I am begging the Brits to embrace Estate Sale Culture™️ stat!!! I long for my favourite weekend pastime of buying an iced coffee and perusing several estate sales before lunchtime.

Bylines Network@bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 18h ago

There comes a point when visiting your parents and seeing a house full of decades of possessions prompts a slightly alarming thought: Who is eventually going to have to sort all this out? If you already know the answer is “me”, this may strike a chord. @eastangliabylines.co.uk

A (belated) cfp for #IMC2027 FORGET THE VIKINGS: Other raids, raiders, & raiding practises of the Early Medieval Period Read below for details, and if you're interested (or know anyone who might be), please submit your proposal of 150 words to the attached e-mail (also in alt text) before 1/9/26

Fun fact: I once had a very vivid dream that I was walking along the beach at twilight, and Death emerged from the ocean riding one of these skeletons, leading an entire army of prehistoric animal skeletons. I keep meaning to illustrate it. It was an incredible scene.

Dr Alex Fitzpatrick@animalarchaeology.com · 2d ago

🧪 Spending my lunch break thinking about Megaloceros giganteus, like the one currently on display at the National Museum of Scotland 📜 www.nms.ac.uk/collections/...

this owns www.inverse.com/input/cultur...

The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos

Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.

inverse.com

What it feels like walking through a museum as a historical costumer.

Mika Paananen@painmike1.bsky.social · 4d ago

Adelaide Claxton, “The Party on the Stairs”(1875). #SpookySunday

man it's annoying that people want to off load thinking to the theft machine bc actually reading and then thinking about what you read is so goddamn fun

I am hellbent on finagling myself back into the collections at @yorkmuseumstrust.bsky.social to see this little guy because I am convinced he used to be a finial for a handheld distaff, a la the many, many bronze/copper-alloy distaffs long mislabeled in archives as "stirring" or "votive" rods.

Dr Alex Fitzpatrick@animalarchaeology.com · 5d ago

Feels like I should end this short little thread with some ‘little guys’ - here’s a little Roman rooster figurine. www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/index.php?pa...

As a hand spinner who does historical reenactment, this has simultaneously come as no surprise while also making my eye twitch.

Alyssa Long@measuredandslow.bsky.social · 5d ago

Today I have witnessed a comment section full of people who do not believe yarn is made from wool because wool is “shorter than yarn” anyway let me get back to staring at the wall in existential dread lmao

The treasures you find whilst walking to the Roman dig. #petuariarevisted

trēagian, wk.v: to repair, sew together. (TRAY-ah-gi-ahn / ˈtreːa-gɪ-an) Image: Petrus Comestor’s Historia scholastica; Switzerland (Basel?), 14th century; Aarau (Switzerland), Aargauer Kantonsbibliothek, MsWettF 9, f. 31r. #OldEnglish #WOTD

As some of my colleagues and I like to joke, archaeology is just constantly dealing with dicks.

Richard de Nooy@richarddenooy.bsky.social · 2w ago

“Oxford academic Prof George Garnett counted 93 penises in 2018 – with 88 belonging to horses and another five to men. But Dr Christopher Monk said he had counted one more on another man.” bbc.com/news/article...

Favourite parts of a dig? Roman walls and ladybirds. 🥰 #petuaria #Roman #romanobriton

I was one of these women and it was magical. We four nearly burst the bus in excitement with our wool talk. 🥰

Alice Bennett@aliceponderland.bsky.social · 2w ago

So getting the bus was very annoying but then in a peak York moment, people were talking about spinning yarn in historical reenactment and it turns out at least 4 of us on that bus could hand spin.

Microsoft is planning to build three massive AI data centres in Leeds. It’ll drain thousands of litres of water from the River Aire and become the city's biggest carbon emitter. We can still stop the council's sign-off, but we need more voices. Add your name: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/pr...

Stop the Microsoft AI megasite in Leeds!

Microsoft wants to build three huge AI data centres at Skelton Grange. It would drain the River Aire and become the city's biggest carbon emitter. We can still stop it - add your name to the petition.

you.38degrees.org.uk

ObSESSED with this sewn page repair

17th-century Dutch engraving showing a team of pigs spinning cotton, while in the corner a woman — who'd normally be associated with the work — sleeps: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-spinning-sow-1673?utm_content=buffer98086&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

"don't cite what you haven't read" remains the basic entry level academic responsibility; & if your discpline "doesn't have that as a norm" then sorry, your discipline needs reforming for this new world. Citations are structural parts of trust and knowledge building, not trinkets or optional extras

Miles Klee 🦉@milesklee.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.

No matter how good the dataset, this remains: “If no actual human wrote it, no human edited it, no human signed off on it, then what right does it have to tell me, a human, anything about my and our collective human history, art or culture?” @nataliyakosmyna.bsky.social in Naomi Rea's piece. Gift.

AI companies are throwing museums a lifeline. What do they want in return?

Touted as a way to engage visitors and boost funding, new tools are triggering concerns around trust and ethics

giftarticle.ft.com

Catherine Fletcher@catherinefletcher.info · 4w ago

not so much throwing museums a lifeline as massively exaggerating the biases in the sources, if the cited case at Leighton House is anything to go by

She's just like me

For #FindsFriday I'm sharing a bit of my current research: late #Roman rigid heddles! I had the immense honour of being invited to view 1 of 9 known Roman heddles at the @londonmuseum.bsky.social/MOLA archives. This wee guy dates from about 63CE and was found at a villa site along the Thames. 1/4

Oh, hell yeah! Big week for textile archaeology! A new large-scale Viking production site from about 600–950 CE has been uncovered. Flax processing, weaving, workshops. Reminds me so much of York's very own Coppergate textile production site. #archaeology #textiles #vikings

Archaeologists find huge Viking textile production site in Denmark

Rolling coverage of the international stories of interest to our readers

irishexaminer.com

I finished a passion project that started last year and debuted it at Pride yesterday. I wanted to combine my love of floriography with my skills as a felt artist, so I created a floriography Pride flag where each stem was chosen for its meaning or significance to the queer community.

🦇 Bats might be struggling with the heat and wander out of their roosts to cool down. If you see a bat on the ground or an exposed area during the day please call our Out of Hours Helpline - 0345 1300 228. Open on weekdays from 6-10pm and weekends/bank holidays from 10am-10pm.

My love language is sending peer-reviewed research papers.

(•_•) <) )╯Publique fundinge / \ \(•_•) ( (> for the artes and humanityes / \ (•_•) <) )> doth benefit everyone! / \

Me every time I have to deal with the British Museum:

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

England getting away with some things here is all im gonna say

Forever obsessed with deep-diving into online collections because you find gems like this. Cue Inigo Montoya, “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” #archaeology #archives

Yesss! This entire thread is fantastic. However this point stands out to me, as I find it incredibly disconcerting that we are determined to Frankenstein the dead—an issue that consistently seems to fall by the wayside when capital is involved.

Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The defense is: "we use a vetted set of authorized texts for the purposes of training AI to generate responses to questions." Aside from the uncanny valley horror of necromancy that such automated history-telling incites, there's also the issue of sources being processed like this w/o context. 7/n

Some people are responding that "you can't defeat fascism with sportsball" but A People's History of Soccer outlines multiple examples of the sport indirectly effecting change because supporters built a sense of collective solidarity and identity in the face of adversity

Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Fascism's a fever you break with shit like what happened in New York last night. Create more excuses to feel things like that together.

Let’s help the petition reach 20,000 signatures!!

Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The planned closure of the Archaeology institute at Humboldt-Universität Berlin is still on the table. So if you haven't signed the petition yet, please do (and share). Archaeology has been a part of Humboldt-Universität's academic tradition for almost 200 years weact.campact.de/petitions/sc...