Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
Ancient Studies professor at UMBC. Mostly Roman things. Views my own.
Pinned
Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
· Dec 19
PEETERS ONLINE JOURNALS
poj.peeters-leuven.be
My paper, "Public Granaries and Private Transactions: Infrastructure and Standardization," is now out in Ancient Society! Standard measures were never imposed by the Romans across Egypt. But I argue that taxation infrastructure, especially public granaries... poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?...
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA | Papers of the British School at Rome | Cambridge Core
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA
www.cambridge.org
November 14, 2025 at 9:51 AM
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Discovery Suggests That the House of the Thiasos and Other Domus in Pompeii May Have Had Observation Towers
The mental image of the city of Pompeii, crystallized by the mold of ash and lapilli that preserved its ground level for centuries, may be about to acquire a new vertical dimension. A digital archaeol...
www.labrujulaverde.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Sit tibi terra levis
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Sit tibi terra levis
Lolita is twelve and cries every night after Humbert rapes her. In case you haven’t read it in a while.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Interesting email here from Elisa New, Harvard professor and wife to Larry Summers, to Epstein, reflecting on Lolita.
"...it's about a man whose life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
"...it's about a man whose life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
November 13, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Lolita is twelve and cries every night after Humbert rapes her. In case you haven’t read it in a while.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Writing about it to Epstein in this way is worse than vile.
Sit tibi terra levis
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Sit tibi terra levis
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
📢 Did you know the the Journal of Roman Archaeology is flipping to #OpenAccess?
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
November 12, 2025 at 10:15 AM
📢 Did you know the the Journal of Roman Archaeology is flipping to #OpenAccess?
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
All research content published in the journal from January 2026 will be permanently and freely available to read, download and share around the world 🌏. Find out more: https://cup.org/4oaKGzq
Aurora borealis near DC!
November 12, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Aurora borealis near DC!
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
I want to tell a story about this. I was at the Acropolis Museum in Athens showing some esteemed scholars the statue in question and discussing its features when a woman approached and said, "Can I ask you a question about this sculpture? You seem to know about it." I said, of course!
November 11, 2025 at 6:39 PM
I want to tell a story about this. I was at the Acropolis Museum in Athens showing some esteemed scholars the statue in question and discussing its features when a woman approached and said, "Can I ask you a question about this sculpture? You seem to know about it." I said, of course!
Oooh!
Lately I've been mulling over lots of questions re: wayfinding in the Subura and how demolition affected this process... Imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that @quidamabo.bsky.social published a fantastic article on wayfinding and subaltern Romans just last month! 👏👏
November 11, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Oooh!
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
"Books — actual books, with dust jackets, spines...are increasingly unwelcome...With few exceptions, the only stories allowed in the early grades of state-appointed HISD Superintendent Mike Miles' New Education System are minced into dry text that teachers read from manuals."
November 10, 2025 at 10:14 PM
"Books — actual books, with dust jackets, spines...are increasingly unwelcome...With few exceptions, the only stories allowed in the early grades of state-appointed HISD Superintendent Mike Miles' New Education System are minced into dry text that teachers read from manuals."
The effects of childhood malnutrition are grim and irreversible. Financial household strain also increases abuse. I’m not immune to anger, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about.
I am not defending Chuck Schumer, but I do think it is slightly more reasonable than we give credit to say that we cannot allow starving Americans, withholding their pay, and compromising their safety to become the way we do policy here. Saying “we were winning!” - no one wins when kids go hungry.
November 11, 2025 at 1:35 AM
The effects of childhood malnutrition are grim and irreversible. Financial household strain also increases abuse. I’m not immune to anger, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about.
Accountability sink (Dan Davies)
im realizing that companies calling "anything a computer does" "AI" isn't ignorance or marketing, it's them figuring out that calling something "AI" is currently a get-out-of-liability-free card
recently at an automotive industry conference and the way every CEO swapped between obsessing about how engineers will be replaced by "prompt engineers", and justifying confidence in "AI" by referring to "basically anything a computer does" as "AI," was terrifying
November 10, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Accountability sink (Dan Davies)
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
That Roman database of roads that's been in the news: treat with some caution.
Comparaison entre ce qui est connu (en rouge) et les tracés du dataset (en vert) pour l'est de la Bourgogne. Les données mises a disposition sont sans doute meilleures dans les zones où des spécialiste ont été sollicité.e.s (Egypte, etc). Bonne base de départ donc, mais a utiliser avec prudence 3/3
November 9, 2025 at 3:44 PM
That Roman database of roads that's been in the news: treat with some caution.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
What was the purpose of the iconic Andean monument of Monte Sierpe (aka Band of Holes)? New research supports a new interpretation: it was a barter marketplace, later developing into a monumental system of accounting under #Inca rule.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
November 10, 2025 at 10:16 AM
What was the purpose of the iconic Andean monument of Monte Sierpe (aka Band of Holes)? New research supports a new interpretation: it was a barter marketplace, later developing into a monumental system of accounting under #Inca rule.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
@sydney.edu.au
I hadn't got around to my academia-dot-edu migration yet, but they started making "podcasts" of my papers so it's time. Where did people go? ResearchGate?
November 7, 2025 at 3:16 PM
I hadn't got around to my academia-dot-edu migration yet, but they started making "podcasts" of my papers so it's time. Where did people go? ResearchGate?
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Need that copy of Soldiers and Silver?
Now is a great time to buy: use the code UTXGIFTS to get 40% off the print version or 50% off the Ebook when you buy direct from the Press.
More soldiers for less silver....can't beat that!
utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330777/
Now is a great time to buy: use the code UTXGIFTS to get 40% off the print version or 50% off the Ebook when you buy direct from the Press.
More soldiers for less silver....can't beat that!
utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330777/
Soldiers and Silver
By the middle of the second century BCE, after nearly one hundred years of warfare, Rome had exerted its control over the entire Mediterranean world, forcing...
utpress.utexas.edu
November 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Need that copy of Soldiers and Silver?
Now is a great time to buy: use the code UTXGIFTS to get 40% off the print version or 50% off the Ebook when you buy direct from the Press.
More soldiers for less silver....can't beat that!
utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330777/
Now is a great time to buy: use the code UTXGIFTS to get 40% off the print version or 50% off the Ebook when you buy direct from the Press.
More soldiers for less silver....can't beat that!
utpress.utexas.edu/9781477330777/
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
🧵
🧵
Omg there are more: meet Ta-Miu, cat of Prince Thutmose's (son of Amenhotep III, seems to have died young). Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
November 4, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Omg there are more: meet Ta-Miu, cat of Prince Thutmose's (son of Amenhotep III, seems to have died young). Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
I like when trees are cut around power lines so that they look like giant wings
November 4, 2025 at 1:56 AM
I like when trees are cut around power lines so that they look like giant wings
This also made me think of Kehoe's point (drawing on Maiuro) about the Roman emperor's control of resources, in contrast to the position of later monarchs (who thus had to borrow, and deal with Parliament etc.)
(From Kehoe, "Land and Securing the Future in the Roman Empire," 2023)
(From Kehoe, "Land and Securing the Future in the Roman Empire," 2023)
October 31, 2025 at 6:28 PM
This also made me think of Kehoe's point (drawing on Maiuro) about the Roman emperor's control of resources, in contrast to the position of later monarchs (who thus had to borrow, and deal with Parliament etc.)
(From Kehoe, "Land and Securing the Future in the Roman Empire," 2023)
(From Kehoe, "Land and Securing the Future in the Roman Empire," 2023)
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Delighted to discover (thanks to the Walters Art Museum's "Soulful Creatures" exhibit, to which this is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum) this sarcophagus for a cat mummy, which seems to depict a cat seated before an offering table, much like a human in a standard offering scene.
October 30, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Delighted to discover (thanks to the Walters Art Museum's "Soulful Creatures" exhibit, to which this is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum) this sarcophagus for a cat mummy, which seems to depict a cat seated before an offering table, much like a human in a standard offering scene.
Accounting is a narrative that can be manipulated; the amazing thing is that everyone sees the manipulations, but hopes to be the one to outrace time and walk away from the ruins with profit.
October 31, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Accounting is a narrative that can be manipulated; the amazing thing is that everyone sees the manipulations, but hopes to be the one to outrace time and walk away from the ruins with profit.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
The book to read is James Tan’s Power and Public Finance in Rome. Which argues (among other things) that Roman taxpayers had real leverage over elites due to being taxpayers. Turning point: by 167 the empire was so profitable that direct taxation ended. Which ended that leverage.
Using his powers to extract tribute from foreign countries, "donors," etc. and then using those extraconstitutional slush funds to bypass the Constitution and the rule of law. Literally the opposite of originalism and a profound threat to the continuation of constitutional democracy in this country.
$550 billion in Japanese funding.
Directed by the President.
Outside Congress’s control.
My new @justsecurity.org piece explains how the agreement bypasses the Appropriations Clause and violates the laws that safeguard Congress’s power of the purse.
www.justsecurity.org/123478/trump...
Directed by the President.
Outside Congress’s control.
My new @justsecurity.org piece explains how the agreement bypasses the Appropriations Clause and violates the laws that safeguard Congress’s power of the purse.
www.justsecurity.org/123478/trump...
October 31, 2025 at 6:21 AM
The book to read is James Tan’s Power and Public Finance in Rome. Which argues (among other things) that Roman taxpayers had real leverage over elites due to being taxpayers. Turning point: by 167 the empire was so profitable that direct taxation ended. Which ended that leverage.
Delighted to discover (thanks to the Walters Art Museum's "Soulful Creatures" exhibit, to which this is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum) this sarcophagus for a cat mummy, which seems to depict a cat seated before an offering table, much like a human in a standard offering scene.
October 30, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Delighted to discover (thanks to the Walters Art Museum's "Soulful Creatures" exhibit, to which this is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum) this sarcophagus for a cat mummy, which seems to depict a cat seated before an offering table, much like a human in a standard offering scene.
Reminder that in the Brownsville Alpha school this “motivation” consisted of withholding food from children, among other things.
"The role of the teacher is not to be replaced. That role will be transformed to focus on the social and emotional motivation side as opposed to the academic part. I believe we're going to get to a point where a billion children around the world will be able to take this type of education."
October 30, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reminder that in the Brownsville Alpha school this “motivation” consisted of withholding food from children, among other things.