My photo shows a famous wall painting from Pompeii known as the Sappho fresco. It shows the head and upper body of a young woman framed inside a painted circular border. She faces forward. Her eyes are large and dark, gazing to one side with a calm and thoughtful expression, as if pausing mid-thought. Her skin is pale, and her hair is dark brown and tightly curled, forming small ringlets around her face. A thin golden hairnet holds her curls in place. She wears small gold hoop earrings, and a brown cloak over a green garment. In her right hand she holds a thin dark metal stylus (writing tool) up against her lips, as if thinking about what to write. In her left hand she holds a small rectangular wooden wax writing tablet. The fresco is now on display at the Muso Archeologico Nazionale in Naples

The ‘Sappho’ fresco from Pompeii.

A beautiful Roman portrait of a young woman for #InternationalWomensDay

She holds a writing tablet, and raises a writing stylus to her lips in thoughtful contemplation. 55-70 AD.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples 📷 by me

#Archaeology

Different silhouettes of different archaeological female figurines and statues from different areas of the world and time periods, showing that women have always shaped history. #archaeology #prehistory #ancient #antiquity

Happy International Women's Day!

2/2
We both agree the exhibition is worth visiting if you’re in Amsterdam before March 1st.

Listen to the newest episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Substack! Links are in the bio

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#objectbiographies #ancientglass

We have been a bit sloppy when it comes to sharing our #archaeologyjournaling results🙈

So, here is the result of the Roman cradle, mastered by Jona!

If you don't know what we're talking about, listen to episode 5 and share your drawing 📝 with us!

#twta #archaeology #objectbiographies

📷️ by Jona

🧪🏺 Update - authors have new paper showing how useless gen- #AI is for archaeological illustration.
All 400 images were multiply inaccurate (physically, socially, technologically, environmentally), even with improved prompts.

JUST USE HUMAN EXPERTS & ARTISTS

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

We’re building PastForwardHub, a new global platform designed to help archaeologists connect, find opportunities, and build sustainable careers. Together.

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A book cover design with the title “The Desire to Be an Archaeologist (and Other Diseases of the Brain)” by Antique Christie. The cover has a vintage style with a red and beige color scheme, the publisher name “Great Auk Books” at the top, and a small illustration of an auk bird near the bottom.

Happy International Archaeology Day!

#InternationalArchaeologyDay
🏺 #Archaeology

A torn poster with black and white figures of a rock band pasted on a wall covered in overlapping graffiti tags. The poster reads “Rock n’ Roll always about spirit and fun,” with faded text and marks from later tags and paint layers.

A city wall layered with street art, stickers, and posters. Blue-painted faces appear above, with bold text reading “STOP WAR” and various smaller artworks below. Older posters peek through torn edges and paint drips.

prompt 10 of #archInk2025: palimpsest

walls can keep stories in the form of graffiti by unknown graffitists.

layers of paint, posters, and tags overlap, shaping the memory of a place and adding to the stratigraphy of a city.

a living and active palimpsest

Neolithic people practiced astronomy to align megalithic stone structures with celestial events, using them as complex calendars and ceremonial sites.
tp948 Celtic Alignment acrylic and oil on paper 17x11 inches £200 unframed. #art #painting #archaeology

Cartooony drawing in pencil crayon of Stonehenge with a light greenish glow and an alien and a UFO

#ArchInk Day 13 Pseudoscience

I found this a strange prompt so I just decided to draw this incredibly archaeologically accurate building of Stonehenge

#ArchInk2025 #Archaeology #Stonehenge

Photo of an Ancient Egyptian artists’s small, naturalistic painting of a standing hippopotamus on a flake of white limestone, dated c. 1479–1425. The hippo is painted in profile with head lowered and to the right. The body is outlined with black paint and painted brown. The belly, eyes, and ears are painted red. Although the ancient Egyptians were well aware of the danger and destructive power of hippos, this painted hippo has rather a friendly face! Dimensions: H. 10.8 cm (4 1/4 in); W. 12 cm (4 3/4 in); Th. 1.7 cm (11/16 in) Egyptian artists made practice sketches on flakes of limestone, sometimes for use as templates when transferring an image to the wall of a tomb or a temple. Limestone flakes were readily available because of the constant construction of temples and rock-cut tombs. A number of such sketches were recovered at Deir el-Bahri during the 1922-23 MMA excavations. This painting was acquired by the museum in the division of finds.

Artist’s painting of a hippo on a flake of limestone 🦛❤️

Perhaps a practice sketch, or just for the joy of painting 3,500 years ago!

From Deir el-Bahri, Thebes, Egypt, c. 1479–1425 BC. 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#Archaeology

The digital museum home screen; an illustration of a coastal area with a village during four seasons.

The Nunalleq Digital Museum is a museum of Yup’ik archaeology in Alaska. Placing sovereignty in the hands of the descendent communities, it makes the #archaeology accessible whilst ensuring it is relevant to the community today #IndigenousPeoplesDay

Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺

Ink and graphite sketch of a dagger and arrowhead. Text reads: #ArchInk The early Bronze Age was a time of remarkable transformation in material and social lives. People and materials came together in new ways. I’m interested in how early observers interpreted these changes. The early-19th century excavators of these artefacts, Colt Hoare and Cunnington, were not afraid to draw parallels with continental Europe. “Some may think it derogates from the dignity of our country to allow a Gaulish (i.e. foreign) original; but, be the consequences what they will, whenever we are in search of truth, although we discover her in ruins and rubbish, we must acknowledge and revere her.” Richard Colt Hoare, 1812 *Colt Hoare and Cunnington were, by the standards of the day, pretty good at recording. But in a sheepish footnote in their discussion of barrows in the severely area of Wiltshire, Colt Hoare admits that he’s not sure which of the barrows this dagger came from! #5 flint One of four arrowheads within a burial in a bowl barrow: Which Show affinity with those from Armorica, NW France. FLINT ARROWHEAD, WIMBORNE ST GILES. 4: Bronze BRONZE DAGGER, SILK HILL MILSTON* 9: ivory The pommel is ivory from a marine mannal, possibly a walrus. It is very worn, suggesting it might have adorned other artefacts before this dagger The wooden handle was re-constructed based onCunnington's dig notes. * Or is it ? Colt Hoare and Cunnington - and their illustrator /surveyor Philip Crocker- were pretty good at recording their f, by the standards of the day. But in a sheepish footnote in their discussions of barrow-digging in the Everley area of Wiltshire, Colt Hoare admits the dagger was "in one of these, but I cannot specify which!'

#ArchInk 4: bronze; 5: flint; 9: ivory
#archaeology #illustration 🏺🏛️🗃️
Combining three prompts to look at early-19th century views of early Bronze Age artefacts.

A hand holding a drawing of schematic strategraphic layers. The order of the layers is two tweets down.

I have strong feelings about stratigraphy. I have stronger feelings about the schematic examples that we use to teach stratigraphy. Artefacts shouldn't float in the middle of the layer, for example. No colour-coding, obscure symbols to indicate difference, etc.

#archink #archink2025 #inktober

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A sketch of mythical beasts on the form of tattoos

#inktober2025 6)pierce. Ok confession: I’m a massive coward. Hate needles. So am full of wonder for my friends that have been pierced for tattoos. Going back to prehistory & the most astonishing Scythian Iron Age tattoos: mythical beasts preserved by permafrost in human skin at Pazyryk. #archaeology

WIP on a small diorama using some existing assets and some new ones recently created. I I wanted to test them out in a low light setting, and utilised a new sky rig node setup #blender #illustration #vikings #archaeology

Digital illustration of an ivory cross-section in warm beige tones. A fine network of dark intersecting lines radiates from the centre, forming geometric Schreger patterns characteristic of ivory

Day 9 of #archInk: Ivory
A bit of meditation practices: drawing one curved line after the other.

Cross-section of a tusk, which forms a dense network of intersecting lines known as Schreger lines. They tell growth, material, and history at once.

#archaeology

#ArchInk Ink and graphite sketch of a grave. Accompanying text labels read: The Cockleshell Pilgrim In 1986-7, Excavations within Worcester Cathedral uncovered the body of a man wearing woollen clothing and leather boots, and artefacts suggesting an association with pilgrimage. Research by Katherine lack points to his identity: Robert Sutton, c15th Worcester dyer 6: horn Decayed remnants of a horn tip were found at the top of a 1.55m wooden staff buried next to the body. 8:stratigraphy The burial post-dates construction of the choir wall in 1374. The head and neck were missing: cut by a brick wall that truncated the west end of the grave. 3: residue Remnants of soft tissue, skin, spinal cord, ligaments and muscle were found on the spine and pelvis. 2: Shell Next to the Staff, and a bronze lace end, was a 5cm cockle shell, pierced at the top. Shells were a common Symbol of pilgrimage, but usually Scallop Shells associated with St James'Shrine at Santago de Compostela. The cockle is therefore odd - it may have been intended as a general SymboLof pilgrimage 7: textile He was buried wearing an undershirt and a fine cloak made from a type of woollen cloth called 'worsted' They were of good quality, but plain and undyed -Befitting a pilgrim. Sutton's 1454 will contained a wish to be buried “before the image of StJames in the cathedral.” The man was in his sixties, at least - but had been fit and active before arthritis set in. After anillustration by Helen Lubin, 1990

#ArchInk 2: shell; 3: residue; 6: horn; 7: textile; 8: stratigraphy
#inktober #medievalsky #skystorians 🏺🏛️🗃️
Combining a few prompts to tell the story of Worcester Cathedral’s Cockleshell Pilgrim.

Digital illustration of a trowel cutting through layered soil. Each layer shows archaeological deposits with stones, pottery fragments, and features. The soil profile curls in a scroll-like shape, as if written by the trowel.

day 8 of #archInk: stratigraphy

I reworked an older drawing from when the prompt was “written”. And here the trowel still “writes” the site’s stratigraphy in a way: layer by layer, deposit by deposit and interface by interface.

#archaeology

A middle aged white Woman with an red updo and big glasses holding a large book, title says diversity in visual representations of the past. Representation matters.

Me (to The Internet, everybody listening, or just looking my way for more than 5 sec): „Look what we did!“
I received the prints of our #RepresentationMatters publication yesterday evening. It’s not only a collection of papers on the way we reproduce and communicate our knowledge towards audience.

Ink and graphite sketch showing a woman in medieval dress, holding writing implements in each hand and an expression of intense focus, sat in front of a writing desk with an open manuscript. Text reads: # archink I: pigment Medieval writers and artists used a huge range of compounds & colours - you can find out more abort their techniques at fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated. The staple of the medieval manuscript was the deep purple-black of iron gall ink, made by mixing iron sulfate with tannic acid, usually sourced from fermented oak galls. MARIE DE FRANCE, LATE CI2th WRITER After a late c13th illustration of her from BnF Arsenal Library, MS 3142 fol 256

#ArchInk 1: pigment
#inktober #medievalsky #skystorians 🏺🏛️🗃️

Not sure how much I’ll be able to contribute this year, but I’ll try to chip in when I can.

orange and black. The vase shows two women holding spindles beside a central triangular weaving pattern. Decorative motifs run around the upper section, and loom weights are depicted on the lower part

day 7: textiles

They rarely survive, but their traces do: loom weights, needles, fragments stuck to metal.

This piece looks at those fragments and the ancient depictions of weaving/fabric creation on vessels that still show these practices.

#archInk #archaeology

Pen and ink sketch of a woman squatting in front of a cave wall as she finishes painting a prehistoric horse.

Doodle Day 1: archaeological evidence suggests that women were the majority of the world's first artists. #Art #Doodle web.archive.org/web/20131008...

Oh yes! And so functionally designed as well!

An ink drawing on a piece of paper of a horn core with a scale.

A horn core is:

A) a ska band
B) the bony part under the keratin sheath on bovids
C) a source of terrible puns and innuendos on an archaeological site

“Horn” #archink #inktober #archink2025

day 6 of #archInk2025: horn

I did a kind of archaeology journaling page, where I focused on exploring the texture of the horn, noting down functions and anatomy.

#archInk

This is beautiful!
Just shows also how complex a reconstruction drawing can become.

Drawing of a skeuomorphic spear head made of flint. It says, “bronze bronze bronze bronze…what’s wrong with stone?” And hashtags in the tweet.

“Bronze is brilliant!” #archink #inktober - bronze & flint
youtu.be/nyu4u3VZYaQ

Digital collage showing hands reaching upward among flintknapping tools such as antler tines, hammers, and scrapers. Flint flakes are scattered across circular green and ochre shapes. The word “FLINT” appears in cut-out letters near the bottom right

For day three of #archInk prompt: flint
I created a digital collage of tools used during flint knapping and the by products spreading around the production zone: flakes and blades.

#archaeology #archInk2025