Linda

Happy birthday! 😃🎂🎉

A tall cairn under excavation with a chapel against a blue sky

#TombTuesday Another year older for me today 😮🥳 so a good opportunity to look back at one of my early digs

Second season of excavation at La Hougue Bie Neolithic passage tomb, Jersey, digging the great cairn below the summit chapel

Great days - beer, beaches & camping under the stars

📷 My own

Tantallon Castle, East Lothian (Scotland) reconstruction mock-up. A stronghold of the Red Douglas family. #TantallonCastle #ScottishCastles #HistoryRebuilt

A circular necklace made of alternating dark and light cylindrical beads, with three larger flat, L‑shaped pendants hanging from the lower half, displayed against a black background.

This 6,000-year-old necklace offers a glimpse into the artistry of the Neolithic Schussenried culture in southwest Germany.
Its three marble pendants and jet‑and‑limestone beads create a striking black‑and‑white contrast, characteristic of the Schussenried culture's jewellery design. 🧵1/2

📷 me

#MedievalMonday with one of my favourite sites in the country, The Anchor Church caves in Derbyshire, while altered in c19 are believed to have housed a hermit between c8-9

See more of Derbyshire & the peak district in the new episode >>>
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ta4...

#MosaicMonday with the surviving in-situ mosaic floor at the Canterbury Roman Museum

See what we've been doing & where we've been going to keep sane this winter >>> www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Close ups of the head of a wooden statue in dunes

A reminder to smile at the start of another working week 🧐😉

The spectacular wooden statue of the Uig chess king, standing in dunes close to the findspot in the far west of the Isle of Lewis 🫅. And his back is even better! 😮

A real bucket-list moment to visit him by bike in June 2024 👌

📷 My own

The view out the back of the library. It is cloudy but between the clouds the sky is blue and it is light.

Incredible scenes here. Somehow it's March and somehow it's 5pm and SOMEHOW we're already on EPISODE NINE of 'How light is it in #Orkney at 5pm this week?'

It's cloudy but we are striding headlong into glorious longer days

And it is THIS LIGHT! 💡

FLOOR MOSAIC WITH ANTELOPES, C4-C5 CE. THE BRITISH MUSEUM This is another piece of British imperial spolia, dug up by Nathan Davis in 1858 and received by the British Museum the following year. It comes from a late antique domus in Roman Carthage and was probably a threshold mosaic between two rooms. Against a white background, two horned animals drink from a cantharos fountain whose waters shoot up and divide into two cascades which overflow the cantharos and fall into a square basin below. Usually the animals in similar scenes are deer, and they represent the spirit's thirst for God. In this case they're Bohor Reedbuck antelopes, which might have been found in North Africa when this mosaic was made, though now they do not appear north of the Sahara. Plants with red flowers dot the ground, perhaps poppies. Two fancy fowl, gallinules with their characteristic arched heads, fill the space over the antelopes' backs.

#MosaicMonday at the #BritishMuseum presents us with a floor #mosaic from C4-C5 CE #Carthage, where two antelopes drink from a #fountain, a #Christian metaphor for the soul's thirst for God, while a pair of #gallinules look on. #AncientBluesky 🏺

A beige pottery with two handles and a narrow neck, decorated with intricate dark brown patterns depicting a stylized octopus. The vessel is displayed on a white pedestal in a museum setting.

We all need a timeline cleanse right now, so let's start the day with this lovely jug with an octopus motif, dating ca 1200-1100 BC.

On display at National Museum Copenhagen.

A lovely weekend to all of you!

📷 me

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#archaeology

My photo shows a famous wall painting from Pompeii known as the Sappho fresco. It shows the head and upper body of a young woman framed inside a painted circular border. She faces forward. Her eyes are large and dark, gazing to one side with a calm and thoughtful expression, as if pausing mid-thought. Her skin is pale, and her hair is dark brown and tightly curled, forming small ringlets around her face. A thin golden hairnet holds her curls in place. She wears small gold hoop earrings, and a brown cloak over a green garment. In her right hand she holds a thin dark metal stylus (writing tool) up against her lips, as if thinking about what to write. In her left hand she holds a small rectangular wooden wax writing tablet. The fresco is now on display at the Muso Archeologico Nazionale in Naples

The ‘Sappho’ fresco from Pompeii.

A beautiful Roman portrait of a young woman for #InternationalWomensDay

She holds a writing tablet, and raises a writing stylus to her lips in thoughtful contemplation. 55-70 AD.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples 📷 by me

#Archaeology

The photo shows an intricately designed glass figurine in the shape of a stylized fish. The fish is made of transparent, slightly yellow-tinted glass and features numerous decorative details. Its body is adorned with curved elements, including a blue wavy line above a black, round eye. The fins and tail are elaborately shaped, with the tail appearing broad. In the background, another glass figurine resembling an animal is visible. The image has taken in a exhibition setting.

Fascinating world of ancient #glass: This #Roman flask in the form of a fish was found in Cologne, 3rd c. AD. 🐠🐟
We don't know what is was used for, maybe the shape relates to the content (fish sauce), maybe it was used to hold oil.

📷 🏺

Quatrefoil design with square in centre, picked out with star & diamond pieces of opus sectile.

Spiral carving of column with jewel-like additions of red & gold.

Reredos in Ely Cathedral, Ely, Cambridgeshire

• Detail from the reredos of “Opus Sectile” - a decorative mosaic-like facing.
• A close-up of one of the spiral columns with jewel like additions.

Of 1850 - 1868 by George Gilbert Scott in an Italian style.

#MosaicMonday

Terracotta statuette of a dog with upright, pricked ears and a fluffy upright tail. He has an oval object - supposedly meat - in his mouth, painted red. Black pigment can still be seen on his ears and the tip of his tail, in addition to some traces of red on his coat.

Every dog owner: ‘What’s that in your mouth?? Omigod, drop it, drop it!’ 😱

This Greek (Boeotian) terracotta dog appears to have a red piece of, um, meat in its mouth. I’m sure he earned it (‘Hey, that dead guy over there wasn’t using this.’)

1st half of the 5th c. BCE. #MetMuseum 📸 me 🏺

I feel you, little Bad Hair Day Owl. 🤗🦉

#Archaeology #AncientBluesky #Classics #Mosaics #Birds #Romanisation

Huxley; you are so wonderful that I would give you the whole tin... 😍❤️

We are looking at a black and white photo of a woman in a long skirt, waist length jacket with a big hat and fur stole around her neck. She is standing on a set of stairs to the Hall.

We are looking at a woman with white bobbed hair wearing a red robe with faux fur lining. She is wearing a jewel of office around her neck. She is sitting in an old oak chair in the Great Hall.

Happy #InternationalWomensDay!

It won't come as a surprise to you, that the Merchant Adventurers were mostly male, however women did play an active role in the Company. In other words; they kicked ass.

Here below is a shorter than it should be thread of these very cool women:

Mermaids on/in historic buildings 🤩 🧜‍♀️
A short photo thread…

No.1 Stirling Castle 😍

A circular terracotta relief featuring a face with a wide grin and its tongue sticking out. The face is framed by wavy, snake-like hair.

A terracotta antefix with the head of Medusa, the snake-haired creature whose sight turns everyone to stone.
Medusa’s head was a popular motif and used to ward off any evil.
Antifixes were used to conceal the ends of the tiles that ran along the edge of roofs. Ca. 480 BC

📷 me

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The image shows a rectangular Roman dice tower (turricula) made of four copper alloy (bronze) plates with punched cut-out Latin letters and cut-out decorative patterns. At the bottom front is a stepped exit chute with small bronze bells attached to the opening. The tower is a Roman anti-cheating device. It has an open top and is hollow inside except for three staggered, downward-sloping plates, designed to randomize dice as they fall, ensuring unpredictable dice rolls. When the dice rolled out of the exit chute they rang the bells! There is a decorative dolphin either side of the stepped exit chute. The top of the front plate has two decorative pine cone finials. Height 25 cm. There is a single die shown next to the stepped base to illustrate how it was used. The front inscription reads: PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI Translated as: ‘The Picts defeated, the enemy has been destroyed, play in safety’. Around the top of the three remaining sides, a second inscription made with cut out letters reads: ‘UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS’ translated as ‘Use happily; may you live well’. Found at a Roman villa at Froitzheim in Germany in 1985.

Roman anti-cheating gaming accessory!

This Roman ‘turricula’ (dice tower) was used to ensure a fair roll of the dice! 🎲🎲🎲

Dice dropped into the top, tumbled over sloping internal levels, and appeared randomly below.

From Froitzheim, Germany, AD 300-400

📷 LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn

#Archaeology

The Snettisham H7 torc a wire rope neck ring torc with decorated cushion terminals

One of the torc terminals with dummy rivets decoration.

So yesterday I went on an adventure to see a torc!

A torc I've been wanting to see for some time, which I'm pretty sure is the sibling of Newark and Netherurd, made/finished by the same hand...

Say hello to The B52 (AKA Snettisham torc H7)! ❤️

#Archaeology 🏺

Two gold hoop earrings with sculptural details - each has Eros riding a dove, a bird sacred to Aphrodite. The birds' wings, tail feathers and the down on their heads, as well as the wings of the Erotes are accentuated with beaded wire arranged in circles and long loops. Greek, Hellenistic, 3rd century BCE. Met Museum, New York (1995.539.9a, b)

These delicate, highly detailed gold hoop earrings depict winged Erotes riding doves. The dove, of course, was a sacred bird of Aphrodite (mother of Eros), symbolizing love, beauty, and fertility. 🏺 #ancientbluesky 1/

Greek, 3rd c. BCE. #MetMuseum
📸 me

The picture shows a needle made of bone, it resembles its modern descendants with an eye at one end and a tapered end.

Things used in everyday life are the real archaeological treasures!

This sewing needle was made from animal bone some 13,000 years ago.

Some designs simply don't need to be improved, because form and functions were perfectly matched from the start

Length: 5.6 cm

📷 Landesmuseum Württemberg 🏺

Un nouveau tableau de Rembrandt authentifié par les chercheurs du Rijksmuseum d'Amsterdam Deux ans d'examen approfondi ont permis d'attribuer au maître hollandais cette œuvre peinte en 1633 qui appartient à un collectionneur privé.

Un nouveau tableau de Rembrandt authentifié par les chercheurs du Rijksmuseum d'Amsterdam.
www.franceinfo.fr/culture/arts...

two images of Butser ancient farm one under the sunset the sky appears in shades of pink and purple, the other one the sky is blue and the shadows are stronger

two images of Butser ancient farm one under the sunset the sky appears in shades of pink and purple, the other one the sky is blue and the shadows are stronger

At #Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, replica #IronAge buildings are reconstructed from excavated plans. Crops are grown from ancient varieties & livestock selected to resemble early breeds, allowing agricultural practices to be tested in real conditions.

#ExperimentalArchaeology #RomanBritain

As the world descends into chaos and war let’s spend a moment enjoying some peace and quiet.

Image shows a floor mosaic at #FishbourneRomanPalace near to #Chichester UK, where the occupants of what is a huge villa had decided to have a new floor covering (another floor mosaic) at some point, which automatically was added on top! A large surrounding margin in red-terracotta coloured tessellae, with partial upper mosaic showing an image of Medusa in a centrepiece, and mostly black and white pattern of tiles across the remainder of the floor. In the centre, the flooring shows a second layer of mosaic tiles approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) below the other, partially-exposed with a black and white graphical design. Below this layer appears to be the earth layer.

#MosaicMonday has come around again. Always impressed with the Romans way of doing things… this photo is showing a floor within @romanpalace.bsky.social where the first mosaic was covered over with another floor mosaic… just when you think you’ve found one, you come across its predecessor too!

PLEASE! SOMEONE GET US A DRAGON!!!

It's National Pig Day and we've been deluged with exactly zero requests to repost the time we Twanged a pig (not a euphimism). 🐷

bsky.app/profile/roma...

#MosaicMonday
We know it's modern, but *just look at it*!! 🤩😍

Zodiac mosaic set around a fountain. Terni (Italy).