Excuse the LinkedIn-ish vocab but I am genuinely overjoyed to find Richard Henry’s new book, Fractured Britannia, is out and available #OpenAccess. Going to enjoy learning how he assesses so much PAS data alongside other data sources and recent scholarship www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

Round-cornered rectangular sign for the cafe named Hōm in Dalston, London

I for one would welcome seeing more signage with macrons indicating long vowels. Very good.

(Mighty fine oat lattes available inside as well)

Hello @drchrisc.bsky.social can you shed any more light on the coin? Have I just duplicated what someone else had deduced and written about previously?

A large coin and a little research win To state the obvious, there’s a lot of research involved in the writing of a fact-heavy book.

A new Substack post, in which I figure out what “a large brass coin of Justinus, A.D. 537” found in 1881 most probably was, and how it links to the story of post-Roman Southwark and north-east Surrey open.substack.com/pub/surreyab... (It gets better after the opening sentence I promise)

Haha bitey is the word! Caught mid-chomp for something like 1300 years

Btw, the carved drinking horn fragment it’s paired with in my photos is an entirely separate artefact/find (I forget from where on the Thames in London) though I did greatly appreciate the combo for the sense it gave of the size of such receptacles. Don’t judge a drinking horn by its terminal!

Early medieval metal drinking horn terminal mounted for display in a museum exhibit

Piece of an early medieval carved drinking horn mounted to the left and slightly above the metal terminal

Montage of two colour photographs of different sides of an archaeological artefact above the following label; Fig. 8: An 8th-century zoomorphic drinking horn terminal found on the Thames foreshore at Lambeth. PAS LON-EFCF31. Image: K Sumnall (PAS).

Completing my series on early medieval metalwork from the ex-Surrey Thames foreshore, here’s my fave + most shockingly small one IRL; an 8thC drinking horn terminal from Lambeth. A fiend to photograph so 3rd image from its ?only published outing, in a John Naylor chapter ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...

A well organised and thought-provoking conference, one that’s got me contemplating where to take my own presentation material next. Ideally an archaeological conference to come at the disciplinary divide from the other angle! Watch this space…

Presentation title slide; A long overdue catch-up? Recent work in archaeology and history concerning the fifth and sixth centuries CE in lowland Britain and its implications for English place-name studies. Presenter’s name and conference details also given.

Professor Mark Bailey giving the Friday night keynote lecture, stood pointing at an image on a projector screen in front of a seated audience

Bury St Edmunds’ 12th century abbey gateway and cathedral behind

Framed text stating: The Secret Bunker During the early 1960's Cold War period, the residents of Thingoe Hill were intrigued as their Danish neighbour at Viking's Forge began digging a huge rectangular hole in his back yard. Although hidden behind a 2 metre high fence, over the following months a nuclear bunker emerged. This construction was prompted by Russia's targeting of the two United States Air Force bases nearby. Once the bunker was completed the present day house was built on top. A subsequent owner turned the space into an illegal, underwater themed, 'gentlemen's' club. The walls were blue and decorated with fish, (a small section is retained behind the pillar next to the desk). Also the seashells seen on the beams to this day. There was also a bar, and photographer's darkroom! It was closed down by the police, in full riot gear, despite their initial struggles to locate it! The present owners removed the nuclear filtration system and the massive blast door. To add light and ventilation they reduced the soil level on one side and added three small windows, not a simple task due to the reinforced concrete construction.

With my usual alacrity, a post looking back at last weekend’s @snsbi.bsky.social spring conference in Bury St Edmunds.

Featuring names, a rental flat with the best backstory, books, more names, pubs, churches, and even more names. Plus my paper on 5th-6thC archaeology, history, names and languages.

Thought about posting one of the amazing maps from this book to show how much knowledge of Roman Southwark has increased during the past century or so. Another time!

Foldout printed map of Romano-British Surrey, with sites of settlements, buildings and find-spots marked in red and all other features in black

Map titled Roman Discoveries in Southwark, printed on almost a full page of an open book. Sites of Roman buildings and other discoveries are marked using red symbols

Maps of #Roman period Surrey and Southwark, from William Page & Edith Keate’s chapter in Volume 4 of @vch-home.bsky.social of Surrey, published 1912. Safe to say both long since superseded — Southwark especially feels like the setting for an almost constant stream of new discoveries from the period.

Osmund's knife 800-1000 The Vikings battled the Saxons to seize their wealth, enslave their people, control resources and access river routes. […] This knife (2) is known as a 'seax', which is the origin of the name 'Saxon'. Both the Vikings and the Saxons used seaxes. A valued weapon, its iron blade is decorated with inlaid silver that spells out the name Osmund (OSMHND). Found by anonymous and Gordon Grant.

The exhibition label admitted a 9th-century date which isn’t what’s on the LM website www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/... Not sure if the knife has been redated or if the author went extra-inclusive.

Either way a great bit of evidence for some form of lay literacy in pre-Norman Conquest Surrey.

Iron knife blade with an inlaid plate bearing the legend OSMHND. Knife tip points to the left and long tang to the right. Mounted for display on a thin wire, with a yellow label bearing the number 2 below and to the left

Back to @londonmuseum.bsky.social and another historic Surrey Thames-side find; a knife blade with inset silver plates, one inscribed OSMHND = Osmund, an Old English dithematic personal name.

Dated 10th—early 11th century by John Clark in a 1980 note, pp348-49 of www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

These thoughts have been brought to you by someone who’s spent much of the past couple of weeks thinking about how this sort of thing might have happened 1500 years ago.

Distribution map of place-names in the English West Midlands derived from Old English tūn, denoted by x, and lēah, denoted by o. The distributions of the two elements are markedly separate. Some names of major modern towns are also marked, as are the lines of rivers and Roman roads. From page 147 of the book ‘Signposts to the Past’ by Margaret Gelling

“Attleeton” would break the golden rule of Old English toponymy of lēah and tūn keeping well apart in their distributions as well as their meanings.

Towneley in Lancs contravenes it but that’s probably a late name signifying the ‘ley’ there pertaining to the ‘town’ of Burnley.

So maybe not so bad?

Absolutely fascinating insights into 21st century place-naming here. Family names as uncompounded place-names. No new generics only ones that have been in use for centuries. A hideous adaptation of a surname from a locative byname. All that and some “stan” sounds close enough to -ston” reasoning!

Small and battered circular gilded pinhead with a tiny central hole surrounded by a runic inscription. The pinhead is held up atop a very thin piece of metal at the centre of a flat white square on which the same runes are written.

Display case containing a large curved iron axe head, part of a carved bone drinking horn, a smaller tanged knife blade, a Thor’s hammer pendant and the runic pinhead. All are archaeological artefacts of early medieval date.

Photograph and transcription of the pinhead and its runes, with scale bars, taken from the Portable Antiquities Scheme database entry for the artefact.

Saw a trio of early medieval finds from the historic Surrey foreshore
a couple of weeks ago @londonmuseum.bsky.social. All tiny, this runic pinhead found in the Rotherhithe area the least surprisingly so.

More about it: archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/ar... and finds.org.uk/database/art...

I’m not on here much but can imagine the brooch and its inscription has already caused quite a lot of excitement at points in recent-ish times. If anyone has insights beyond what Oxford Arch have put out (e.g. www.oxfordarchaeology.com/sites/defaul...) I’d love to read them.

Early medieval great square-headed brooch of a type dated to the middle third of the 6th century CE. Copper alloy and heavily decorated, with surfaces now a mix of green and blue colours. Shiny silver sheets cover the extremities of brooch. Found in an inhumation grave in a cemetery excavated at Eye Airfield in Suffolk.

Detail of part of the faint incised runic inscription on the silver band added at the top of the Eye Airfield great square-headed brooch. Interlaced patterns cast in copper alloy, now coloured by verdigris, below.

Trying to resist getting too sidetracked by this brooch (no doubt John Hines will be all over it) which embodies a number of my key themes. A closely dated object. In a sizeable grave assemblage. With a probably Pre-Old English language inscription. Apparently containing a Latin loanword. Amazing!

Detail from a presentation slide with the title ‘A long overdue catch-up? Recent work in archaeology and history concerning the fifth and sixth centuries in lowland Britain and its implications for English place-name studies’ plus the speaker’s name and date, 28 March 2026, when the presentation will be given. Black text on a plain white background.

A pile of four books about the late Roman to early medieval period in Britain

Scale plan of the excavated series of settlements and cemeteries, dating from the 5th to 7th centuries, at Mucking in Essex. Different dates phases of settlement are denoted by dashed lines, and the cemeteries by dense grey hatching. From Helena Hamerow’s book Rural Settlements & Society in Anglo-Saxon England.

The three hardcover printed volumes of the excavation report for the three early medieval cemeteries excavated at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The book covers are a dark blue with white writing and also feature images of gold coloured artefacts.

It’s happening again. I’m back talking place-names + archaeology at the @snsbi.bsky.social Spring Conference at the end of March. Wild all the things I’ll cover in 20 minutes. Cooking it down to the tastiest examples of how disciplinary divides might be spanned. Ideal fare for a Saturday 9.30am slot

Part 1 of my study achieves a few useful new things (at least I hope it does), chief among which is making Surrey in the 7th—9th centuries a little smaller than it’s been understood as being in previous scholarship. It’s an ongoing area of research for me, on which I hope to publish again one day.

Text of the first page of the pamphlet History of Farnham published in 1925

What’s especially pleasing for me (and frankly no-one else but I’m) cool with that) is how it’s appeared 100 years to the month after the opening part of the last attempt at a comprehensive published study of the #Farnham charters; an enterprise that continued the following year but never completed…

Text of first page of article titled Farnham in Early Charters, Part 1: Seventh to Ninth Centuries

Front cover of Surrey History journal, Volume 24 for 2025, with detail of a historic map depicting fields, a village and a river

Feeling really rather pleased to see the first half of something I’ve worked on for a number of years out in the wild today — namely my article on the earliest medieval charters relating to Farnham in #Surrey, newly published in the Volume 24 of Surrey History journal @surreyarch.bsky.social

Folded deed from the 17th century with original writing, archival stamp and several red wax seals attached to it

Yesterday I made it through 22 post-medieval deeds (plus a few others that were too faded to be of use) looking for field-name spellings in under 4 hours. Surely some kind of record? For someone of my middling palaeographical skills anyway.

Here’s a pic of the most fun one from the outside.

Thanks for these tips. I’m now 140 pages in, not yet at the Adventus chapters proper, so an apt time to become aware of his John Morris stan account (I jest of course but having known Mees’ work through a brace of Roman-period epigraphy articles it’s good to be aware of his thinking re other things)

Book cover of The English Language Before England, by Bernard Mees, partly illuminated by sunlight and lying on a wooden table

What I’ve read of this so far has been informative and enjoyable. Runes etc. are very much outside of my immediate research interests but relevant to a little big project I’ve had simmering on a low heat for the past couple of years.

Anyone else read it? (I’m only 50 pages in so no spoilers pls)

There are oodles of them about this year, feel like I see one here in London almost every day (and every time get my hopes up it’s a Painted Lady butterfly that’s made the trip from NE Africa)

Large hardback book with the title Chartulary of St Thomas’s Hospital and two semifinal crests on its cover. The book sits on a desk in front of a slender reading lamp. Behind are well-stocked bookshelves

Few things I love more than a fruitful trip to a research library (in this case @wellcomecollection.bsky.social Library). Found further testimony for a lost placename I’m investigating but can only confirm it is what I think it is by consulting the original manuscript. Bodleian here I come, I guess…

Man standing in public square, head turned away from camera towards the historic Sherdor Madrassa in Samarkand, which is illuminated by electric light at dusk

Most definitely missed that first wave of positivity on here but…

My name’s Rob and, among other things, I’m writing a book about Surrey in the 4th—12th centuries, meaning I’ll have questions (mostly pdf requests)

And yes I did once go to Samarkand and yes I did cry at the beauty of the Registan