And we are off! @samleggs22.bsky.social & I had our first project meeting with @ilikeoldbooks.bsky.social the CRC curatorial and conservation teams for the project: Painted Skin: Biocodicological Approaches to Scottish Manuscripts! V. exciting to discuss expertise and pull resources.

Dr Bryony Coombs@bryonycoombs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Meeting this morning w. @samleggs22.bsky.social to establish practicalities for 'Painted Skin.' A close look at some Scottish MSS at EUL CRC, their splatters, smudges, stains, veins, repairs & follicle patterns. Formulated an immediate plan & brainstormed future possibilities What will we find?🐂🐏🐐🔎🔬

Meanwhile in Scotland interesting schism news! Most exciting use of my medievalist religious knowledge to explain this to my partner since the USA invoked the Avignon papacy to threaten Pope Leo - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Rebel order of Orkney monks to consecrate new bishop without Pope's permission

The Bishop of Aberdeen said the ceremony was "spiritual suicide" for all those taking part.

bbc.co.uk

UK scientists – share your views 💭 Does your work involve using science or technology to understand, preserve, manage, or engage with cultural heritage? Then you're part of the #HeritageScience community! Take part in the first UK heritage science survey today: buff.ly/Xxd4n0G

An imaginative reconstruction of one of the halls excavated at Sutton Courtenay in the Thames valley, on display in the brilliant @oxonmuseumservice.bsky.social Woodstock Museum. It's early medieval collections are small but very mighty!

Congratulations to all our brilliant students who graduated today! 🎉 🎓👏 #EdinArch #EdinburghUni #Edinburgh #graduation @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

If anyone is around @sydney.edu.au this afternoon and wants to hear me talk about our new research using 🧬 & #isotopes to investigate the long Viking Age details 👇 all welcome!

Postdoctoral job announcement: come to Cambridge and work on population genetic modelling with environmental and ancient DNA, jointly with @gamzeandgursoy.bsky.social and me. Details at www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/55580/ - applications by June 16th.

Collecting critical accounts of Scottish illumination & I have a new winner 'The decoration is brutal..full of barbaric audacity' 'the whole attains a frightening grandeur by its absence of restraint.' 'more goodwill than decorative taste led him to this weird imitation.' Oh this is gold for the 📖!

Unbelievable job title alert

Museums + Heritage@museumsandheritage.com · 2mo ago

JOB POST ALERT Role: Head of Stonehenge at English Heritage Location: Stonehenge Salary: Salary from £64,189 p.a. Find out more: https://museumsandheritage.com/advisor/all-jobs/english-heritage-head-of-stonehenge/

1/ "Economic Change, Silver, and the Plague of 664-687 in England" by @rorynaismith.bsky.social (@corpuscambridge.bsky.social, @department-asnc.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1093/past...

Economic Change, Silver, and the Plague of 664–687 in England*

Abstract. Bede and other authors describe a destructive wave of plague sweeping across Britain and Ireland in the period 664–87. In the decades around and

doi.org

We have a few spaces left for our upcoming Oral History Training in Stornoway. Join us to learn how to confidently plan and deliver an oral history project. Book your space: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1989377217...

Oral History Training

Join us for an oral history training opportunity.

eventbrite.co.uk

So, I thought that what the world needs today is a list of mobile medieval queens in Europe, 950-1150. I count 84. #Skystorians, tell me: who have I missed out? blogs.ed.ac.uk/cwest3/2026/...

Looking for a postdoc to join my group at the NHM London & work on aDNA of dogs/wolves! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Postdoctoral Researcher ancient DNA:South Kensington

jobs.nhm.ac.uk

Anyone @haam-community.bsky.social #HAAM26SS come & say hi at my virtual poster 35 all about our new #AGAinST Coeliac Disease project! Happy to chat about potential collabs 🧪🍞☠️

Meeting this morning w. @samleggs22.bsky.social to establish practicalities for 'Painted Skin.' A close look at some Scottish MSS at EUL CRC, their splatters, smudges, stains, veins, repairs & follicle patterns. Formulated an immediate plan & brainstormed future possibilities What will we find?🐂🐏🐐🔎🔬

Dr Bryony Coombs@bryonycoombs.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Completely delighted to find out I have been awarded a 2026 David Berry Fellowship with the @royalhistsoc.org for a project I will be undertaking with Dr Sam Legett. 'Painted Skin: Biocodicological Approaches to Scottish Manuscripts.' So excited to get started! 🐑🐐🐂📖

A lot of reviewers use the peer-review process as a way to flex their ego or express frustration. This leads to a long list of personal gripes presented as mandatory changes. If you have a 'suggestion' then make it optional. Otherwise, stick to pointing out the key flaws that need correcting.

Completely delighted to find out I have been awarded a 2026 David Berry Fellowship with the @royalhistsoc.org for a project I will be undertaking with Dr Sam Legett. 'Painted Skin: Biocodicological Approaches to Scottish Manuscripts.' So excited to get started! 🐑🐐🐂📖

We're working with @ihr.bsky.social and publisher DC Thomson to run a new 'Applied History Fellowships' scheme. We are pleased to announce the appointment of two Fellows this month bit.ly/3RjmSOw Fellowships provide recent PhDs with experience of working, with #history, outside HE #Skystorians 1/2

Applied History Fellows appointed in new partnership between the Society, Institute of Historical Research and publisher DC Thomson - RHS

The Royal Historical Society and partners, the Institute of Historical Research and DC Thomson, are very pleased to announce Dr Sadie Levy Gale and Dr Matthew Stephens as the recipients of a new progr...

bit.ly

Remembering Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp, born #OnThisDay in 1929. The first female professor at @durham.ac.uk, she is best known for her ground-breaking work on Anglo-Saxon England. Read some of her research from 1987 in Antiquity (£) doi.org/10.1017/S000... @trowelblazers.bsky.social

Want a more colourful #HeritageScience role this spring? The British Museum is hiring a Scientist: Polychromy and Technical Imaging to join their Scientific Research Team. 🎨 Full-time, permanent 🎨 Hybrid (Bloomsbury, London) 🎨 £36,396 p.a. ⏰️ Deadline: 20th May 2026 (12pm)

Vacancy for Scientist: polychromy and technical imaging

The British Museum is seeking a talented and motivated Scientist specialising in polychromy and technical imaging to join our Scientific Research team.

buff.ly

🚨Professor Emeritus Mark Pollard's key text 'Analytical #Chemistry in #Archaeology' now thoroughly revised in its second edition is now out! 🧪🧑‍🔬📕Twice as nice! @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org

✉️ Explore 145,000 medieval merchant letters as a live map: the correspondence network of Francesco di Marco Datini (c.1363–1412), spanning Florence to Barcelona to North Africa. Visualise routes, travel times & seasonality. docuracy.github.io/datini/ #DigitalHumanities #MedievalHistory

🏺Genetic ancestry in a relatively unusual trans-Conquest (9th-11th century CE) rural cemetery from Surrey looking at the demographic impact or the Normans - spoiler potentially not much although the population don’t look entirely unchanged either. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interested in people who lived through the Norman Conquest? We have a new pre-print out about the aDNA of a rural community in Surrey who did just that! With more bioarch to come on this amazing site: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @liabetti.bsky.social @cegamorim.bsky.social & others not on 🦋

Worth stressing that studies like this would not be possible without archaeological units, archaeological trusts, heritage centres and museums who excavate and look after collections, many of which continue to be underfunded and/or neglected. New technologies will continue to bring new insights.

This is the result of 5+ years of sampling, sequencing, data analysis and archaeological interpretation, only possible thanks to the work of a big team, both within and beyond the Skoglund Lab. Thank you to all co-authors!

Using Twigstats and IBD we uncover heterogeneity in ancestries and changes in relatedness and mobility patterns during the 1st millennium CE. We also detect selection on variants linked with key immunity genes TLR10-TLR1 and IRF8 in Britain before the medieval period.

Our preprint is now out, looking at genomic history and selection in Britain, with a focus on the Roman and early medieval periods. Comments welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @boothicus.bsky.social @leospeidel.bsky.social @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social

Hugely excited and proud to say the Rhynie monograph is now published! This is one of the most important sites and landscapes ever discovered for understanding the Picts and the development of the early Pictish kingdoms #careergoalunlocked! #Pictsarethebest! books.socantscot.org/digital-book...