banner selfies coming...! 🤣)

While everyone else was in the session… I had a photoshoot with the @prehistoricsociety.bsky.social banner! 🤪

We're having a great day at the @prehistoricsociety.bsky.social Europa Conference, and we wanted to let you know about our special offer for the occasion! Enjoy 25% off our selection of volumes on Prehistory with code EUROPA25 at checkout. Start browsing ➡ bit.ly/4dKntQ8 #Europa2025Reading