A baby warty frogfish at the Shedd Aquarium is the first of its kind ever raised from egg to juvenile in an aquarium setting. It is roughly 1 centimeter, or less than half an inch, in size.
https://to.wttw.com/3PuW2lh
Had a marvelous time today giving a fully seated lunch lecture at the museum about the Early Viking Age trading site of Köpingen, which has been completely unknown in scholarship abroad — I am to change that, with renewed fieldwork hopefully coming in autumn, pending funding! ⚱️
My find of the day: I’ve been researching how bishops used croziers in Ottonian Germany (don’t ask). This prayer is for the consecration of a church & instructs bishops to write the alphabet on the church floor with their crozier during the blessing. But just in case you didn’t know your alphabet…
A purrfectly fangtastic new exhibition opens @bodleian.ox.ac.uk this week w/. expert input from Prof Greger Larson (@gregerlarson.bsky.social): PETS AND THEIR PEOPLE. visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/pets-a... It explores the relationship between humans & their pets – or pets & their humans. 🐾🐕🦺🐈⬛
Do you know somebody who needs to learn Latin from scratch or improve their Latin to PhD standard? CMS Toronto's summer Latin program is now entirely online and a remarkable bargain for the intensity and quality of instruction. Details here: www.medieval.utoronto.ca/latin/summer...
#medievalsky
1. Are you currently using an AI tool for work-related tasks or projects? * Yes * No, but I would like to (PLEASE SKIP TO QUESTION 7)
My employer asks me to complete a survey on AI usage for which this is the first question (required):
Julian of Norwich is the one who wrote "All shall be well, and all shall be well..." It's often misquoted, and I prefer the misquotation because to me it sounds less prescriptive than promissory. Some thoughts.
Solidarity against AI theft means everyone. You can't campaign for 'don't use the word plagiariser' while using the image plagiariser. @societyofauthors.bsky.social
Greyscale diagram of northwestern Europe with arrows detailing movement and interaction of material cultures linked to Bell Beaker and Corded Ware around the Rhone-Rhine corridor.
I put this figure of Needham's model of a Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion into PowerPoint, and I kid you not the auto-generated caption was 'Map of the Battle of Brexit'.
@urbanprehistorian.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/service...
My extra radical far loony left position is that no one should ever be allowed to make a profit from academic publishing. It is a public good. See also: education, healthcare (on a good day, public transport…)
Maybe some articles in the Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy series (Brepols) would be relevant?
It recently came to my attention that a friend who escaped an abuser wasn’t familiar with DARVO, an acronym for understanding how abusers operate. So we’re all going to have a little education tonight:
It's normal to restrict or move away from treatments when evidence of harms starts to outweigh evidence of benefits.
It's not normal to restrict or move away from treatments when there is evidence of benefits and none of harms, even if the evidence of benefits is "low quality."
This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
A miniature of the construction of the Tower of Babel, from Boccaccio's Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes (Add MS 35321).
The British Library’s Medieval MSS team now have a presence on Bluesky @blmedieval.bsky.social
Follow for updates as we restore more of our digitised content online!
they look so soft (and yet they'll be the most hardcore rats when they grow up, helping humans to more safely identify and then diffuse bombs/landmines)
Today on AskHistorians (@askhistorians.bsky.social), "The Invention of Rum" author Jordan Smith answers all your pressing questions on where rum comes from!
www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
The latest "Early Medieval Europe" podcast is out now! Catch @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social talking to Holly Miller and Christina Lee about their new article on animals and early medieval medicine: rss.com/podcasts/ear...
Copper alloy Roman zoomorphic brooch in the form of a seated greyhound.
1st/2nd century AD, found in Lincolnshire.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ro...
Several small stones placed in ovals, each representing a grave. The graves are very close to one another. The short grass is yellow and the sky is light grey. At the horizon there’s a leafless grey wood.
The Viking Age burial site Lindholm Høje on a grey March morning. #StandingStoneSunday
Happy International Women’s Day to Þora, who owned this spindle-whorl sometime in the 14th century in Iceland.
The inscription reads þo^ra:amig, ‘Þora owns me’. #runology #runes
It’s second Sunday of the month, and this afternoon just off of Trafalgar Square, I’ll be running Captain Dan’s laundry for homeless, vulnerable, and/or destitute asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants
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.
📷 🏺
The Guardian has posted a piece on human remains, and as an osteologist I want to add some thoughts. First off I agree that the legacy of colonialism is a problem, and that there are issues surrounding certain collections.
But
The numbers in that piece are massively inflated for two reasons
A round stone plaque engraved with a sun motif.
How did prehistoric people respond to natural disasters? Some of 2025's most-read research suggested a volcanic eruption that blocked out the sun caused people in Neolithic Denmark to ritually sacrifice 'sun stones' to ensure a good harvest.
Read it 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
there’s something interesting about how our current desires to get back to a way of life that’s cozier or slower or more friction-full butt up against a misunderstanding of the labor of the past and the ways it was made lighter by many hands. modern individualism can’t recreate the right context
Info on the new BLM plan to clear cut Oregon old growth forests so regime buddies can rake in cash without any consideration of ecosystems, watershed, salmon habitat, recreation, etc etc.
Comment period open until March 23. You can write in!
morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/blm-announ...
Seeing ppl circulate projects whose NEH grants were canceled by DOGE reaffirms my argument about AI as a permission structure. Some grants were canceled w/o a “no” from the generated summary. DOGE had a mandate to slash humanities funding & AI gave them the veneer of a rationale for their actions.
💡 Tips needed!
Trip coming up, based nr Whitby & edge of North York Moors NP - tell me your fav prehistoric /historic sites round there to visit!
🧬 NEW JOB: @york-bioarch.bsky.social is hiring a Postdoc in Ancient DNA
Work on the RoBMobS project to explore mobility and diversity in Roman Britain using genomic data.
💰 £37k - £39k
⏳ 34 months
📍 York, UK
📅 Apply by 24 March 2026
jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/post...
