Robert Mason | Lightnews

Dr. Robert Barry Mason

@robertmason.bsky.social

1.9K followers 1.6K following 700 posts

Archaeology, museums, science, & my garden. I also write fantasy stories (in an effort to keep the fantasy out of my archaeology). Tolkien & Pratchett nerd. 🌱🏹🏺🗡️📚📖⛏️✍️🚀🪐⚒️

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Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Nov 18

1/🧵 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.

Here I am excavating in Southampton in 1981, photo by a Southern Evening Echo photographer. Shorts like that were less of a statement in 1981. I think I got the hat at the Glastonbury rock festival.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 13d

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.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 13d

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!

Italy WWI Group of British Sailors at the Vatican

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 15d

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 Nördlingen. However, this German city was built in a meteor crater, not by alien technology! 📚🪐 #BookSky

medium.com/the-kraken-l...

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 16d

I thought I had better get a pic of these fuchsias before the frost hits tonight! 🌱 #FlowerReport

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 17d

Nice use of satellite imagery to reveal the destruction of cultural heritage.

www.cnn.com/2025/10/23/u...

See the White House’s East Wing demolition from satellite images | CNN

Satellite images show how dramatically President Donald Trump’s plans to build a new ballroom have affected the historic structure.

www.cnn.com

Reposted by Robert Mason

Historic Southampton @historicalsoton.bsky.social · 17d

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: “I think Mr Hitler had got on my nerves a bit during the day. I had certainly had a few.”

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 18d

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. 🏺 #MedievalSky

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 21d

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...

The Emissary

Would you want to save the world?

medium.com

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 21d

They are probably starting to panic. The mid-terms may become a bloodbath for the Republicans.

Fingers crossed.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 22d

People that want to make everything grey need help.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 22d

If you saw this chap, and you knew he had a story, would you be interested in knowing what that story was?

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 26d

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.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 26d

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

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 28d

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...

The Hungry Queen

A Failure in Royal Courtesy

thekrakenlore.com

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 15

Perhaps they have a better education system? Interestingly I did not see a single Scottish flag there in the published images.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 15

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.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 15

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.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 14

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.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 11

Getting some very nice aubergines or eggplants this year! 🌱

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 11

It is deeply disturbing to have *anyone* deriding the concept of empathy, but when these people call themselves Christians it's sickening.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 11

Well those Dark Age folks had to get their swords from somewhere...

Reposted by Robert Mason, Keith Lilley

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · Sep 11

NEW Britain's economy did not collapse after the #Romans left

A new, unbroken timeline of British metal production from the 5th century AD to the present day questions the idea of a post-Roman 'Dark Age'.

Strap in for an industrious #AntiquityThread 1/12 🧵

🏺 #Archaeology

Two archaeologists excavating in a trench.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 10

She came across as being a silly undergrad in the trailer. Not like this woman at all.

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 10

Let's hear it for masons!

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · Sep 10

Yes. I haven't seen "The Dig" I think partly because the trailer makes it look like a romance, and partly because it makes Stuart Pigott look so much older than his wife at the time. I looked it up, he was two years older, the actors have a 20-year difference.