Annelies Cazemier

@cazemiera.bsky.social

Ancient historian. Greek and Hellenistic world, religion, Macedonia, Aegean sea, islands, and coasts, cultural interaction. Lecturer at the University of Southampton. Co-director of the Antigonid Network. Based in Newbury, UK.

🚨 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY 🚨 If you are an Exeter alumnus, and wish to express your horror at the proposed cuts to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please sign the Google Doc petition below. Not an alumnus? You can still help by signing the Exeter UCU petition at c.org/msXfsb2g5b 🗃️

Alumni petition against the cuts to the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Any Exeter alumni who wish for their names to be added to the petition below should please complete the form at this link: https://forms.gle/SpdYvmmsCaJbmZft6. If you are not an alumnus, but still wis...

docs.google.com

Ok, look, what's been particularly infuriating about the redundancies at Exeter (and Nottingham and Newcastle and and and) is this weird idea that it only affects those individuals and institutions. It harms us all because we are so closely interconnected.

Timeless humour! A 2,000 year-old Roman souvenir pen with a joke inscription roughly equivalent to: “I went to Rome and all I got you was this cheap pen!" 😂 Dated circa 70 AD, this iron stylus pen was recovered in London during excavations by MOLA. 📷 Juan Jose Fuldain/MOLA #Archaeology

The photo shows four images of the same Roman iron stylus (pen) one below the other, with knib to the left. This stylus is octagonal in shape, with an inscription dot-punched along its length on four alternate sides. The stylus is 132 mm long and 5 mm thick, and the letters are circa 2 mm high. The four images of the pen show the four lines of inscribed text (highlighted) which read:

‘ab urbe v[e]n[i] munus tibi gratum adf(e)ro
acul[eat]um ut habe[a]s memor[ia]m nostra(m)
rogo si fortuna dar[e]t quo possem
largius ut longa via ceu sacculus est (v)acuus’

Translated as

‘I have come from the City. I bring you a welcome gift
with a sharp point that you may remember me.
I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able (to give)
as generously as the way is long (and) as my purse is empty.’

This inscription is generally interpreted by scholars as a humorous, tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment by the giver of the cheapness of the gift. 

The pen was used to write on wax-filled wooden writing tablets. Found in London (Roman ‘Londinium’) by MOLA, during excavations for Bloomberg’s European Headquarters in 2010–2014 . Photo by Juan Jose Fuldain for MOLA

Your periodic reminder that you can start learning ancient Greek right now, free of charge!

Dr Christine Plastow@chrissieplastow.bsky.social · last yr.

Because I'm updating them today, I'd like to remind #AncientBluesky that we have *FREELY ACCESSIBLE* Ancient Greek resources at the Open University! 🏺 First, we have a 16 hour free OpenLearn course, which takes you from learning the alphabet to reading simple sentences: www.open.edu/openlearn/hi...