Daily Bread Conference in Cambridge April-May 2026

Excited for our (@rorynaismith.bsky.social and Paolo Tedesco) upcoming conference: "Our Daily Bread: The Making of Sacral Economies in Western Eurasia," with papers from @woodjamie.bsky.social, @historiantillo.bsky.social & others. If you're around Cambridge (UK) & want to come, drop us a line!

Our newest results from the project. Using 3d models we found that changes to the Forum Romanum by Caesar and Augustus reduced the visibility of speakers. At the same time they separated hypothetical crowds of two simultaneous events @ncn.gov.pl www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Reassessing the role of Polynesian rats (Rattus exulans) in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) deforestation: Faunal evidence and ecological modeling The role of introduced Polynesian rats (Rattus exulans) in the deforestation of Rapa Nui remains a contentious issue. Several critics, including Mieth…

According to Hunt & Lipo,rats likely hepled drive Rapa Nui's deforestation but not its societal collapse. New modelling by H&L suggests rats heavily impacted slow-reproducing palms, with boom-bust rodent population cycle tied to palm decline www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Roman empire built 300,000 kilometres of roads: new study A new comprehensive map reveals the true scale of the ancient Roman road network – but it is still incomplete.

theconversation.com/the-roman-em...

Updates to RRDP specimens At long last, we have migrated the objects accessible in the SITNAM public database into a CollectiveAccess back-end. SITNAM was initially...

Some 50,000 Roman Republican coins have been migrated into CollectiveAccess for Roman Republican Die Project, with some updates to bibliographic references, provenance, and integrating coin hoard URIs to improve various functionality: numishare.blogspot.com/2025/11/upda...

I admit that 10 ya I'd never have thought that archaeology would take me on the one hand all the way to Jordan, and on the other to a MoCap Lab! Fun, fun, fun!
Thx, @4drl1.bsky.social
.
"Praecipua pronuntiationis adiumenta..." project. More: projekty.ncn.gov.pl/opisy/618725...
@ncn.gov.pl

Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games | Berghahn Books Independent Publishing since 1994

Hey, kids. My eponymous #Archaeogaming book (2018) paperback is on sale for 50% off this week. I only need 12 more people to buy the book to crack 1,000 lifetime sales! www.berghahnbooks.com/title/Reinha...

Po dłuższej przerwie, recenzja dla Mądrych Książek @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social. Duża dawka zdrowego rozsądku (i kubeł zimnej wody) ws podboju Marsa oraz fascynujące rozważania nad prawem kosmicznym od @weinersmith.bsky.social @zachweinersmith.bsky.social www.madreksiazki.uj.edu.pl/aktualnosci/...

Passages from Ancient to Medieval and Early Modern Societies IX This is a bit late, but the conference Passages from Ancient to Medieval and Early Modern Societies IX: Violence, War, and Suffering begins today at Tampere University. I will be presenting a paper…

At Tampere

romanurbaninequality.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/p...

AI image of Pompeian inequality: architecture and people.

Abstact 1

Abstract 2

I wrote an article on ancient reception, exploring AI-generated images and inequality.

Big thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers, who offered clear, constructive suggestions for improvement.

faravid.journal.fi/article/view...

faravid.journal.fi/article/view...

Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome is currently 99p on Kindle - that's a massive discount as the hardback is normally priced at £20. Why not give it a go, even if you think historical non-fiction isn't your thing - you never know, you might love it! shorturl.at/RKHSF

New study uses #AI to identify Roman imperial portraits without relying on hairstyles. Facial recognition software classified emperors despite hair and beards being removed, proving visual markers beyond coiffure exist. #DigitalHumanities journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/da...

Looking for a journal in Classics or Mediterranean archaeology?

SAAC is a diamond open-access, independent journal. We charge no fees to authors, and all content is freely available to all.

It's run entirely on a voluntary basis by its editorial team and peer reviewers journals.akademicka.pl/saac/

Katharina Meinecke and Sascha D. Schmitz presented different motion capture tools for the study of ancient sculptures. Turns out that a lot of Hellenistic sculpture poses are unnatural and very uncomfortable

Dynamic Perspectives –
Advancing Archaeology with 3D Tools Workshop in Abguss-Sammlung Antiker Plastik in Berlin. Nice venue, looking forward to the papers!

Looted from Syria, sold on Facebook: antiquities smuggling surges after fall of Assad Collapse of once-feared security apparatus, coupled with widespread poverty, has triggered a gold rush

Ancient Palmyra suffers at the hands of looters and antiquities traffickers.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Medieval Murder Maps. Un site de cartographie interactive sur les meurtres en Angleterre à la fin du Moyen Âge Cartographie numérique, Géomatique, SIG, Geoweb, Bigdata, Opendata, Data visualisation

Medieval Murder Maps. Un site de cartographie interactive sur les meurtres en Angleterre à la fin du Moyen Âge cartonumerique.blogspot.com/2025/06/Medi... par @mirbole01.bsky.social

#Archaeoacoustic analysis of Site 26LN211 (Nevada) reveals a unique soundscape: clear transmission, minimal echoes. Unlike other sites in WRN, it may have supported storytelling & ritual over echo-based ceremonies. #Artsoundscapes www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/14...

Both created new visual frameworks for legitimacy — not inherited, but displayed through personal merit and visibility. In Rome, to be seen was to be believed.
brill.com/view/journal...

➡️ Marius turned his battle scars into his imagines, presenting his war wounds as earned nobility and proof of service.
➡️ Cicero, lacking both ancestry and scars, embodied shared civic ancestors (maiores nostris) and made his public presence and availability a substitute for family prestige.

Emily Salamanca’s article, “Reimagining Political Legitimacy: Ancestral Imagines in the Consular Speeches of Marius and Cicero,” explores how Rome’s novi homines — like Marius and Cicero — redefined this visual tradition.

Fragment of Togatus Barberini - a sculpture showing a Roman noble carrying masks of his ancestors

In Roman politics, ancestral masks — imagines maiorum — were more than symbols: they were visual proof of noble lineage and civic virtue. But what happened when politicians had no aristocratic ancestors to parade?

Roman army camp found beyond Roman Empire’s northern frontier “What makes this find so remarkable is that the camp lies beyond the frontier of the Roman Empire,” says Saskia Stevens. That border was some 25 kilometres south.

A new Roman marching camp discovered in the NL, beyond the borders of the Empire. The site was identified using LiDAR and aerial photography. This was followed by a surface survey with metal detectors and trial excavations, which helped date it to the 2nd century CE.
www.uu.nl/en/news/roma...

A cover for a journal showing the mosaic floor of the Guildhall in London.

🎉 #TRAJ Volume 8 is launched!

Check out the first paper of our Cosmologies Special Issue on pilgrimage routes to Hayling Island in Britain, a review of ancient wine archaeology & more!

FREE traj.openlibhums.org/issue/1682/i...

A 2,900-Year-Old Factory That Produced Tyrian Purple — The Most Prized Dye Of The Ancient World — Has Been Found In Israel Archaeologists in Tel Shiqmona uncovered the 2,900-year-old remains of a factory that produced the rare and expensive dye Tyrian purple.

"“In fact,” Shalvi told All That’s Interesting, “Tel Shiqmona yielded more purple-stained pottery fragments than all other ancient sites combined.”"

allthatsinteresting....

Delete this post. Don't give them ideas...

Finished @byzantienne.bsky.social's *A Desolation Called Peace* (2021) this weekend.

I really enjoyed this one and the first volume in the *Teixcalaan* series, *A Memory Called Empire* (2019).

A few thoughts on these award-winning novels from the perspective of a Roman historian.

1/7

A recent published article presents, for the 1st time, osteological evidence that can be linked to venationes. It concerns bite marks from a large cat—most likely a lion—found on a skeleton from a cemetery in York, which may have been a burial place for gladiators! journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Human-animal combats (venationes) are well known from numerous written sources, inscriptions, and artworks scattered across the Roman Empire.