Nina Willburger
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drnwillburger.bsky.social
Nina Willburger
@drnwillburger.bsky.social
18K followers 3.4K following 3.3K posts
Archaeologist | Permanent Representative of the Director, Archäologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg | Adjunct lecturer State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart | Private account, views are mine 🖖
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drnwillburger.bsky.social
Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hello new followers and welcome! My focus is on #archaeology, you can expect posts from me covering a wide range of topics, e.g. objects, exhibitions, and latest discoveries, primarily from the European Paleolithic to the early medieval period.
I may also share posts about nature and Star Trek.

🏺
Reposted by Nina Willburger
drnwillburger.bsky.social
For New Year’s Day a #Roman #glass bottle in the shape of a date: dates, figs, and honey were New Year's gifts in Roman times. According to Ovid, they should make the new year a sweet one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! 🍀

📷 by me, taken in Pompejanum Aschaffenburg
A close-up of a small, brown glass bottle, shaped like a dried date.
January 1, 2026 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
woodiechef.bsky.social
A robin for today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme of #BranchingOut
December 30, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
alisonfisk.bsky.social
For New Year’s Day 2026, a hellenistic glass vase shaped like a pomegranate. 2nd century BC - 1st century AD.

A symbol of abundance and good luck for the year ahead!

📷 Phoenix Art phoenixancientart.com/work-of-art/...

#Archaeology
The image shows a small, rounded, purple glass vessel in the shape of a pomegranate fruit displayed against a light grey background. The display lighting enhances the translucent purple glass which replicates the colour of a ripe fruit. There is some encrustation dotted around the body of the vessel and around the calyx which has one lobe missing. Height 6.9 cm (2.7 in), Diameter 6.6 cm (2.5 in). Probably used as a container for perfumed oil.
January 1, 2026 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
kpw1453.bsky.social
Happy New Year and good fortune to everyone during 2026! Below is a relief of the Roman goddess Fortuna which was found at Castlecary Roman Fort on the Antonine Wall. Now part of the collections at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. 📸 My own. #RomanFortThursday #NewYear
January 1, 2026 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
isabellemarie.bsky.social
Je vous souhaite une bonne année 2026 !
Wishing you a happy New Year 2026 !
Image de Paris avec, au premier plan, les branches d'un arbre et, en arrière plan, la passerelle Debilly et la Tour Eiffel sous un grand soleil. Photo of Paris with, in the foreground, the branches of a tree and, in the background, the Debilly bridge and the Eiffel Tower under a bright sun.
January 1, 2026 at 8:54 AM
drnwillburger.bsky.social
For New Year’s Day a #Roman #glass bottle in the shape of a date: dates, figs, and honey were New Year's gifts in Roman times. According to Ovid, they should make the new year a sweet one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! 🍀

📷 by me, taken in Pompejanum Aschaffenburg
A close-up of a small, brown glass bottle, shaped like a dried date.
January 1, 2026 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
drnwillburger.bsky.social
As 2026 approaches a happy new year's toast to you all with this marvellous 4th century Roman cage-cup, which bears an inscription, a toast that reads:

BIBE MULTIS ANNIS - Drink for many years!

Cheers and here's to a far better year in 2026! 🥂

#NewYear2026 🍀
A close-up of a cage cup. It comprises an inner, translucent glass beaker and an outer decorative shell. The shell, affixed to the beaker via short stems or shanks, features circles at its body and an inscription at its top.
December 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
almbawue.bsky.social
Das Team des Archäologischen Landesmuseums Baden-Württemberg wünscht allen ein glückliches, gesundes und inspirierendes Neues Jahr!

🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀
January 1, 2026 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
isabellemarie.bsky.social
Eva Jospin transforme merveilleusement le Grand Palais en grotte baroque. #Exposition
www.beauxarts.com/expos/eva-jo...
Le Grand Palais transformé en grotte baroque où se déploie le sublime monde en carton d'Eva Jospin
Eva Jospin investit une galerie du Grand Palais d'une quinzaine de ses fantastiques œuvres en carton, entre paysages sculptés et architectures imaginaires.
www.beauxarts.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
kpw1453.bsky.social
Relief with a teaching scene from sacred area of the Via della Foce in Ostia Antica, near Rome. Dating to the late 4th century AD, the relief is on display in the site museum. 📸 My own. #ReliefWednesday #Ostia #Roman #Archaeology
December 31, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
alisonfisk.bsky.social
As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find!

An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea.

✨ Happy New Year all! ✨

National Museum of Denmark
📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo shows a small figurine of an amber bear carved some 10,000 years ago during the Danish Mesolithic period. The bear is seen in profile facing right. The legs are incomplete. The ears, muzzle, and mouth are defined. The figurine is displayed on a small metal stand. The display lighting shines on the bear’s head and neck enhancing the translucence of the orange amber. The neck of the bear has a polished groove indicating it was once suspended on a cord or string. Length 6.5cm. The Fanø bear was found in 1991 on a beach on the west coast of the Danish island of Fanø, located off the south-western coast of Jutland. In the Stone Age the Danish coastline was different from today. “Since then the coastline has been influenced by later changes to the sea level as well as the rising up of the land after the last Ice Age. This rising of the land is still going on today. North of a line on the map the land has risen up and south of the line the coast has become submerged because of the subsequent rise in sea level. Therefore a proportion of Stone Age settlements south of the “tilt line” now lie under water or at the edge of the beach. Thus objects can be washed out in the sea and later be found on the beach”. The Fanø bear is one of a small number of amber bear figurines from the Baltic Sea region which have been assigned to the Mesolithic period by means of a typo-chronological approach Amber has many amazing properties: it’s warm to the touch, it’s a glossy translucent colour when polished, it gives off a fragrant scent when burnt, and when rubbed against fur or hair it can produce static electricity which ‘magically’ emits green sparks in the dark and can make hair stand on end.
December 31, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
wittspat.bsky.social
For #HillfortsWednesday, the gorgeous Rumps on a cold but glorious day. Great inspiration for a name in the nearby Christmas reindeer trail (possibly aimed at younger visitors 😉) but has this reindeer got his facts right ...? 1/2
A coastal scene with two prominent grass-covered lumps known as The Rumps, taken on a sunny day. The sea and sky are blue, and there are light clouds.
December 31, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
durotrigesdig.bsky.social
Happy New Year (and happy #HillfortsWednesday) to you all from the Durotriges Project 🥳

(detail from 🖼 © Michael Leonard 1973 to accompany the Sunday Times series *Discovering Ancient Britain* written by Barry Cunliffe)

Hope to see you for more Iron Age fun in 2026 😊
Reconstruction painting of a not terribly happy looking Iron Age family standing in front of a stone built roundhouse
December 31, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
malcolmstoneman.bsky.social
“Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find” - Walt Whitman

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

I posted this twelve months ago & it still seems an appropriate message as we “voyage” into 2026.

Detail from a #HelenWhittaker window - #Wetheringsett-cum-Brockford, #Suffolk
A detail from the stained glass window of a sailing ship cutting through the waves. Together with an open book with “Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find” by Walt Whitman.
December 31, 2025 at 7:03 PM
drnwillburger.bsky.social
As 2026 approaches a happy new year's toast to you all with this marvellous 4th century Roman cage-cup, which bears an inscription, a toast that reads:

BIBE MULTIS ANNIS - Drink for many years!

Cheers and here's to a far better year in 2026! 🥂

#NewYear2026 🍀
A close-up of a cage cup. It comprises an inner, translucent glass beaker and an outer decorative shell. The shell, affixed to the beaker via short stems or shanks, features circles at its body and an inscription at its top.
December 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
drnwillburger.bsky.social
Peak procrastination level unlocked 😆
Meme image of a woman in a long black dress using a red vacuum cleaner outdoors on a barren, hilly landscape, with the caption “Me doing anything other than the thing I need to do."
December 30, 2025 at 5:13 PM
drnwillburger.bsky.social
Peak procrastination level unlocked 😆
Meme image of a woman in a long black dress using a red vacuum cleaner outdoors on a barren, hilly landscape, with the caption “Me doing anything other than the thing I need to do."
December 30, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
drnwillburger.bsky.social
This funerary wreath is made of everlasting flowers (Helichrysum stoechas) and is more than 1,700 years old!
It was found in a tomb of the #Roman period in Hawara/#Egypt and has survived due to Egypt's dry climate.
Dating 2nd/3rd c. AD.

On display at British Museum

📷 me
A wreath made from a variety of 'everlasting' flowers, tied with fibre.
December 30, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
‘The human origin story is complex. So why not join us in our latest YouTube livestream as we explore how homo sapiens ended up colonising the planet and reveal our distant relatives’
youtube.com/live/QmCBmWf...
Everything We Know About Our Human Origins
YouTube video by New Scientist
youtube.com
December 30, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
malcolmstoneman.bsky.social
Painted tile - 1564-8

Made by Jasper Andries & Jacob Jansen, in #Antwerp or #Norwich

The wild boar with a crescent was used by Sir Francis Bacon to show he was his father’s second son.

Made for Old Gorhambury House, near St Albans, #Hertfordshire

Now V & A Museum #London

#TilesOnTuesday
Painted tile with shields at the corners. Ring with “Mediocria Firma”. Wild boar in centre with crescent on its flank.
December 30, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
kpw1453.bsky.social
Milestone of Postumus - the Roman general who established the independent Gallic Empire between 258–268. It was found near the Roman road to Carlisle, and can now be viewed at Brougham Castle. 📸 My own. #EpigraphyTuesday #RomanBritain
December 30, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
roaringmeg.bsky.social
Félix Vallotton was a painter and printmaker born #onthisday in 1865. He worked in woodcuts in the 1890s and began to focus on painting around 1900 using blocks of colour that mimicked his printing style.

'Road at St Paul (Var) (Route à St Paul (Var))' by Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), Tate
Felix Valloton born on this day 1865
December 29, 2025 at 8:56 PM
drnwillburger.bsky.social
This funerary wreath is made of everlasting flowers (Helichrysum stoechas) and is more than 1,700 years old!
It was found in a tomb of the #Roman period in Hawara/#Egypt and has survived due to Egypt's dry climate.
Dating 2nd/3rd c. AD.

On display at British Museum

📷 me
A wreath made from a variety of 'everlasting' flowers, tied with fibre.
December 30, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
drnwillburger.bsky.social
#Caturday is every day 🐈😻😼
Meme image divided into a text section on top and four medieval-style cat paintings below. The text reads: “I'd like you to paint me a cat.” “A what?” “A cat. You do know what a cat is, right?” “Uh yeah, of course.” The four paintings each show an oddly drawn, somewhat clumsy, whimsical, or distorted cat.
December 29, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Nina Willburger
alisonfisk.bsky.social
Clay goblet from Early Bronze Age Troy.

Known as a depas goblet after the Homeric ‘depas amphikypellon', recent residue analysis shows these two-handled vessels were used for drinking wine some 4,250 years ago!

Istanbul Archaeological Museum
📷 by me

#Archaeology
My photo shows a cylindrical drinking cup made of reddish-brown terracotta. It has a wide mouth, a long slender body with rounded base and two large curved handles extending from the rim to near the base. This type of vessel is known as a ‘depas’ goblet (depas amphikypellon) out of reference to their mention in Homer’s Iliad. More than one hundred of these vessels have been excavated at Troy, dating from 2500 to 2000 BC. Recent organic residue analysis from fragments excavated at Troy show they were used for consuming wine.
December 29, 2025 at 6:04 PM