Andrew Curry
@andrewcurry.com
Journalist covering archaeology, science, culture, politics, business, and cycling. When not on my bike, I'm found most often in Science, National Geographic & Archaeology. WahlBerliner, on Signal at andrewcurry.01 More at andrewcurry.com
"Ritual"
January 5, 2026 at 8:38 AM
"Ritual"
Reposted by Andrew Curry
You want an Iron Age cartoon about cooperation and environment? Heh. You've come to me on a good day. I so happen to have a link here to watch Cartoon Saloon's new short, Eiru.
Free.
But the link will only last for 3 days,so hurry!
watch.animationshowcase.com/landing/Eiru...
Free.
But the link will only last for 3 days,so hurry!
watch.animationshowcase.com/landing/Eiru...
On-Demand Viewing Portal
watch.animationshowcase.com
January 4, 2026 at 5:42 PM
You want an Iron Age cartoon about cooperation and environment? Heh. You've come to me on a good day. I so happen to have a link here to watch Cartoon Saloon's new short, Eiru.
Free.
But the link will only last for 3 days,so hurry!
watch.animationshowcase.com/landing/Eiru...
Free.
But the link will only last for 3 days,so hurry!
watch.animationshowcase.com/landing/Eiru...
This year I read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, all 20 books full of British naval intrigue and adventure and odd foods. (Spotted dog, anyone?) I finished yesterday. Retreating into the early 19th century helped me avoid doomscrolling my way through 2026. Strongly recommend. #aubreymaturin
December 31, 2025 at 11:58 AM
This year I read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, all 20 books full of British naval intrigue and adventure and odd foods. (Spotted dog, anyone?) I finished yesterday. Retreating into the early 19th century helped me avoid doomscrolling my way through 2026. Strongly recommend. #aubreymaturin
Niche #cycling content: It's been quite icy in Berlin the last two days and I am tapping out of the #festive500. The math doesn't work without some monster rides in the next few days, and it's not worth the risk of starting the year with a broken wrist. There will be other years to try.
December 28, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Niche #cycling content: It's been quite icy in Berlin the last two days and I am tapping out of the #festive500. The math doesn't work without some monster rides in the next few days, and it's not worth the risk of starting the year with a broken wrist. There will be other years to try.
Watched "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" last night for the first time in many years and it was immediately obvious it was shot in Germany (Munich, it turns out) – they don't even bother to take the @spiegel.de off the newsstand in the opening scenes. I never noticed before.
December 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Watched "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" last night for the first time in many years and it was immediately obvious it was shot in Germany (Munich, it turns out) – they don't even bother to take the @spiegel.de off the newsstand in the opening scenes. I never noticed before.
Crunch time: I have just hours left to remember if I bought presents months ago and hid them somewhere I have now forgotten, and then find those possible presents.
December 23, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Crunch time: I have just hours left to remember if I bought presents months ago and hid them somewhere I have now forgotten, and then find those possible presents.
Reposted by Andrew Curry
The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
December 23, 2025 at 9:49 AM
The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
Reposted by Andrew Curry
And this is exactly the reason why there should be a professional ethics framework agreed with urgency for #gen-AI, in particular photo-realistic stuff : archaeologists and heritage orgs who use it for general outreach & #SciComm are contributing to this problem.
I’m increasingly uneasy about the flood of AI images on social media. They are mostly absurd and frustrating. They may sometimes be creative experiments, but the fact that so many users take them at face value says a lot about our collective loss of visual literacy.
www.facebook.com/groups/ancie...
www.facebook.com/groups/ancie...
December 19, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Andrew Curry
And now, the #Pope, in an apostolic letter on … the importance of #archaeology:
"It teaches us to respect matter, memory & history. Archaeologists do not throw things away, they preserve them. They do not consume, but contemplate. They do not destroy, but decipher."
www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
"It teaches us to respect matter, memory & history. Archaeologists do not throw things away, they preserve them. They do not consume, but contemplate. They do not destroy, but decipher."
www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
Apostolic Letter of the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV on the importance of Archaeology on the occasion of the Centenary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology (11 December 2025)
APOSTOLIC LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER POPE LEO XIV ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY ON THE OCCASION OF THE CENTENARY OF THE PONTIFICAL INSTITUTE OF CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
www.vatican.va
December 21, 2025 at 8:53 AM
And now, the #Pope, in an apostolic letter on … the importance of #archaeology:
"It teaches us to respect matter, memory & history. Archaeologists do not throw things away, they preserve them. They do not consume, but contemplate. They do not destroy, but decipher."
www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
"It teaches us to respect matter, memory & history. Archaeologists do not throw things away, they preserve them. They do not consume, but contemplate. They do not destroy, but decipher."
www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
Reposted by Andrew Curry
Really good piece on the real world challenges of restitutions and a new museum in Benin City
Violent protests marred the opening of the first exhibition at Museum of West African Art in Benin City last month. Hopes for the institution have been high, but too many people seem to have ignored the warning signs that have been there all along, writes @barnabyphillips.bsky.social
What has gone wrong at the Museum of West African Art?
With protests marring the opening of the first exhibition at the new museum in Benin City, Barnaby Phillips asks what went wrong
buff.ly
December 21, 2025 at 6:40 AM
Really good piece on the real world challenges of restitutions and a new museum in Benin City
Christmas reminder: In Berlin most bookstores can get your book order in by 11 am the next day -- they're almost as fast as pharmacies. I order at hundthammerstein.de whenever I can.
December 17, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Christmas reminder: In Berlin most bookstores can get your book order in by 11 am the next day -- they're almost as fast as pharmacies. I order at hundthammerstein.de whenever I can.
Reposted by Andrew Curry
Eins der gruseligsten Massaker der LBK Zeit 5.000 BCE war in unserem Nachbarort Herxheim, hier im Artikel mit Bildern erwähnt. In Herxheim gibt es dazu eine interessante Ausstellung.
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished
Wave of mass brutality accompanied the collapse of the first pan-European culture
www.science.org
November 27, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Eins der gruseligsten Massaker der LBK Zeit 5.000 BCE war in unserem Nachbarort Herxheim, hier im Artikel mit Bildern erwähnt. In Herxheim gibt es dazu eine interessante Ausstellung.
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
The author's been at @newyorker.com for 32 years, so he can probably do whatever he wants at this point. Still, it seems weird to me to go to work high, write about it, and admit it made you unable to do your job properly a few paragraphs later. Does that make me terribly conservative?
December 15, 2025 at 4:06 PM
The author's been at @newyorker.com for 32 years, so he can probably do whatever he wants at this point. Still, it seems weird to me to go to work high, write about it, and admit it made you unable to do your job properly a few paragraphs later. Does that make me terribly conservative?
Reposted by Andrew Curry
one of my longstanding takes is that car manufacturers should be forced to install mandatory speed limiters in every new vehicle and people react to that like I'm advocating to strip them of their right to free speech
December 12, 2025 at 4:40 PM
one of my longstanding takes is that car manufacturers should be forced to install mandatory speed limiters in every new vehicle and people react to that like I'm advocating to strip them of their right to free speech
Reposted by Andrew Curry
“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” — Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)
December 13, 2025 at 12:55 AM
“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” — Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)
Reposted by Andrew Curry
I was just chatting with an extremely intelligent and educated master's student who admitted he had no idea how insects reproduced or if jellyfish were considered animals. And it was a good reminder for me that huge segments of the population do not know all the things, but they want to. 🧪
December 12, 2025 at 7:48 PM
I was just chatting with an extremely intelligent and educated master's student who admitted he had no idea how insects reproduced or if jellyfish were considered animals. And it was a good reminder for me that huge segments of the population do not know all the things, but they want to. 🧪
Reposted by Andrew Curry
🏺 Top tip for British Museum visitors: go across the court, up rotunda stairs, cross bridge into upper floor, head past crowds aiming for Egypt and Mesopotamia, and go straight to Rooms 50 and 51 where the most stunning array of glories from later prehistory await you!
December 10, 2025 at 11:22 AM
🏺 Top tip for British Museum visitors: go across the court, up rotunda stairs, cross bridge into upper floor, head past crowds aiming for Egypt and Mesopotamia, and go straight to Rooms 50 and 51 where the most stunning array of glories from later prehistory await you!
Reposted by Andrew Curry
Made a site comparing the sizes of living things :)
The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used
> neal.fun/size-of-life/
The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used
> neal.fun/size-of-life/
December 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Made a site comparing the sizes of living things :)
The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used
> neal.fun/size-of-life/
The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used
> neal.fun/size-of-life/
Reposted by Andrew Curry
A member of parliament from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) was sure his presentation to the State Department would be canceled after news broke of a Nazi-linked serenade.
Then he got a phone call from a senior State Dept. staffer...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
Then he got a phone call from a senior State Dept. staffer...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
Germany’s anti-immigrant AfD party finds open door in Trump’s America
Some German lawmakers want to ban Alternative for Germany, but the party has been embraced in Washington, and some of its leaders see Trump’s path to power as a road map.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 11, 2025 at 12:15 PM
A member of parliament from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) was sure his presentation to the State Department would be canceled after news broke of a Nazi-linked serenade.
Then he got a phone call from a senior State Dept. staffer...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
Then he got a phone call from a senior State Dept. staffer...
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
Reposted by Andrew Curry
Wow! 🔥 New milestone in human evolutionary studies! New clear evidence of deliberate fire-making (and not just fire use) some 400,000 years ago, at a site in ancient Britain!
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
Earliest evidence of making fire
Nature - Baked sediment, heat-shattered artefacts and introduced pyrite in a 400,000-year-old Palaeolithic occupation site in Suffolk, UK provide evidence of intentional fire-making, marking a...
www.nature.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Wow! 🔥 New milestone in human evolutionary studies! New clear evidence of deliberate fire-making (and not just fire use) some 400,000 years ago, at a site in ancient Britain!
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
#fire 🦣🧪🏺
A mom in the parent chat broke out the "my Ukrainian friend's 9-year-old has to study with a flashlight, sleeps in a bomb shelter, and goes to school every day in an airless basement, our kids can probably handle 3 quizzes in 2 days" and that shut things down pretty quick.
December 10, 2025 at 6:43 PM
A mom in the parent chat broke out the "my Ukrainian friend's 9-year-old has to study with a flashlight, sleeps in a bomb shelter, and goes to school every day in an airless basement, our kids can probably handle 3 quizzes in 2 days" and that shut things down pretty quick.
"It's like Lotto, you have to be in it to win it."
Writers and editors, don't forget to nominate work for The Best American Science and Nature Writing! Deadline is 12/20 (for anything published by then). Info and submission form here: jaimegreen.net/basn
The Best American Science and Nature Writing — Jaime Green
jaimegreen.net
December 10, 2025 at 5:24 PM
"It's like Lotto, you have to be in it to win it."
Fun fact: In German X-ray images are called "Röntgen pictures" (Röntgenbilder) after their inventor.
The first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded #OnThisDay in AD 1901 to Wilhelm Röntgen, for his discovery of X-rays. Best-known for their medical applications, X-rays are also valuable for #archaeology. Here's a mini #AntiquityThread on some of their recent uses 1/6 🏺 🧵
December 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Fun fact: In German X-ray images are called "Röntgen pictures" (Röntgenbilder) after their inventor.
What a terrible, weak message from #Merz. "I tell Americans: 'America First' is fine, but 'America Alone' can’t be in your interest. You need partners in the world. One of those partners can be Europe. And when you can't accept Europe as a partner, then at least accept Germany as your partner."
Hier nochmal diese verheerende Aussage von #Merz zu #Europa, #Deutschland und #Trump im Video:
"Ich sage den Amerikanern: America First ist fine, aber America Alone geht nicht. Und wenn ihr mit Europa als Partner nichts anfangen könnt, dann macht wenigstens Deutschland zu eurem Partner. " 🤯
"Ich sage den Amerikanern: America First ist fine, aber America Alone geht nicht. Und wenn ihr mit Europa als Partner nichts anfangen könnt, dann macht wenigstens Deutschland zu eurem Partner. " 🤯
December 10, 2025 at 8:06 AM
What a terrible, weak message from #Merz. "I tell Americans: 'America First' is fine, but 'America Alone' can’t be in your interest. You need partners in the world. One of those partners can be Europe. And when you can't accept Europe as a partner, then at least accept Germany as your partner."