Moulded pot from Corbridge showing a smith (god?) at work

View of the site at Corbridge, with the museum building in the background

Durham and English Heritage are now recruiting for a fully-funded PhD on Roman Corbridge 🥳🥳🥳

This is a fantastic opportunity to work on one of our most important and understudied finds assemblages from Roman Britain. Deadline 1st June. Please share widely!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Jen Baird and Esther Breithoff standing on either side of a pink-and-white exhibit banner

We've set up a small exhibit on 'Sustainable Archaeologies in Times of Change' in our library as part of Birkbeck's Annual Climate Festival. If you're in Bloomsbury, please stop by!
www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Can heritage contribute to recovery after conflict? We're holding a roundtable in March at the Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies on the role of heritage in recovery and transitional justice in Syria. All welcome!

Aleppo with tidied-up destruction

A year ago yesterday, everything changed for Syria. This January, Hiba Alkhalaf will speak at Birkbeck about "From Destruction to Recovery: Syrian Heritage, Fourteen Years On".

The Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies seminar series will start next term at Birkbeck.

The topic will be Collaborative Archaeologies in (Post)Conflict Contexts. All very welcome!

Delighted that from January 2026 all research articles published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org will be Open Access

view.updates.cambridge.org?qs=85c24bbd7...

With speculation from Adnan Almohamad, whom I can attest to being an astute and well-informed Syrian archaeologist, that this may have been an inside job 😢

Item on the Damascus Museum thefts, including quotes from @bbkhistorical.bsky.social’s own Adnan Almohamad

Speaking about my/Adnan Almohamad’s work in Greenwich tomorrow evening if you’d like to come along

Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future | Studies in Classical Archaeology

Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future / Lisa Brody, Anne Hunnell Chen (eds) #openaccess @brepols.net
www.brepolsonline.net/action/showB...
@julietsamsonconlon.bsky.social @jenbaird.bsky.social
@lrbrody.bsky.social

One more push: please help spread the word about my crowdfunding effort to support Arabic-language access to ancient Gazan literature & financial support for a Gazan translator!

Jen Baird and Lesley McFadyen with Birkbeck Archaeology Swag

University Archaeology Day is at the @britishacademy.bsky.social this year! Here with @lesleymcf.bsky.social and lots of premium Birkbeck owl swag!

Thanks Nina!

Thanks Alison!

Thank you!

The Ruins that Remain. Remembering Dura-Europos in Salhiyeh | Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future The legacy of Dura-Europos is well known through hundreds of scholarly publications and continuing work in the archives of the excavations held by Yale University Art Gallery. The absences in the trad...

What are the relationships between local communities and major heritage sites in Syria, and why do they matter? Adnan Almohamad and I attempt to begin to answer -- out now, open access.

www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1...

Massive congrats to Juliet, of @bbkhistorical.bsky.social, on her first publication, documenting the important corpus of bone dolls from Dura-Europos. Juliet's PhD is exploring the archaeology of childhood from the archives of the site. 🥳

Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future | Studies in Classical Archaeology Abstract:This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary host of scholars to reflect on the complicated legacies of exploration at the archaeological site of Dura-Europos, situated on the western bank of the Euphrates River near modern Salihiyeh (Syria). A chance discovery after World War I kicked off a series of excavations that would span the next century and whose finds are today housed in collections worldwide, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Louvre, and the National Museum in Damascus. Dura-Europos exemplifies a multiethnic frontier town at the crossroads of major trade routes. Its textual remains and remarkably-preserved Christian, Jewish, and polytheist religious sanctuaries provide key resources for the study of antiquity and attest to the cross-cultural interconnectivity that was demonstrably central to the ancient world but which has been too often obscured by Eurocentric historiographic traditions and siloed disciplinary divisions.Foreign-run, large-scale archaeological campaigns of the early twentieth century, like those at Dura-Europos, have created narratives of power and privilege that often exclude local communities. The significance of these imbalances is entangled with the destruction the site has experienced since the 2011 outbreak of conflict in Syria. As a step toward making knowledge descendant of early excavations more accessible, this volume includes Arabic summaries of each paper, following up on the simultaneous Arabic interpretation provided at the 2022 hybrid conference whose proceedings form the core of this publication. The papers address topics connected to essential themes in relation to Dura-Europos: long-distance trade relations and cross-border interactions in antiquity, including the exchange of technologies, people, and materials; Christianity, Judaism, and other religious practices, and their relations to one another; contemporary trafficking of looted artifacts; cultural heritage and the Islamic State; and the evolving role of museum collections, technologies, and archival materials for research.

I’m delighted that my chapter, ‘The Bone Dolls from Dura-Europos: Embodying Childhood Experience’, has been published by Brepols in ‘Dura-Europos:Past,Present,Future’,available open access, www.brepolsonline.net/doi/book/10..... Special thanks to Lisa Brody,Anne Hunnell Chen, @jenbaird.bsky.social

Join us in Aarhus for RAC/TRAC 2026!

Rubina Raja and I have organised a session on "Archival Fieldwork" in archaeology and welcome submissions

Details on how to apply and attend here: www.romansocietyrac.ac.uk/ractrac-2026... (Deadline October 10)

go.bsky.app/TyZAyQ8

Archaeology of Children and Childhood Starter Pack

The Festival of Archaeology logo

Friday July 24 is the #AskTheArchaeologist day of the #FestivalOfArchaeology. You ask, archaeologists on Bluesky 🦋 try to answer.

And I can’t wait to hear all about it! Well done to all of you!

This is very exciting news!

This is very exciting news!

So pleased that we have MA funding available this year for our MA Archaeology & Heritage Programme. Please spread the word (or get in touch if you have questions)!
www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...

Photograph of book on Scultpures from Roman Syria with grey cover, featuring a broken marble sculpture of a female

Out today, my review of a recent two volume work on Sculptures from Roman Syria.

TL; DR -- Important, but frustrating, work.

The words that will stick with me are "current location unknown".

*Master's funding claxon*

Did you know that we have a range of scholarships for our MA programmes, including funding specifically for Archaeology, Heritage, and History of Art? Links below!

I hope you are all as excited about #SSCIP2025 as we are!? Make sure to share your conference snaps, including any conference preparations using the hashtag #SSCIP2025 and tagging us - see you in Aarhus 👀

Enjoyed writing this for @sscipchildhood.bsky.social #sherdnerd #archaeology #pottery #roman #childhood