Ceramic bowl containing ash. Three appliqués are attached to the edge: one reclining woman and two busts.
Incense burner from Pompeii, decorated with appliqués of three anthropomorphic female figures and still containing the residue of incense burnt in it #FindsFriday
Analysis of the ash revealed the surprising substances burnt in Roman domestic rituals.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
I’m delighted to see ‘The Caliph and the Falcons’ take to the skies at Early Medieval Europe! I had a blast writing this with @medivalist.bsky.social as we followed the extraordinary journey of falcons from Scandinavia all the way to Baghdad. #medievalsky
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
In his talk last month, Ingo Strauch mentions that he noticed these inscriptions while sightseeing in Egypt after inspecting the Sanskrit inscriptions at Berenike. He photographed them and assumed for sure that they had already been published, only to discover that was not the case!
So excited to dive into this new book, now out online @academic.oup.com. Congrats to Jesse, a close friend and excellent scholar! #ancientbluesky 🏺
Close-up of a stone altar featuring the bust of Luna with a serene facial expression, and draped cloak. Perforated crescent moon above her head.
Close-up of a stone altar featuring the bust of Sol with long curly hair, serene expression, and draped cloak. Perforated radiant above his head. The upper part of the altar is missing.
Two perforated altar reliefs from the Mithraeum at Mundelsheim. One depicts Sol, the sun god, with the radiant. the other shows Luna, the goddess of the moon, with the crescent.
In Roman times, they were illuminated from behind, creating a striking play of light and shadow that must ...🧵1/2
Based on this review, we are beginning the process to combine seven academic departments into two new academic departments. The Department of European and Eurasian Studies will be a single department created from: Department of French and Italian Department of Germanic Studies Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies The Department of Social and Cultural Analysis will be a single department created from: Department of African and African Diaspora Studies Department of American Studies Department of Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Reorganizing the College of Liberal Arts at UT Austin. Announced today by the president.,
A CTA train going through a futuristic tunnel at IIT (Chicago)
Trainspotting
In mid-2023 I was invited to speak about the 3rd Century Crisis at a conference in Copenhagen. By the time I was writing the paper later that year, the irony of writing about ancient crises from a position of safety in a world full of real violence (in the very same places) was almost too much.
Literally my first thought as well
Thanks!
Princeton University Press at the the Archaeological Institute of America and Society for Classical Studies meeting 2026, booth 113, classics titles
Today is our last day at the @archaeological.org & @scsclassics.bsky.social meeting, but you still have time to stop by our booth (113)! Not only do we have fascinating new classics titles, but we’re also giving out code EXH30 for 30% off (in the US & Canada) through 1/31! #AIA2026 #SCS2026
It is indeed on the banner 😊 bsky.app/profile/prin...
On the left, a photo of the Belitung shipwreck's archaeological tagging underwater. On the right, a panel description: Offsite Session: Circulations in Premodern Maritime and Silk Road Inter-Asia—Perspectives from the Field Museum, AHA Session 82, Friday, January 9, 2026: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM (Field Museum, 1400 S. Dusable Lake Shore Drive). Chair: Paula R. Curtis, University of California, Los Angeles; Participants:Gary Feinman, Field Museum of Natural History, Lisa C. Niziolek, Field Museum of Natural History. This session will take place offsite at the Field Museum of Natural History; location details will be announced online. The session will be accompanied by a special display of artifacts from the Java Sea Shipwreck collection. Papers: Journeys Along the Silk Route: Chinese Bronze Mirrors in the Java Sea (Bihter Esener, Northwestern University); Port Cities of the Maritime Trade Routes in Southeast Asia: Material Exchanges and Consumption (Derek Heng, Northern Arizona University); Counting Cargo: Indian Ocean Numeric Inscriptions from the Java Sea Shipwreck (Amanda Respess, Ohio State University at Marion) Comment: Jonathan Brack, Northwestern University
Hey historians, if you're sick of AI and digital slop then come to our Jan 9th #AHA2026 panel at the Field Museum to explore artifacts of the Java Sea Shipwreck collection! 🌊 12th-13th cen recovered objects will be on special display for the session. aha.confex.com/aha/2026/web... @historians.org
Thanks!
Thanks! Here's hoping the contents live up to such judgements
Cover for a book entitled "Sea of Treasures: A Cultural History of Indian Ocean Trade" by Jeremy A. Simmons (Princeton University Press). The title of the book is set in front of excerpted folios from the sixteenth-century Miller Atlas depicting the Indian Ocean. Ships sail upon a sea that is bursting with vibrantly colored stones. Terrestrial spaces have wild beasts and castles. The map is labeled with rhumb lines, banners, and tabulae ansatae.
People keep writing me that the cover for my book (out later this year) is on the @princetonupress.bsky.social booth's banner at the AIA/SCS, so I thought I'd share it here! Just overjoyed and so grateful to the PUP team for bringing it to life
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
Studying history and reading novels both get us out of our own heads, the first by helping us to imagine different worlds, and the second by prompting us to inhabit different subjectivities.
Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.
Agreed! I imagine there’s a lot to say especially in the context of the late British Empire (especially the Raj and other territories in the IO). A colleague of mine at Chicago is thinking a lot about the construction of the Suez Canal and the historical thinking it inspires, which seems related
I recently peer-reviewed an article that discussed the 17th/18th c. context (not out yet). But there’s definitely something unique to the thinking in 19th/20th c.—e.g., Wheeler’s “Indo-European” framing or Bryce’s “The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire in India”—that elicit the comparison
V good q! First thought: it’s often noted in passing, but not really explored as an explicit historiographical development. Most scholars position it within broader trends in intellectual history (e.g., how it plays in Gibbon or Montesquieu) or specific contentions in Roman/Indian economic history
The search for the next director of the Classical Summer School at the AAR, to start in 2027-28, is now open.
Be my successor!
www.aarome.org/about/open-p...
Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!
Info-Kachel zum Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (JdI) 140/2025. Der obere Teil ist blau hinterlegt und zeigt den Titel "Indians in Roman Berenike" und einer Autorenliste: Steven E. Sidebotham, Rodney Ast, Marianne Bergmann, Shailendra Bhandare, Joanna K Rądkowska, Ingo Strauch, Szymon Popławski, Mariana Castro. Die untere Hälfte zeigt die Nahaufnahme einer antiken Marmorstatue des Buddha mit markanten Locken und einem runden Strahlennimbus hinter dem Kopf. Im Vordergrund steht in gelber Schrift "140 | 2025".
Info-Kachel mit dem Abstract eines wissenschaftlichen Aufsatzes von Steven E. Sidebotham et al. für das Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (JdI) 140/2025. Auf der linken, blauen Seite steht der englische Text über indische Funde im ägyptischen Hafen Berenike, darunter ein Terrakotta-Soldat und Buddha-Statuetten. Die rechte Seite zeigt im Profil die Marmorbüste eines Buddhas mit gelocktem Haar vor hellem Hintergrund. Am unteren Rand stehen die gelbe Ziffer "140 | 2025" sowie Grefien-Logo des DAI.
Info-Kachel zum Jahrbuchs des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (JdI) für den Band 140/2025. Oben links stehen JdI-Logo und Name des Instituts auf blauem Grund. Unten rechts befindet sich auf hellem Grund die Überschrift "HOW TO SUBMIT" über einem QR-Code, einem Link zur Website und einem Greifen-Logo. Im gesamten Hintergrund die stark vergrößerte Detailaufnahme von Kopf und Gesicht einer hellen Steinskulptur.
📖 Feiertags-Lesetipp: Jahrbuch des DAI
Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden.
👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi
today is all about watching people come up with entirely new ways of being wrong
like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies
nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies
epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations
Here’s a link to the objects on display www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/... #ancientbluesky 🏺
Opening of the “Divine Egypt” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition title is in large brown letters on an orange background. In the foreground is a diorite statue: Statue of Amun-Re protecting King Tutankhamun, ca. 1336‒1327 BCE (Louvre)
Statue of Henat presenting an image of the temple of Neit at Sais, Late Period (Florence)
Statuette of Bastet holding a figure of Nefertum, 525–30 BCE (Met)
Group statue with a Bes-image plucking a lyre, 664–30 BCE (Met)
Managed to stop by the Met’s “Divine Egypt” exhibit. Some of my favorites were on the later side!
