Dr. Robert Barry Mason
@robertmason.bsky.social
Archaeology, museums, science, & my garden. I also write fantasy stories (in an effort to keep the fantasy out of my archaeology). Tolkien & Pratchett nerd. π±πΉπΊπ‘οΈππβοΈβοΈππͺβοΈ
Business
35%
Political science
18%
Pinned
1/𧡠I am an archaeologist, have been since I was a teenager working for the unit in my hometown of Southampton who then gave me a job for a few years. Eventually I got a D.Phil from Oxford (1994) and jobs at the Royal Ontario Museum & University of Toronto.
Trying to pin down this North Elmham pottery at the ROM. This group is mostly Thetford Ware, 3 Ipswich Wares, & 3 St. Neot's ware. The latter has shell (you can see it in this photo). Ipswich ware is supposedly grittier than Thetford Ware. Time to break out the microscope.
#MedievalSky #Archaeology
#MedievalSky #Archaeology
Tricky working out the numbers on the North Elmham pottery sometimes. I think this is NEP 67 102. I assume 102 is what they call a feature in the publication, what we called a context number in my day (70's-80's). Unfortunately this number is not in the publication!
πΊ #MedievalSky #Archaeology
πΊ #MedievalSky #Archaeology
Working on the North Elmham medieval pottery from England at the ROM and found this guy. Seems a merry sort. πΊ
#MedievalSky #Archaeology
#MedievalSky #Archaeology
Reclaim our heritage? Is he talking about Windscale? The nuclear industry gives scientists a bad name.
This really is not natural. The trees know when the winter is coming, they drop their leaves before the first snows. Usually there is enough time to clear the leaves before the snows come. Things are messed up.
I think I'm fatigued and leaning about myself. This was right after a field season in Syria!
MEN! Have you thought about the Roman Empire today? πΊ
My pic of 2005.
My pic of 2005.
I follow someone that posts historical photos and stories about my hometown, Southampton in England. Recently, he posted a story about a man that was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in 1939, just before WW2. In his defence he had said that Mr. Hitler had been "on his nerves" of late.
So many moustaches...I'm surprised that there aren't more beards. Apart from the influence of the King, surely some of these men were ex-Navy? But then I googled for sailors in 1914 and got no beards again!
I have just written a science-fiction story in which the main character has the ability to create circular kilometer-wide "cities". Today I discovered NΓΆrdlingen. However, this German city was built in a meteor crater, not by alien technology! ππͺ #BookSky
medium.com/the-kraken-l...
medium.com/the-kraken-l...
I thought I had better get a pic of these fuchsias before the frost hits tonight! π± #FlowerReport
See the White Houseβs East Wing demolition from satellite images | CNN
Satellite images show how dramatically President Donald Trumpβs plans to build a new ballroom have affected the historic structure.
www.cnn.com
Nice use of satellite imagery to reveal the destruction of cultural heritage.
www.cnn.com/2025/10/23/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/10/23/u...
Reposted by Robert Mason
I think we can all sympathise with Douglas Walker, a 44-year-old fruit salesman of no fixed abode, who was charged with being drunk on Havelock Road on 26 August 1939. Two days later he pleaded guilty and said: βI think Mr Hitler had got on my nerves a bit during the day. I had certainly had a few.β
Looking up the precise location of the site producing the Anglo-Saxon pottery I have been asked to look at in the ROM. North Elmham was apparently the seat of a bishopric until 1071, and the excavations were to the southwest of the now ruined cathedral. πΊ #MedievalSky
The Emissary
Would you want to save the world?
medium.com
I wrote this story for a prompt by The Kraken Lore on Medium. It is the kind of fantasy that helps me sleep at night.
In a good way!
medium.com/the-kraken-l...
In a good way!
medium.com/the-kraken-l...
They are probably starting to panic. The mid-terms may become a bloodbath for the Republicans.
Fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed.
People that want to make everything grey need help.
If you saw this chap, and you knew he had a story, would you be interested in knowing what that story was?
I was traumatised there by the Welsh National Opera's "Madame Butterfly" in which the petite Japanese wife was played by an enormous woman, and the strapping American captain was played by a ginger-haired chap who looked about 4'6" tall. Took me over 30 years before I could try opera again.
44 years after I last excavated in Anglo-Saxon Southampton (fondly known as "Hamwee,"or actually Hamwih, to its excavators), I have been asked to catalogue some English early mediaeval pottery. A reward for a career studying the vibrantly colourful pottery of the medieval Middle East! #MedievalSky
The Hungry Queen
A Failure in Royal Courtesy
thekrakenlore.com
I have a new short-story published by the Krakenlore on Medium today. It is a pleasant little read, I would say.
thekrakenlore.com/the-hungry-q...
thekrakenlore.com/the-hungry-q...
Perhaps they have a better education system? Interestingly I did not see a single Scottish flag there in the published images.
Really, England is an immigrant concept, a thin veneer of a language over a population which is genetically mostly what has been on the island since the Bronze Age. If they were true nationalists they would be all speaking Brythonic or Gaelic.
The Union Jack is a combination of the crosses of St. George, a Palestinian; St. Andrew, who was an Apostle from Galilee; and St. Patrick, who was British, but is famous for work in Ireland where he was initially a hated immigrant. They would not approve.
For all the people out there waving the Cross of St. George, you should know that St. George of Lydda was a Palestinian, and is widely revered in the Middle East by all faiths.
Getting some very nice aubergines or eggplants this year! π±
It is deeply disturbing to have *anyone* deriding the concept of empathy, but when these people call themselves Christians it's sickening.