Poster showing a volcano erupting with digital modelling for part of the slopes. Text reads: APRIL 7-10 UNLOCKING ANCIENT TEXTS WITH AI THE BURIED LIBRARY HERCULANEUM PAPYRI AND AI CONFERENCE QR code on image contains link to programme and here https://www.uvu.edu/philhum/herculaneum/ engage.uvu. edu/scrolls

Heading to Salt Lake City to speak at ‘The Buried Library: Herculaneum Papyri and AI’ conference. Programme in the QR code below. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Seminar poster. FICLIT - CONVEGNI E SEMINARI UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA FLCCB 2025/2026 Cido di conforenzo a sominuri VENERDÌ 27 MARZO ORE 11, AULA TRAINA (VIA ZAMBONI 32) E SU MICROSOFT TEAMS THOMAS COWARD (UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL) The ending of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women

Via Zamboni 32 building sign. ALMA MATER STUDIORUM UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA DIPARTIMENTO DI FILOLOGIA CLASSICA E ITALIANISTICA 32

Front of the incomplete Basilico di San Petronio. Because a pope would not allow a basilica to be bigger than St Peter’s

The Two Towers of Bologna. One leaning more perilously than the other.

A pleasure and an honour to give a paper on the Hesiodic Catalogue at the University of Bologna @unibo.it where i was an Erasmus exchange student many years ago and where I was first trained to handle papyri. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

A lion statue in an upright position with its paw on the crest of the city of Florence. Taken outside the Palazzo Vecchio.

Metal door plate inscribed with ‘Istituto Papirologico "G.Vitelli"’

A table with several papyri of different shapes and sizes in glass plates. Books, pencils, rulers and magnifiers as well.

A table with a binocular microscope with a papyrus in a glass plate underneath. A laptop to the left and other tools to the right.

Visiting the Istituto Papirologico "G.Vitelli" in Florence for the first time. Several Hesiodic papyri to examine and some dubia. Topics include the funeral games of Oedipus, the story of Peleus, and the daughters of Leucon take care of the infant Dionysus. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Basilica descritta da Vitruvio nel 'De Architectura' emerge dagli scavi a Fano La Basilica descritta da Vitruvio nel 'De Architectura' emerge dagli scavi a Fano, unico edificio attribuibile con certezza all’architetto

Durante gli scavi legati alla riqualificazione di piazza Andrea Costa, è stata identificata con la basilica romana descritta da Vitruvio, con pianta rettangolare e colonnato perimetrale.
#archeologia #Fano #Marche
Leggi su ClassiCult: www.classicult.it/basilica-des...

Image of P.Herc. 172 digitally unwrapped (so far). #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

substackcdn.com/image/fetch/...

~70% of PHerc. 172 is now digitally unwrapped Automatic unwrapping is starting to kick in

Further progress with P.Herc. 172 (Phld. On Vices 1 or 4?). A roll held in Oxford. 7 metres of the lower portions of columns of text 'unwrapped'. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky
scrollprize.substack.com/p/70-of-pher...

Conference Programme Other Pindars: a Conference on the Fragments The Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge Thursday December 11 Chair: Giambattista D’Alessio 9:00 – 10:00 Theodora Hadjimichael: ‘Thrēnoi and mourning: an anatomy of a genre’ 10:00 – 11:00 Peter Wilson: ‘Spending time in the agora with Pindar and Korinna: Pindar fr. 94d SM = Korinna 688 PMG’ 11:00 – 12:00 Peter Agócs: ‘Pindar’s Aeginetan fragments’ 12:00 – 1:00 Ian Rutherford: ‘Pindar and the source of the Nile (fr. 282 SM)’ Chair: Lucia Prauscello 2:45 – 3:45 Barbara Kowalzig: ‘Pindar and wine’ 3:45 – 4:45 Federico Della Rossa: ‘Poetry and mediation: the case of Paean 2’ 4:45 – 5:45 Timothy Power: ‘Pindaric songlines: sound, space, and time in Paean 5 and other fragments.’ 5:45 – 6:45 Enrico Prodi: ‘Pindar and the cult of heroes: the Prosodia’ Friday December 12 Chair: Richard Hunter 9:30 – 10:30 Leslie Kurke: ‘Pindar fr. 123 SM: Melting like wax and the beloved as agalma’ 10:30 – 11:30 Giambattista D’Alessio: ‘On the Second Athenian Dithyramb’ 11:45 – 1:00 Round Table Discussion of pre-circulated Papers from Naples workshop (D’Alessio, Presutti, Prodi, Recchia, Spelman, Wilson)

Wooden panelled lecture room with white ceiling. Seating in the foreground, screen, lectern and stage in the background. Conference delegates chatting amongst themselves and mingling.

View across the Great Court at Trinity College Cambridge. Foreground in shadow, background bathed in warm sunlight with blue sky and wispy white clouds. The Chapel Fountain is just off centre in front of the Great Gate with the King's Gate and Chapel to the left.

View through a doorway of an entrance hall with fireplace and lit fire in the background. To the right of the fireplace is a tall and decorated Christmas tree and in front of the tree is a round table and underneath it is a bronze statue of a bulldog with a Santa hat on its head. The floor is a patterned blue carpet.

A very enjoyable day and a half spent at the 'Other Pindars: a Conference on the Fragments' in Cambridge. A follow up to the one held in Naples a year ago. (Also it was not held at the Faculty but at Trinity College which is a plus!) #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Vulci Cityscape: presentato al MiC il ritrovamento di una testa di Kore Vulci Cityscape: il nuovo ritrovamento archeologico all’interno della città etrusca di Vulci della testa in marmo di una fanciulla (Kore)

Un nuovo e straordinario rinvenimento archeologico all’interno della città etrusca di Vulci è stato presentato oggi a Roma. Si tratta della testa in marmo greco di una fanciulla (Kore) rinvenuta nel sito laziale.
#archeologia #Etruschi #Lazio
Leggi su ClassiCult: www.classicult.it/vulci-citysc...

Front cover of the book Andújar, Rosa (2025), Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009653626 Cover image: Attic red-figure astragalos attributed to the Sotades Painter, ca. 470–450 BCE. London, The British Museum, 1860, 1201.2. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1860-1201-2

Copy of Rosa's book (Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy) next to its prequel which she co-edited (Paths of Song, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110575910) on a bookshelf

Photograph of Rosa Andújar and Thomas Coward (both smiling!) at the book launch at KCL.

Very happy to celebrate the book launch for my dear friend and former co-editor, Rosa Andújar, last night at KCL. Her book, 'Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy', now sits pride of place next to the one we co-edited years ago.

Congratulations Rosa!

Link to Rosa's book: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

The cover of the book, featuring a bronze mask.

We are very excited to announce that Professor Shelley Hales, IGRCT board member has just published "Mirrors and Masks in the Roman Empire: Encounter, Performance, and Metamorphosis" with Bloomsbury.

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/mirrors-a...

View from Magdalen bridge. Frost on the bridge. Below various punts stationed in rows on the river. Bare trees line the banks with the morning sun peering through the trees on the left bank. Blue sky

A papyrus in a glass plate underneath a microscope on a table. To the right two books open.

View of the Radcliffe Camera on a winter morning. Azure blue sky without clouds. Two cyclists going by on the cobbles.

A Greek epigram from July 1964 memorialising Paul Maas. Found in the scrapbook of Maurice Platnauer.

A week spent in a chilly Oxford with the papyri. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Front view of a Female portrait head in bronze. Elaborate hairstyle tied up at the back. San Casciano dei Bagni, sacred pool of Bagno Grande 1st century CE SABAP Siena, Grosseto e Arezzo

Left profile view of a Female portrait head in bronze. Elaborate hairstyle tied up at the back. Ears pierced. San Casciano dei Bagni, sacred pool of Bagno Grande 1st century CE SABAP Siena, Grosseto e Arezzo

Back of a Female portrait head in bronze. Elaborate hairstyle tied up at the back. San Casciano dei Bagni, sacred pool of Bagno Grande 1st century CE SABAP Siena, Grosseto e Arezzo

I think this is the photo you might be referring to. Happy to share other photos I took of these bronzes when they were on display at the Quirinale in 2023.

Transmission Card: 'Bettany Hughes' Treasures of the World Series 4. RHODES: ISLAND OF LIGHT. 7pm, Saturday 8 November on Channel 4 Bettany Hughes, TV presenter and writer, stands on a staircase leading up the garden at the Archaeological Museum on Rhodes. Stone steps with plants and trees in the background, pots and lemon tree in the foreground. Bettany Hughes standing centre with blue coat and turquoise shawl.

Very happy to see this documentary, for which I was one of consultants, will be broadcast tomorrow.

Fresco of woman brushing her hair. MANN inv. 9088. Stabiae, Ariadne’s Villa, Room 7. AD 54-69.

Back of one of the five bronze statues of Peplophorai/dancers/danaids/hydrophorai. The so-called “Dancers of Herculaneum”, 5 statues of women wearing the Doric peplos a group of life-sized bronzes with inlaid eyes that were adapted Roman copies of originals from the fifth century BCE, all found in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum in 1754. The back of this statue shows a peplos being pulled diagonally upwards across the back of the body of the statue conveying a sense of tension in the fabric. MANN inv. 5603, 5604, 5605, 5619, 5620, 5621

Image is of a hardback book with a blue dust jacket. The book is the first edition of the On Providence attributed to Philodemus. A number of passages are published for the first time. Vergara, C. (2025), [Filodemo], [La Providenza] (Bibliopolis, Napoli). EAN: 9788870887372 Greek text with Italian translation and commentary.

View of a large wooden desk with a microscope with LED ring light on the left and a laptop computer on the right. Underneath is a cornice with three folios of paper on it with four pieces of carbonised papyrus affixed to it. An original cornice from February to March 1782.

Back to Naples to speak at a conference on Herculaneum Papyri and Epicurean Theology with a visit to the MANN and a day at the Officina. Very happy to be a gifted a copy of my dear friend’s Claudio Vegara’s just published edition of Philodemus’ On Providence. 2/2
#ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

View from one side of the bay of Naples looking towards Mt Vesuvius over the water with a cloud passing over the peak. Blue sky otherwise with some haze. Foreground is a pier with a rock shingle with some boats. On the pier a man has emerged from swimming and is playing with his four dogs which his partner has walked down to the pier. Two women sitting on the edge of the pier look towards the scene as the dogs prance and jump and scamper.

Updated shrine in the Toledo commemorating Napoli FC winning Serie A for a fourth time. Funerary notice for Milan football teams, a plastic bag full of rubbish to represent Juventus. A picture of Maradona with Vesuvius in the background. Cardboard cut outs of the two winning players for the third and four league wins. Football memorabilia with Italian flag crests with numbers 3 and 4 on them.

Cast bronze of a satyr riding a wine sack as a horse.

Conference programme NUOVI TESTI PER VECCHI PROBLEMI. UN DIALOGO TRA PAPIROLOGIA E STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA SULLA TEOLOGIA EPICUREA 29 settembre 2025 Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi Federico II Via Porta di Massa, 1 - Aula DSU 5 (Scala C - 2° piano - 4° livello) online: meet.google.com/ywt-adgs-kuy SALUTI E INTRODUZIONE AI LAVORI 9:30 - 10:00 | Andrea Mazzucchi (Direttore del DSU); Chiara Renda (Responsabile della Sezione di Scienze dell'Antichità del DSU) Giuliana Leone (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II); Marzia D'Angelo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II); Enrico Piergiacomi (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) PRIMA SESSIONE. Novità dai papiri ercolanesi teologici Presiede: Giuliana Leone (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) 10:00 - 10:45 | Marzia D'Angelo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Il primo libro Sugli dei di Filodemo nel progetto LACUNA 10:45 - 11:30 | Holger Essler (Universität Würzburg) Aus der Arbeit an der Neuausgabe von PHerc. 152/157 11:30 - 12:00 | Pausa caffè 12:00 - 12:45 | Claudio Vergara (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Anus fatidica Pronoea: la nuova edizione de La provvidenza di Filodemo 12:45 - 13:30 | Thomas Coward (University of Bristol) An unpublished column in Philodemus On Piety: On the Nature of the Gods in Socrates and Plato? 13:30 - 14:45 | Pausa pranzo SECONDA SESSIONE. Aspetti della teologia epicurea: ricostruzione, analisi, ricezione Presiede: Lidia Palumbo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) 14:45 - 15:30 | Francesco Verde (Sapienza Università di Roma) Epicuro e la "teologia" del Timeo 15:30 - 16:15 | Giulia Scalas (CNRS - Centre Léon Robin) Il piacere continuo: virtù e beatitudine nella teologia epicurea 16:15 - 17:00 | Enrico Piergiacomi (Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) Emanazioni migliori. Epicuro, Attico e i viventi irrazionali

Back to Naples to speak at a conference on Herculaneum Papyri and Epicurean Theology with a visit to the MANN and a day at the Officina 1/2
#ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

View towards Radcliffe camera and st Mary’s church Oxford. Hertford College on the left. Photo taken from ground level. Similar image to ending credits plate photo of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (BBC TV 1979).

View looking down on to a table. A binocular microscope with a large glass place with papyrus pieces in it. To the left two books open, and on the right laptop with digital image of another papyrus.

View of a quad with clock tower in the centre. Corpus Christi College Oxford.

A black and white cat sitting up on its hind legs on a coffee table. Thoroughly enjoying a brush on the head with front paws up.

A recent trip to London and Oxford for even more papyri (with Tosca hosting in the latter) 2/2

A library with brown varnished wooden bookcases, green and gold wallpaper and carpet with leather chairs and small wooden tables.

View of Senate House Library in Bloomsbury, London. White art deco skyscraper.

View of Braesnose College quad with Radcliffe Camera in the background. Foreground has large green grass. Weather cloudy but bright.

Tosca a black and white cat sitting in a wooden chair with bed basket and red blanket. Cat is looking through a bay window down towards a garden with trees and bushes. Sky blue with some clouds.

A recent trip to London and Oxford for even more papyri (with Tosca hosting in the latter) 1/2

A table. On it a piece of papyrus in a glass plate held together by bull clips under a binocular microscope with LED ring light. Digital infra red microscope is on top of the plate attached to a computer. To the right several books including an increasingly annotated copy of Merkelbach-West.

Tosca the black and white cat with half white moustache and her purple brush sitting upright on a table.

View of the lake at Worcester College Oxford. Large lake in foreground with lily pads and surrounded by trees with a blue sky with patchy white clouds

An oval box made of silver containing cheese crackers. Dedication by William Force Stead, an American priest, diplomat and poet who was friends with Elliot and Yeats. The now cracker box commemorates the Anglo-American victory in WW2.

Another week spent in the Papyrology rooms @bodartlib.bsky.social and other nearby places. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Papyri in glass plates on a table. One under a LED ring microscope. Computer and critical edition next to the plates. Collations being taken and checked.

Carbonised Herculaneum papyrus roll in a 3D printed case. On display in the Weston Library in Oxford. Recent identified as a book of Philodemus’ On Vices. The label reads: 102 Preserved by fire The eruption of Vesuvius near Naples in the year 79 killed the citizens of the Roman holiday town of Herculaneum but preserved their belongings - carbonized. What looks like a charred lump is in fact a burnt scroll, from a rich private library in the city. Unread for more than 2000 years, its content is now opening to modern imaging technology: the mute treasure l l l reveals its secret: a lost work of the Hellenistic philosopher Philodemus. MS. Gr. class. f. 25 (P). Philodemus, On vices (Herculaneum (?). before 79).

View of Radcliffe camera from Braesnose College.

Evening sunset from the Bisney area of Oxford on the way back from The Perch. River view reflecting the dusk light with tree in outline and shadow on the left.

A week in the P.Oxy. collection ahead. But said hullo to the On Vices roll beforehand.

Hey look! My new article on the #Parthenon Frieze has been published! (Also; it’s open access!)

#ClassicsBluesky

Tree in centre with large canopy casting a partial shadow over a large bed of mainly white flowers. Green trees and bushes in the background

A reconstruction of an apiary from 1595. A collection of six round beehives made of wicker on wooden shelves. Three on each shelf.

View towards the Chinese garden with thin bamboo sticks framing the photo. Down the middle are a series of Chinese pots with dragon decorations and small tree planted in them. A criss cross pathway with landscaped bedding plants and trees.

View of a Mediterranean garden with green plants and olive tree. The garden is placed along a river bank lined with trees and gardens and university buildings. Boats are moored up along the river. A couple of clouds in the sky.

Hortus Botanicus Leiden

View of Leiden overlooking a canal. Wooden windmill to the left, a brick building in the middle ground and green and leafy banks on either side with boats moored up.

Four pieces of papyrus with Greek writing in a glass plate on a table. To its left a set of callipers and a magnifier.

Verdant green riverbanks with a large windmill on the right painted with the flag of the Netherlands. On the near right bank some birds with younglings. In the middle a motor boat moves down the river.

On the first research trip from @clahbristol.bsky.social to @unileiden.bsky.social. I am examining P.Turner 1, a papyrus preserving over 100 lines of the Hesiodic Catalogue.

I’ll also be giving a lecture and running a workshop on Herculaneum papyri. #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

View of Vesuvius with a Fiat Panda Van in the foreground

Herculaneum papyrus under LED ring microscope. On a table with laptop and callipers to the right.

Herculaneum papyrus roll being prepared for imaging in a box.

3D printed copy of a carbonised papyrus roll in the hand of the photographer

Spent the last three days in the Officina to go over several papyri with the new infrareds and virtual models, and see how things are progressing with the next phase of imaging.

Early medieval metal peacock for liturgical purposes. Byzantine-Venetian ware with Aran influences

Silver bowl with bird at the centre

Transparent glass bowl with Jesus Christ between two palms

Late antique gold earrings. Large oval gold pieces with four hanging pieces on each piece.

Cagliari Archaeological Museum: late antique and medieval objects. 6/6
#ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Latin lead inscriptions

Ivory relief of a parrot from late republic

Hellenistic relief of a sheep with a sun and crescent moon above it

Roman stone cinerary urn

Cagliari Archaeological Museum: Graeco-Roman materials. 5/6 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Greek vase with red figure owl

Stone relief of winged Fortune in a chariot

Glass vessel cylinder with Greek inscription

Terracotta of Venus with dolphin representing Nora

Cagliari Archaeological Museum: Graeco-Roman materials. 4/6 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Lead burial casket filled with objects and bones.

Large vase with human figure hugging the contents

Large Phoenician inscription

Picture of whole glass paste necklace with heads and beads. Many colours and patterns

Cagliari Archaeological Museum: Punic matters. 3/6 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Glass paste necklace with heads and beads in colour. Mainly bearded men.

Theriomorphic statue. Human body with wolf or lion head.

Sculpture head of a North African male.

Stone ring with Punic inscription

Cagliari Archaeological Museum: Punic matters. 2/6 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky

Nuragic giant stone statue: archer.

Nuragic giant stone statue: boxer.

Nora stone. Punic inscription which mentions Sardinia

Nuragic bronze statuette

Cagliari archaeological museum: some Nuragic highlights. 1/6 #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky