HERACLITOS. ASÀROTOS ÒIKOS MOSAIC, DETAIL, C. 125 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS This famous mosaic is signed by one Heraclitos, who may have copied the "unswept floor" mosaic by Sosos of Pergamon in the C2 CE, but as a border to a large and mainly vanished central scene with Egyptian and Nilotic details. Mosaic representations of pharaonic statues were set at the corners, and along the edge are lively riverside scenes like this duck which is peering into a curved lilypad leaf to see if a delicious frog or insect is hiding there. The duck's form is beautifully modelled in light and shadow, and the border of the mosaic at bottom is a wonderful undulating wave.

The splendid Asàrotos òikos #mosaic at the #VaticanMuseums is a #Hadrianic copy of a mosaic described by #Pliny the Elder at #Pergamon. Here, instead of looking at the famous "unswept floor" border, for #MosaicMonday we're looking at part of the #Nilotic mosaic it surrounded. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Visiting Professor of Creative Media Lecture with Bernardine Evaristo

We still have limited tickets available for Bernardine Evaristo's talk at the Sheldonian Theatre on 6 May at 5.30pm. The title of the talk is: 'The Girl from Woolwich: A Creative Life'.

This is a public event & all are welcome! FREE but booking required:
english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/girl-w...

Today we've visited this house in Harborne, Birmingham. The architect Henry Tudor Buckland built it for himself & his family. One of his commissions was The Royal Hospital School. #Architecture #Houses #Schools #ArtsandCrafts

This morning I've been at Kingston Lacy NT. An amazing property, and fabulous gardens!!🌳🌷

Holy Trinity, Sutton Coldfield, a jewel box

New moon seen between trees on night sky. Painting.

Goodnight.

‘I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.’ ~ Poe.
🖼️ New Moon, Isaak Brodsky.

Perfect parrots, or popinjays as they were known in the early 14th century, when they were painted on this timber screen to a side chapel in wonderful St. Mary’s and All Saints Church, Willingham, Cambridgeshire 🤩

Such a loving and joyful family 😍

Here come the babies!!!

paradisal

Saturday 20 Apr, Rome

19th century choir stalls at Lichfield Cathedral by William Evans of Ellastone for George Gilbert Scott.

#caturday #woodensday

A barren church altar beside a stream of divine light. Hagharstin Monastery in Armenia

Illumination inviting Neophytes to bask beside the barren altar and offer up all they have.

#churches #monastery #mysterious #lightandshadow #moody_tones

The font at St Edmund’s Church in Southwold is a rare 15th-century ‘Seven Sacraments’ font. Originally, this octagonal font featured panels depicting the seven sacraments. During the Reformation and later the English Civil War, these carvings were hacked away by iconoclasts.
#FontsOnFriday

A dark, gloomy staircase rised from a bare floor before flowing into two symmetrical branches going to the left and right. They lead top an elevated walkway against a rough stone wall punctured bu arched openings.

Kingston Penitentiary, Kingston, Ontario, opened 1835.

The ghost of Piranesi smiles.

#StaircaseSaturday
#SaturdayStairs

View along a curving underground feature with 7 light wells open above, 8 arches to the right and 3 to the left. Pieces of architectural spolia (eg a Corinthian capital) are placed along the passageway and under some arches. The structure's surfaces are of thin terracotta brickwork.

View looking across the width of the amphitheatre underground showing a complex of interlocking arched passageways. Pieces of architectural stonework are on the floor, including decorative Corinthian capitals and fluted columns. As with other view, light floods in from above and numerous arches are in evidence.

#RomanSiteSaturday 🏺
Flavian amphitheatre in Pozzuoli, #Roman port of Puteoli west of Naples, is 3rd largest in Italy w spectacular underground structures surviving.
3 storeys high w wide passages + complexes for moving/lifting scenic effects. Animals were housed on 2 levels w 40 cages on each.

🤩 Nocturne

Salisbury cloisters at twilight

This lectern knows how to sort the wheat from the chaff. More #GiantCandles and #TinyLions were to be found close by, in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge.

I like the way that they are looking back over their shoulders to admire the candle! I expect they have quite bad neck ache by now. 🧡

St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan is depicted here with St Augustine of Hippo.

BL Add MS 60629; Psalter; 13th century; Germany, W; f.163r @blmedieval.bsky.social

Women's healthcare in ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE : an edition of the textual sources | WorldCat.org "Treatments for women from ancient Mesopotamia form the most extensive medical corpus on female health from antiquity beside the Hippocratic gynaecological works. This volume presents a comprehensive

There is a new, open access anthology (=great teaching resource) about _Women's healthcare in ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE_ edited by Ulrike Steinert. search.worldcat.org/title/Women'... I would then combine this with the ancient medicine sourcebook www.ucpress.edu/books/medici...

Job Vacancies

🚨Job alert! Our new @erc.europa.eu funded project 'MEMELAND' needs a #palynologist Postdoctoral Research Associate #PDRA for 3.5 years. You'll help transform our understanding of the impact of #medieval farming on biodiversity! Full details & to apply 👇 #archaeobotany www.arch.ox.ac.uk/job-vacancies

I’m lucky enough to be at the @folger.edu next week and have a bit of capacity to take some pics - so let me know if you need anything.

What’s the Point 2: lime finishes in a changing climate symposium | Historic England

Fancy an interesting day of talks about lime finishes next Tues? A few (free) online tickets are still available for what promises to be an incredibly useful event, run by Historic England & the Lime Finishes Group.
I’m giving a (pre-recorded) presentation, but don’t let that put you off 😂

#Economics what is “ enough”? Many of us have “ too much”.

Price of first class stamp rises to £1.80 The rise come as the postal service faces criticism over missing delivery targets.

Royal Mail privatisation scandal

Today price of 1st class mail rises to £1.80 - an increase of 10p; 2nd class, by 4p to 91p.

When privatized in 2013 by Tory/LibDem Govt: 1st class 60p; 2nd class 50p.

Royal Mail hasn't met letter delivery targets, but price still rises.

Regulators do what?

My photo shows detail of ancient Egyptian goddess Selket, a protective goddess on one side of Tutankhamun’s gilded wooden canopic shrine containing his internal organs. Selket stands upright, her body facing the shrine wall, her face turned slightly to the left in profile, showing her smooth gold-painted face, and almond-shaped eye, and brow outlined in black. She wears a long wig which falls neatly down her back and a headdress with a scorpion, the symbol of Selket. She wears a close-fitting, short-sleeved sheath dress with fine vertical ridges that give her body a slender, graceful shape. Her arms are outstretched, fingers extended, as if embracing and shielding the shrine with her body. The gilded wall of the shrine is covered in ancient Egyptian carvings and hieroglyphs.

Ancient Egyptian goddess Selket, depicted with a scorpion on her head.

She was a benevolent deity who protected against venomous bites. Her arms are outstretched protecting Tutankhamun’s canopic shrine.

📷 by me

Children on an Easter egg hunt, Easter Sunday

It's easy to forget the horror that's going on in the world when you're with your sweet innocent grandchildren in a peaceful English garden but I really worry about the world they'll grow up in.

Curse the warmongering, barbaric, lawless, immoral, malignant governments of America, Israel, Russia.

Today’s the day….