Robert Frost
@rfrost1.bsky.social
Historical Geographer and historian of ideas, esp on history of Egyptology. Researching how Egyptologists use maps. Leverhulme Fellow at University of Leicester. Moving from Twitter > Bluesky.
Amongst much appalling news about Trump's war, I think this wins the award for the last thing anyone would think of doing (after public money has been spent flying them out) www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Wealthy British nationals fleeing Gulf conflict bypass UK to avoid tax bills
High-net-worth residents of UAE heading to Ireland and France to wait out missile attacks before tax year ends
theguardian.com
Having recently exchanged thoughts about criticism over human remains in UK collections, I hope this is not where we are heading (though there are some quite concerning parts about S Asian 1980s human remains trading, used to create part of this). Governance (or lack of it) is an issue here.
Adrienne Mayor@amayor.bsky.social · 5mo agoRidiculous "repatriation" of a popular educational artwork at University of Tennessee Serious misuse of NAGPRA The Centaur of Volos by William Willers socialstigma.substack.com/p/the-centau...
New (short) article in @uk.theconversation.com: here, I explore why many British people (esp academics it seems) in Egypt and the Middle East wore indigenous dress in the C19th/ C20th. Cultural appropriation doesn't capture everything. theconversation.com/cultural-app...
Cultural appropriation? How westerners have worn Indigenous clothing for a variety of reasons throughout history
The famous images of T.E. Lawrence in Arab robes in the second decade of the 20th century reveal a radical act of solidarity with another culture.
theconversation.com
Our next season for The Oxford Seminars in Cartography ... #TOSCA @bodleian.ox.ac.uk @oxfordgeography.bsky.social Register at: visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/tosca More info at: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/maps/tosca @bcsmaps.bsky.social @ordnancesurvey.bsky.social 1st speaker is @drpragyaagarwal.bsky.social
Robert Morkot is sadly no longer with us. Three months ago he was as energetic as ever, sharing research on forgotten byways on the history of Egyptology, keen to talk about anything I wanted to do so. His Black Pharaohs, was a key postcolonial work before we came up with the term. Rest in peace.
The absurdity of their argument is basically: "It's too hard to figure out how to pay everyone we stole from." arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified
Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say.
arstechnica.com
Congratulations to @issegyptomania.bsky.social for hosting a great conference this weekend. Conferences always bring new insights: pyramids in Ukraine; faux Pharaonic fantasies at the British seaside; and the popularity of ancient in modern Egypt. Look forward to more to come in the future.🎉
Staff at the Louvre go on strike due to too many visitors. The Louvre is a first-class museum in many ways, but having only one entrance and exit doesn't help visitor flow. And the Mona Lisa doesn't just need its own room, it should be in a separate building. news.artnet.com/art-world/lo...
Louvre's Surprise Closure Sparks Tourist Outrage | Artnet News
Thousands of angry tourists waited for hours outside the Louvre on Monday morning after the Paris museum's staff staged a surprise strike.
news.artnet.com
This International Archives Week (9-13 June), BILNAS is celebrating the #ArchivesAreAccessible campaign by spotlighting the Libyan Archive Project, focused on enhancing the Archive’s descriptive metadata to better reflect Libyan cultural contexts and lived experiences. 1/3
Some quite extraordinary scenes in the House of Commons: former hardliners denounce Israel's actions. The ground is shifting. A chance for the government to take leadership www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Senior Tory MPs and peers break ranks to call for recognition of Palestine
Exclusive: Conservatives ask Keir Starmer to stand ‘against indefinite occupation’ and ‘reinforce international law’
theguardian.com
Some interesting stats on reading. Not much of a gap (as is sometimes reported) between men and women for amount of reading, but a more significant one for fiction vs non-fiction. 45% don't have an organizing system, see the page for size of personal libraries. yougov.co.uk/entertainmen...
40% of Britons haven’t read a single book in the last 12 months | YouGov
The median Briton has read just three books in the past year
yougov.co.uk
Sad to see damage to Sudan's National Museum in Khartoum as a result of the civil war: traces of the ancient kingdom of Kush, indigenous to Sudan, have been destroyed alongside Egyptian artefacts. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures
Only a few statues remain, with thousands of priceless artefacts from Nubian and Kushite kingdoms missing
theguardian.com
Exciting plans for displaying the newly-discovered parts of the Roman Basilica in London. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/mor...
More details for London’s new Roman Basilica museum revealed
More details have been shown for a new museum of Roman London's history following the recent discovery of Roman ruins in the City of London.
ianvisits.co.uk
Can't wait to visit this new exhibition, especially as our colleague Sophus zu Ermgassen is featured there in a short film about biodiversity, humanity's role in biodiversity loss, and the policies of the future which are needed to turn the tide on nature loss.
Natural History Museum, London@nhm-london.bsky.social · last yr.In just one hour, we’re opening the doors to our first new permanent gallery in almost a decade. Want to peek behind the curtain and take a quick tour to see what Fixing Our Broken Planet has to offer? 👀 We thought you might…
The rationale behind the tariffs is nonsensical and not remotely reciprocal. Running a year-on-year trade deficit signifies a strong currency and hence a privileged position. No other country can buy the world's labour at cut prices on such a huge scale. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Trump's tariffs on China, EU and more, at a glance
A 10% rate of import tax will apply globally - with higher rates for a list of Trump's
bbc.co.uk
This is a big problem, and not just for books. What to do when the companies that own the big academic journals which we want to publish in have AI harvesting written into the Ts & Cs?
Dr Francis Young@drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · last yr.Publishers already cajole authors into opting in to AI subsidiary aggregation and threaten to stop marketing their books/offering them future contracts if they don’t agree. An opt-out system is meaningless if publishers hold all the power and are in cahoots with AI companies
Fellowships! The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, has published a new Fellowship call for research proposals, for maritime historical research relating to objects in the museum's collection. Deadline: 20-5-2025. Call texts: www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.com/collection/r...
The Weston Library’s Blackwell Hall is the festival hub for this year’s Oxford Literary Festival. We're running extended opening hours at the Weston from Sunday 29 March to Sunday 6 April. Blackwell Hall & the café will be open: Monday – Saturday: 9am – 6pm Sunday: 9am – 4pm. Image: Joby Sessions.
Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Post. This cutaway illustration began as a personal project in 2011, and I updated it in 2015. Although it deals with a rather bleak subject, I'm amazed at how much attention this image has grabbed. It's been shared millions of times, and usually out of context!
Amazingly it's a decade since Richard III was interred in Leicester Cathedral. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Richard III's final path to rest in Leicester 10 years on
The reinterment of the last of the Plantagenets marked a unique moment in British history.
bbc.co.uk
Failing to enforce copyright legislation in favour of a wild west style free-for-all also sets the absurd precedent that AI has more rights than people in this regard (who cannot appropriate knowledge like this). www.publishers.org.uk/publishers-a...
Publishers Association statement on The Atlantic article on LibGen and Meta
Recently, an article was published in The Atlantic on the use of pirated books in the training of AI. It references documents in which Meta admits that the notorious pirate network LibGen has been use...
publishers.org.uk
For the final part of our lecture series with the Historic Towns Trust, join us on 29 April to hear Tom Pickles give a talk entitled 'A City of Flows?: Chester, 400-1500.' Find out more: ow.ly/YuV950TOiSb #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll
Come to our free lecture this Thursday and learn all about satirical portrayals of antiquarians being confounded by inscriptions! www.sal.org.uk/event...
More news on the Thutmose II find at Thebes! Is there another tomb? You wait 102 years for another New Kingdom royal tomb, then get two at once... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Pharaoh: Archaeologists may have found second Thutmose II tomb
The potential find comes just days after the announcement of the discovery of King Thutmose II's tomb.
bbc.co.uk
Now it's official: the archaeology building is now the Kathleen Kenyon building. A great choice, as Kenyon was one of the great archaeologists of the C20th, with important work at sites including Great Zimbabwe; St Albans, Jericho, Jerusalem and, of course, Leicester. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
University of Leicester to honour pioneering female archaeologist
The university is renaming an academic building after Dame Kathleen Kenyon.
bbc.co.uk
First post on the new account, which I intend to replace RFrost_1 on Twitter.
