Alison Fisk
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alisonfisk.bsky.social
Alison Fisk
@alisonfisk.bsky.social
12K followers 3.6K following 1.6K posts
Recent Masters degree in Archaeological Practice at Birkbeck, University of London.
Here to share my love of archaeology.
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Reposted by Alison Fisk
alisonfisk.bsky.social
Delightful detail from the Roman “unswept floor” mosaic by Heraclitus, showing a mouse nibbling a walnut.

Superb use of darker tiles for subtle shadow effect!

2nd century AD. Vatican Museums www.museivaticani.va/content/muse...

#MosaicMonday
#Archaeology
The image shows detail from a floor mosaic of a brown mouse on a pale background facing left with its nose close to half a walnut in its shell. The mouse has a long thin tail stretched out behind. The mosaicist has used a mix of lighter and darker brown tiles for the mouse’s body to hint at fur. The walnut is created with warmer light and dark brown tiles. Slightly darker background tiles have been used beneath the mouse and walnut to create subtle shadows
November 10, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
ukleguin.bsky.social
They even made a shadow of the tail! I mean really. I hope they gave the workers a bonus. Assuming they weren’t slaves……
alisonfisk.bsky.social Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 17h
Delightful detail from the Roman “unswept floor” mosaic by Heraclitus, showing a mouse nibbling a walnut.

Superb use of darker tiles for subtle shadow effect!

2nd century AD. Vatican Museums www.museivaticani.va/content/muse...

#MosaicMonday
#Archaeology
The image shows detail from a floor mosaic of a brown mouse on a pale background facing left with its nose close to half a walnut in its shell. The mouse has a long thin tail stretched out behind. The mosaicist has used a mix of lighter and darker brown tiles for the mouse’s body to hint at fur. The walnut is created with warmer light and dark brown tiles. Slightly darker background tiles have been used beneath the mouse and walnut to create subtle shadows
November 10, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
tessmachling.bsky.social
Hello folks. I've been making plaster of paris artefacts/decorations for friends.

I'm opening it up here now - all items incl. postage (UK only, sadly) & gift packaging. I can send things within a week, usually faster.

Anyway, if there's anything you fancy, message/email me! 😊

#Archaeology 🏺
Price list for arrow heads, axes and torc terminal Price list for axe, shields and brooch decorations.
November 10, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
yorkarchaeology.bsky.social
A spectacular, nationally significant Bronze Age find has gone on permanent display at Craven Museum. We caught up with Senior Conservator Morgan Creed, who worked on the object, to find out more.🔍

youtu.be/hUq7gpIekxw

#Archaeology #Archaeologists #Conservation #History
Conserving a Gold Lunula
YouTube video by York Archaeology
youtu.be
November 10, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
uonclassarch.bsky.social
Don’t miss Prof Alex Mullen’s free webinar on November 26th at 7pm!

She’ll be presenting the Joan Pye lecture on ‘Tales from the Tablets: recovering the voices of Roman Britain’.

#archaeology #classics #roman 🏺

Book your tickets here: tinyurl.com/Romanvoices
Poster for a free webinar - the Joan Pye annual lecture to be presented by Alex Mullen. November 26th, 7pm. Hosted by Cotswold archaeology and the Roman Research Trust. The image is of lots of people in togas in a market place.
November 10, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
archaeohawke.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday

A mosaic floor of Bellerophon and Chimaira, Archaeological Museum of Rhodes, in the Medieval City of Rhodes, ca. 300-270 B.C.

#Art #Myth #Archaeology
November 10, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
drnwillburger.bsky.social
For #MosaicMonday a charming duck.
Found in Trier, dating 4th century AD

📷 me

On display at Museum am Dom, Trier

🏺 #archaeology
A mosaic depicting a duck
November 10, 2025 at 1:14 PM
alisonfisk.bsky.social
Delightful detail from the Roman “unswept floor” mosaic by Heraclitus, showing a mouse nibbling a walnut.

Superb use of darker tiles for subtle shadow effect!

2nd century AD. Vatican Museums www.museivaticani.va/content/muse...

#MosaicMonday
#Archaeology
The image shows detail from a floor mosaic of a brown mouse on a pale background facing left with its nose close to half a walnut in its shell. The mouse has a long thin tail stretched out behind. The mosaicist has used a mix of lighter and darker brown tiles for the mouse’s body to hint at fur. The walnut is created with warmer light and dark brown tiles. Slightly darker background tiles have been used beneath the mouse and walnut to create subtle shadows
November 10, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
wittspat.bsky.social
There's been a request for elephants in mosaic, and we always like to oblige! To start with, here is the splendid beast from the Horkstow Orpheus mosaic. 1/2
#MosaicMonday
#AncientBlueSky 🏺
@classicalalan.bsky.social
Part of a coloured engraving of a Roman mosaic showing a radial design with the 'spokes' drawn in simple guilloche. In the main compartment in this photo, a dark-coloured elephant is shown in profile walking to the right. The animal is depicted against the backdrop of a tree. In the smaller compartment above are two birds in profile, facing one another but with their heads turned away to look behind them. Between them is a triangular object with a vertical line above it, probably a stylised bunch of grapes on a stem.
November 10, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
durotrigesdig.bsky.social
A rather angry sea gryphon chases a cheeky dolphin across a 2nd century #Roman mosaic

Found at #Cirencester in 1849, the entirety of this decorated floor (featuring hunting dogs) can now be seen in the excellent @coriniummuseum.bsky.social

📷 Aug 2022

Don't play with your food this #MosaicMonday !
Detail from a Roman mosaic floor depicting a sea gryphon with claws outstretched chasing a dolphin
November 10, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
kpw1453.bsky.social
The central panel from the ‘Geometric Mosaic’ which decorated one of the rooms at Rudston Roman Villa in East Yorkshire. The mosaic is now part of the collections at the Hull and East Riding Museum. 📸 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain #RudstonRomanVilla
November 10, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
alisonfisk.bsky.social
Happy Sunday! 🦛 💙

Adorable ancient Egyptian blue faience hippos made by artisans some 4,000 years ago!

📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo collage shows four hippo statuettes made of Egytian blue faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz. Their bright-blue shiny bodies are decorated in black with depictions of Nile river plants such as water weed and lotus flowers. This decoration depicts their marsh habitat as well as having various layers of symbolism associated with regeneration. For example lotus flowers open in the morning and close at night, symbolising rebirth. Blue faience hippos have been found in Middle Kingdom tombs of high ranking officials. It’s thought they were placed in the tombs to aid the rebirth of the deceased. Hippo top left - Walking hippo shown in profile facing right. Height 11.5 cm, Length 21 cm. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Top right - Roaring hippo (looks like the hippo is smiling), seated, with head at left and turned inwards to front. Height 7.5 cm, length 12.5 cm. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. Bottom left - Standing hippo in profile facing right. This hippo is part of the Met Museum’s collections and is popularly known as ‘William’. Height 11.2 cm, Length 20 cm Bottom Right - Reclining hippo with head on the right, facing front, and tilted down. Egyptian Museum, Cairo
November 9, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
janice40.bsky.social
Here’s my “set” picked up at an estate sale a couple of years ago. That’s William & friends, most likely from the Met. Garish blue, though.
November 9, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
welwynarchsoc.bsky.social
Ahhh the memories! Here is me giving a guided tour of Phil Barker's excavations when I was 18 in 1983. #Wroxeter #Shropshire #RomanArchaeology #excavation
A young archaeologist in a blue hat carrying a ranging rod is talk to a group of visitors on the right edge of the photograph. Behind him on the left edge is the Old Work, a large piece of surviving Roman wall. In the foreground bottom left is a bearded man with a "killer spray" on his back dampening down some of the features.
November 9, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
sarahebond.bsky.social
Still the best sticker ever. By @artofmarza.bsky.social
Saint Augustine with hippo sticker
November 9, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
kpw1453.bsky.social
A lone standing stone at Milton of Clava - a Bronze Age cemetery close to the more famous Clava Cairns in the Scottish Highlands. The stone may have been part of a larger stone circle. 📸 My own. #StandingStoneSunday #ClavaCairns #Archaeology #Prehistory
November 9, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
chapps.bsky.social
An idea for your Christmas tree this year - stacks of Celtic gold torcs! Known as the Ipswitch Torcs after the location where their hoard was found, the terminals are decorated in the swirly La Tène style (Tène II), save the top one which is unadorned. 🎄🏺 1/

150-50 BCE. 📸 me
#BritishMuseum
A stack of five gold torcs against a green background. All were made from two twisted solid bars, with loop terminals cast on. Four (1969,0103.2-5) have cast terminals ornamented in high relief with Tène II style curvilinear motifs of bosses and scrolls, within a border of two corded bands lying slightly apart; they can be paired but their patterns are not identical. The fifth - at top (1969,0103.1) - has plain terminals. These torcs were probably deposited together as a hoard around 75 BCE.
November 8, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
drnwillburger.bsky.social
For #AncientSiteSunday the #Hellenistic theatre at Pergamon, #Türkiye, built in the 3rd century BC, alterations were made in the #Roman period. It's one of the steepest known ancient theatres. The capacity was about 10,000 spectators.

📷 C. Bredfeldt

🏺 AncientBluesky #archaeology
A full shot of the ruins of an ancient theatre, located on a hillside. The theatre's steep tiered seating structure is clearly visible, constructed of light gray stone blocks, weathering evident in various tones. The hillside surrounding the theatre s covered with grass, creating a contrast between the man-made stone structures and the natural landscape. Sections of crumbling stone walls and foundations are scattered throughout the grassy slopes.
November 9, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
antiquity.ac.uk
Read the original research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
15/15
🧵
Title, authors and abstract of the article.
November 7, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
antiquity.ac.uk
NEW Were the Picts of northern Scotland wiped out by Viking conquest? New radiocarbon dates from the 1st millennium AD settlement of Buckquoy, Orkney paint a more complex picture of cultural interaction in the Northern Isles.

#AntiquityThread 1/15 🧵

@northernpicts.bsky.social🏺 #Archaeology
Double-sided comb made from bone.
November 7, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
maykenalanna.bsky.social
Here's mine from my last visit in September 2024. I think my daughter snapped a picture for me when she returned earlier this year but it probably stayed on her phone.
Two blue hippos in a display case, one behind the other, the bigger one is closer to the photographer. They are decorated with designs in dark lines on their bodies.
November 9, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
legaltreble.bsky.social
My William usually hangs out on the mantle with an ebony wood hippo from Kenya.
A blue plastic hippo that separates into two magnetic halves. Modeled after ‘William’ and purchased from the gift shop at the Met Museum New York.
November 9, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
jimcleary.bsky.social
Here’s my fridge magnet - he seems to be closely modelled on William!
November 9, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
thehybris.bsky.social
I saw one recently in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna! 😊
Little statue of an Egyptian hippo with plants drawn on their body.
November 9, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Alison Fisk
lilithepunk.bsky.social
Today I am bottom right.
alisonfisk.bsky.social Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 1d
Happy Sunday! 🦛 💙

Adorable ancient Egyptian blue faience hippos made by artisans some 4,000 years ago!

📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo collage shows four hippo statuettes made of Egytian blue faience, a ceramic material made of ground quartz. Their bright-blue shiny bodies are decorated in black with depictions of Nile river plants such as water weed and lotus flowers. This decoration depicts their marsh habitat as well as having various layers of symbolism associated with regeneration. For example lotus flowers open in the morning and close at night, symbolising rebirth. Blue faience hippos have been found in Middle Kingdom tombs of high ranking officials. It’s thought they were placed in the tombs to aid the rebirth of the deceased. Hippo top left - Walking hippo shown in profile facing right. Height 11.5 cm, Length 21 cm. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Top right - Roaring hippo (looks like the hippo is smiling), seated, with head at left and turned inwards to front. Height 7.5 cm, length 12.5 cm. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. Bottom left - Standing hippo in profile facing right. This hippo is part of the Met Museum’s collections and is popularly known as ‘William’. Height 11.2 cm, Length 20 cm Bottom Right - Reclining hippo with head on the right, facing front, and tilted down. Egyptian Museum, Cairo
November 9, 2025 at 12:43 PM