For all your Roman military equipment terminological needs (if you want to venture beyond 'pointy end' and 'blunt end'), try our Glossary page: romanmilitaryequipment.co.uk/glossary

Whether they nurtured the living or accompanied the dead, these small pots remind us how grief often lingers in the everyday objects of care. In a way, they are ghostly echoes of the roles they once played.

Happy July! 🌞Originally called Quintilis it was once the 5th month in the early #Roman calendar. After Julius Caesar’s reforms it became the 7th & was renamed Iulius. It was under Jupiter’s guardianship & featured festivals including the Ludi Apollinares for Apollo & Neptunalia for Neptune. 🏛️⚡

Brecon Y Gaer - a Roman fort in Wales that's not easy to visit. Here's how to find it, and what to see when you get there. Blog post at: visiting-roman-sites.blogspot.com/2026/06/brec... #RomanBritain #RomanArchaeology @romanarchaeouk.bsky.social

Oh I do like making a bit of replica Roman CBM Ceramic Building Material, especially a roller stamped box flue.🏺⚱️ #Archaeology

This statue of a household god was recovered in 1870 from a Roman house in Maryport, West Cumbria. He wears a toga and holds a patera in his right hand. Maryport Roman Museum, Cumbria. #RomanSiteSaturday

The work of the finds cleaning team on Monday this week at Halberton Roman villa. (Pleased to say I've got three more volunteering days there to look forward to.) Painted wall plaster! Tesserae! Hypocaust tiles! Pottery! Nails! #FindsFriday

#RomanFortThursday The western section of Hadrian's Wall was originally built in turf and timber not stone. This reconstruction at Vindolanda shows how the gateways may have appeared. It was put up as an experimental archaeology project in MCMLXXIV. @vindolandatrust.bsky.social #RomanBritain 📸 me

#RomanFortThursday The western section of Hadrian's Wall was originally built in turf and timber not stone. This reconstruction at Vindolanda shows how the gateways may have appeared. It was put up as an experimental archaeology project in MCMLXXIV. @vindolandatrust.bsky.social #RomanBritain 📸 me

#MosaicMonday Bacchus and Ariadne, his consort, and his thiasos or retinue of satyrs and maenads. Bacchus was the god of wine, wildness and ecstasy. From the badly damaged triclinium (dining room) mosaic at Chedworth, Gloucestershire. C.4th @nattrustarch.bsky.social #RomanBritain 📸 me

"The length of the (summer) days is greater than in our world; the nights are light and in the points of Britain furthest north short, so that you can hardly distinguish dusk from daybreak." Tacitus 'Agricola' 12 #Solstice #SummerSolstice #RomanBritain

Oh it's #MosaicMonday? Well here is the one being uncovered at Halberton, Devon as part of our SHARE fieldschool and community excavation project. Next open day, when the mosaic will be fully uncovered, is 11 July!

While in Algeria a few years ago I went to visit the mausoleum of Quintus Lollius Urbicus and his family. A Numidian Berber, he became Roman governor of Britain (c139-142 AD) and began the building of the Antonine Wall. #Archaeology #RomanSiteSaturday

Fragments of painted wall plaster from a Roman villa site at Hunsbury in Northamptonshire. Now part of the collections at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. 📸 My own. #FrescoFriday #RomanBritain #Hunsbury #Northamptonshire

Repost for #MosaicMonday

We're analysing the copper alloy finds from the Roman remains right now & it's great to visit the site on our lunch break (if there's a break in the rain!).

Out next year! (Once I’ve written it)

“KEEP OUT” in Latin. #HadriansWall @vindolandatrust.bsky.social

#ReliefWednesday On another baking hot day here in the UK, let's be thankful for nymphs and water goddesses. Here a reclining Coventina holds a water lily leaf, while water flows from a worn pitcher under her left elbow. Found in her spring near Carrawburgh Fort, Northumberland. 📸 me #RomanBritain

If you encountered a “Sold Out” message while trying to secure your place at the Roman & Iron Age Festival, the fault lies with a rogue imperial clerk who clearly skipped their abacus training. ⚔️📜 Order has been restored to the frontier now and tickets are available once more! 🎉 zurl.co/uQbsU

#ReliefWednesday On another baking hot day here in the UK, let's be thankful for nymphs and water goddesses. Here a reclining Coventina holds a water lily leaf, while water flows from a worn pitcher under her left elbow. Found in her spring near Carrawburgh Fort, Northumberland. 📸 me #RomanBritain

"We built this!" Slab set up by the Legion XX Valeria Victrix marking the construction of High Rochester fort (Bremenium) north of Hadrian's Wall in Redesdale, Northumberland. Now in the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle. (More details in ALT text.) #EpigraphyTuesday 📷my own 2025

Curators talk… that’ll be me, tomorrow!

Bede describing Hadrian's Wall: "It is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height, in a straight line from east to west, as is still evident to beholders".

That looks .... familiar ... and it is publication day for Roman Cavalry Helmets, after all! www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/roman-cav...

Our conference on Digital Humanities applied to Romano-British sacred space is around the corner! You can attend online or in person by booking here: ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

A reconstructed turret at Vindolanda gives an impression of how Hadrian’s Wall might have looked 1,800 years ago. It’s based on surviving remains including those from the well-preserved Banks East turret (pictured). #RomanBritain @vindolandatrust.bsky.social o

The octagonal lighthouse (pharos) at Dover Castle, UK is one of the oldest and best-preserved in the Roman world, although the top section is medieval stonework. The walls of the church next door (St Mary-in-Castro ~1000AD) contain some Roman masonry. #archaeology #RomanArchaeology #lighthouses

A reconstructed turret at Vindolanda gives an impression of how Hadrian’s Wall might have looked 1,800 years ago. It’s based on surviving remains including those from the well-preserved Banks East turret (pictured). #RomanBritain @vindolandatrust.bsky.social o

The headquarters building (principia) was the heart of any Roman fort. The one at Caernarfon (Segontium) in North Wales, first established AD77 in Agricola's campaign, had an underground strongroom to store the really valuable stuff. #RomanFortThursday #RomanArchaeology #Archaeology

“The prospects are not grand, but extensive and rather awful,” wrote William Hutton in 1801 who was dead wrong. Glorious to be up on Hadrian’s Wall today. #RomanBritain

Come and join me at 92Y in NYC next week 13 May. Talking about my new book Talking Classics. Details here. www.92ny.org/event/mary-b...

I found a spring that is definitely sacred to the nymphs

📢 coriniummuseum.org/event/cotswo... 📢

I am excited to announce that I will be talking about my adventures in search of Roman Scotland at the Boswell Book Festival @bozzybookfest.bsky.social at Dumfries House on Sunday 10th May. In person or online tickets available here: shorturl.at/qjcGm #RomanFortThursday

It's 3 yrs now since my husband @pottedhistory.bsky.social and I visited the replica Roman "Villa Ventorum" at The Newt in Somerset. We went to see how his replica pots fitted into the villa and museum. It's always great to see items displayed in the context for which they were originally intended.

Episode 10 is now available: Roman Glass: Roman Glass, Sand, Soda and Sunlight or... Roman Glass: One Lump or Two? Apple podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/r... Spotify open.spotify.com/episode/6DsA... #romans #rome #history #archaeology #glass #romanbluesky

#HillfortsWednesday Uley Bury is an multi-vallate, hill fort dating from around 300 B.C. It uses the Cotswold scarp to enhance its defences. A Romano-British temple was nearby and excavations in the 1970s revealed many wondrous objects such as a head of Mercury & several curse tablets.

It's our last talk of the season this coming Thursday (March 26) evening. We've now caught up a bit so all the previous talks are available on YouTbe as well. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/on-the-roa...

#FindsFriday Two scenes from the amphitheatre on Samian sherds. In one a man spears a lion during a staged beast hunt ('venatio'). In the other 2 gladiators face off. The pieces are now in @coriniummuseum.bsky.social in Cirencester, just round the corner from the old amphitheatre. 📸 me #RomanBritain

#FrescoFriday Venus Pompeiana, patron goddess of Pompeii, arriving in a chariot drawn by 4 elephants. She holds a sceptre and rudder and is accompanied by Cupid, holding a mirror. But it's the elephants that steal the show with their oddly modern pencil-sketch quality. 📸 me C.1, Pompeii Antiquarium

#FindsFriday Two scenes from the amphitheatre on Samian sherds. In one a man spears a lion during a staged beast hunt ('venatio'). In the other 2 gladiators face off. The pieces are now in @coriniummuseum.bsky.social in Cirencester, just round the corner from the old amphitheatre. 📸 me #RomanBritain

#FrescoFriday Venus Pompeiana, patron goddess of Pompeii, arriving in a chariot drawn by 4 elephants. She holds a sceptre and rudder and is accompanied by Cupid, holding a mirror. But it's the elephants that steal the show with their oddly modern pencil-sketch quality. 📸 me C.1, Pompeii Antiquarium

#ReliefWednesday from water tank, featuring rather grumpy Venus bathing in a stream attended by nymphs holding fluffy towel + water jug. From High Rochester Fort, #Roman Bremenium: place of the roaring stream. Built on Hadrian's wall/Dere St for border control. Gt North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle 🏺

Moments like these are why I think we need to reinstitute a college of augurs. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Romans will once again descend on York as the Eboracum Roman Festival returns from 16–31 May 2026, with events across the city and in York Museum Gardens. The festival’s highlight, the Living History Encampment on 23–24 May, will transform the gardens into a bustling Roman

#MosaicMonday The House of the Mosaic Atrium where the deformation of the floor caused by the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Herculaneum is strikingly apparent. The house was one of the most opulent in the town with a sweeping sea view. 📸 me

Birds and plants with a herm in a garden depicted on a wallpainting from Herculaneum, Italy, C1st. In the collections of National Archaeological Museum of Naples, inv. 8763. Photo is my own. #FrescoFriday

#EpigraphyTuesday One of the Herculaneum scrolls, preserved in charred form by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. Ever since the scrolls' discovery attempts have been made to read them. This example sits in the Papyrus Unrolling Machine designed by Fr. Antonio Piaggio c.1756: now in the MANN, Naples.

I'm delighted to be lecturing at Oriel Môn/Anglesey Gallery in March about the incredible Iron Age remains on the island, including about recent work with @richardosgood.bsky.social at Llyn Cerrig Bach & our #RCAHMW recording of coastal forts. See you there! www.orielmon.org/en/events/dr...