@nmbetancur.bsky.social
art & architectural historian / visual, material & religious culture
Reposted
Tile fragment from Roman Cirencester with graffiti depicting a house. The fragment is part of the collections at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. 📸 My own. #TilesOnTuesday #RomanBritain #CoriniumMuseum #Cirecenster
November 18, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Tile fragment from Roman Cirencester with graffiti depicting a house. The fragment is part of the collections at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. 📸 My own. #TilesOnTuesday #RomanBritain #CoriniumMuseum #Cirecenster
Reposted
Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
November 18, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated.
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
Reposted
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange.
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange
An ancient band of thousands of precisely aligned small pits stretching 1.5 kilometres across the Pisco Valley in Peru has baffled experts for almost a century.
theconversation.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:24 AM
A centuries-old grid of holes in the Andes may have been a ‘spreadsheet’ for accounting and exchange.
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
theconversation.com/a-centuries-...
Reposted
Testing clay from the Roman pottery production site at Highgate Wood, North London and using Munsell colour charts to record the results. Same clay, different temperatures and kiln atmosphere. 🏺#Archaeology #AncientBluesky
November 17, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Testing clay from the Roman pottery production site at Highgate Wood, North London and using Munsell colour charts to record the results. Same clay, different temperatures and kiln atmosphere. 🏺#Archaeology #AncientBluesky
Reposted
Following last week's monochrome elephant, this is another common type of depiction in Roman mosaics. From the Great Pavement at Woodchester, moving around Orpheus. 1/2
#MosaicMonday
@classicalalan.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday
@classicalalan.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Following last week's monochrome elephant, this is another common type of depiction in Roman mosaics. From the Great Pavement at Woodchester, moving around Orpheus. 1/2
#MosaicMonday
@classicalalan.bsky.social
#MosaicMonday
@classicalalan.bsky.social
Reposted
Everyone’s favourite - the ‘Wolf and Twins’ mosaic from Roman Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum) depicting the legend of Romulus and Remus. Dating to the 4th century AD, the mosaic is now part of the collections at Leeds City Museum. 📷 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain
November 17, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Everyone’s favourite - the ‘Wolf and Twins’ mosaic from Roman Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum) depicting the legend of Romulus and Remus. Dating to the 4th century AD, the mosaic is now part of the collections at Leeds City Museum. 📷 My own. #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain
Reposted
Want to walk into and through an actual Iron Age house…and UP THE STAIRS?
Of course you bloody do.
Come with me.
Carn Liath broch, just sitting quietly beside the A9 as thousands whizz by without stopping. Their mistake.
Far too excited to wait for #HillfortsWednesday
Of course you bloody do.
Come with me.
Carn Liath broch, just sitting quietly beside the A9 as thousands whizz by without stopping. Their mistake.
Far too excited to wait for #HillfortsWednesday
November 17, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Want to walk into and through an actual Iron Age house…and UP THE STAIRS?
Of course you bloody do.
Come with me.
Carn Liath broch, just sitting quietly beside the A9 as thousands whizz by without stopping. Their mistake.
Far too excited to wait for #HillfortsWednesday
Of course you bloody do.
Come with me.
Carn Liath broch, just sitting quietly beside the A9 as thousands whizz by without stopping. Their mistake.
Far too excited to wait for #HillfortsWednesday
Reposted
I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”
Tell Students the Truth About American History
We owe it to Americans of all ages to be honest about the country’s past, including its contradictions.
www.theatlantic.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”
Reposted
This bronze head of a goddess with her spooky, hypnotic inlaid silver eyes, will be roaming the shadows tonight on All Hallows Eve! Still looking for her body, 2,000 years later … 😱 🏺 1/
Hellenistic, 150-100 BCE, Mersin, Turkey. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
Hellenistic, 150-100 BCE, Mersin, Turkey. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
October 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
This bronze head of a goddess with her spooky, hypnotic inlaid silver eyes, will be roaming the shadows tonight on All Hallows Eve! Still looking for her body, 2,000 years later … 😱 🏺 1/
Hellenistic, 150-100 BCE, Mersin, Turkey. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
Hellenistic, 150-100 BCE, Mersin, Turkey. #BritishMuseum
📸 me
Reposted
Cruck frame barn, dated c 1550, from Llanerch Banna (Flint) and now at St Fagans National Museum of History.
Such curved timbers known as crucks will feature a fair bit in my upcoming online talk on 25 Nov, Dating Ancient Buildings.
Booking is now open.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dating-anc...
Such curved timbers known as crucks will feature a fair bit in my upcoming online talk on 25 Nov, Dating Ancient Buildings.
Booking is now open.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dating-anc...
October 29, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Cruck frame barn, dated c 1550, from Llanerch Banna (Flint) and now at St Fagans National Museum of History.
Such curved timbers known as crucks will feature a fair bit in my upcoming online talk on 25 Nov, Dating Ancient Buildings.
Booking is now open.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dating-anc...
Such curved timbers known as crucks will feature a fair bit in my upcoming online talk on 25 Nov, Dating Ancient Buildings.
Booking is now open.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dating-anc...
Reposted
This is a big deal. Kudos to @mfaboston.bsky.social for its actions. The institution is proving an important precedent for the restitution of objects that others should follow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...
Enslaved Potter’s Art, Displayed at Boston Museum, Returns to Heirs at Last
www.nytimes.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:24 PM
This is a big deal. Kudos to @mfaboston.bsky.social for its actions. The institution is proving an important precedent for the restitution of objects that others should follow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...
Reposted
ICYMI: Drop everything and spend 13 minutes with Amy Sherald--with her singular vision and talent, with her clarity about her central place in the jagged American story. You will be stirred by it all. www.cbsnews.com/video/amy-sh...
Artist Amy Sherald: The 60 Minutes Interview
Amy Sherald spent years painting in obscurity, and almost died from a rare heart condition. Now 52, the artist behind Michelle Obama's official portrait is one of America's most celebrated painters.
www.cbsnews.com
October 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
ICYMI: Drop everything and spend 13 minutes with Amy Sherald--with her singular vision and talent, with her clarity about her central place in the jagged American story. You will be stirred by it all. www.cbsnews.com/video/amy-sh...
Reposted
Mên-an-Tol is probably from the Bronze Age, making it around 3,500 years old (little evidence has been found). It consists of four stones, the most unusual being the circular and pierced upright stone. The other three stones are more regular granite pillars. #StandingStoneSunday
October 26, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Mên-an-Tol is probably from the Bronze Age, making it around 3,500 years old (little evidence has been found). It consists of four stones, the most unusual being the circular and pierced upright stone. The other three stones are more regular granite pillars. #StandingStoneSunday
Reposted
Children loved to play with toys in #Roman times too: some 1,800 years ago, a child in Cologne was buried with a terracotta horse with a rider on wheels. It was certainly a much-loved which the child was also supposed to play with in the afterlife.
📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln
🏺 #archaeology
📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln
🏺 #archaeology
September 29, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Children loved to play with toys in #Roman times too: some 1,800 years ago, a child in Cologne was buried with a terracotta horse with a rider on wheels. It was certainly a much-loved which the child was also supposed to play with in the afterlife.
📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln
🏺 #archaeology
📷 Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln
🏺 #archaeology
Radiolarians are still largely unknown, but it is believed that they hold information about the evolution of life on Earth and how climatic conditions have changed over time.
lithub.com/how-the-disc...
lithub.com/how-the-disc...
How the Discovery of Single-Celled Marine Organisms Resulted in One of the Most Influential Illustrated Books Ever Published
No creatures from the microscopic world have managed to captivate the human imagination as authoritatively as radiolarians. Since the late nineteenth century, they’ve made their existence known in …
lithub.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Radiolarians are still largely unknown, but it is believed that they hold information about the evolution of life on Earth and how climatic conditions have changed over time.
lithub.com/how-the-disc...
lithub.com/how-the-disc...
Reposted
"To be human is to be emotional. And if we strip that when we tell our story, we’re doing ourselves a disservice." Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi, who hosts the BBC and NOVA PBS docuseries “Human,” leans into the complex and dramatic sides of early humans' history: buff.ly/9nWuXng
October 28, 2025 at 11:37 AM
"To be human is to be emotional. And if we strip that when we tell our story, we’re doing ourselves a disservice." Paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi, who hosts the BBC and NOVA PBS docuseries “Human,” leans into the complex and dramatic sides of early humans' history: buff.ly/9nWuXng
Reposted
I particular like the colours of Vesuvius looking as though someone has fashioned it out of a lump of smooshed-together-different-coloured Play-Doh.
October 25, 2025 at 11:47 AM
I particular like the colours of Vesuvius looking as though someone has fashioned it out of a lump of smooshed-together-different-coloured Play-Doh.
Reposted
It's time for a timeline cleanse!
A small Corinthian aryballos in the shape of an owl (circa 630 BC). It served as a perfume container.
On display at Antikensammlung München
A lovely Sunday to all of you 🌞
📷 me
A small Corinthian aryballos in the shape of an owl (circa 630 BC). It served as a perfume container.
On display at Antikensammlung München
A lovely Sunday to all of you 🌞
📷 me
October 26, 2025 at 8:07 AM
It's time for a timeline cleanse!
A small Corinthian aryballos in the shape of an owl (circa 630 BC). It served as a perfume container.
On display at Antikensammlung München
A lovely Sunday to all of you 🌞
📷 me
A small Corinthian aryballos in the shape of an owl (circa 630 BC). It served as a perfume container.
On display at Antikensammlung München
A lovely Sunday to all of you 🌞
📷 me
Reposted
It is a little known fact that tonight's clock re-adjustment was pioneered by German-British artist Frank Auerbach, to the great dismay of the proponent of the original change, politician Konrad Adenauer
October 25, 2025 at 12:16 PM
It is a little known fact that tonight's clock re-adjustment was pioneered by German-British artist Frank Auerbach, to the great dismay of the proponent of the original change, politician Konrad Adenauer
Reposted
That magical moment when the pumice is gently cleared away revealing, for the first time in nearly 2000 years, a white mosaic.
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii
September 22, 2025 at 10:54 AM
That magical moment when the pumice is gently cleared away revealing, for the first time in nearly 2000 years, a white mosaic.
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii
Reposted
#TerracottaTuesday
Two little baby feeders c. 320 BC, both made in Sicily, then Magna Graecia.
One Gnathian (style from Apulia) w ivy chain decoration; one w hippocamp figures.
And who wouldn't want to feed their baby through a mouse's tail??
#Ancient #Greek #Pottery 🏺
BM
Two little baby feeders c. 320 BC, both made in Sicily, then Magna Graecia.
One Gnathian (style from Apulia) w ivy chain decoration; one w hippocamp figures.
And who wouldn't want to feed their baby through a mouse's tail??
#Ancient #Greek #Pottery 🏺
BM
October 21, 2025 at 9:36 AM
#TerracottaTuesday
Two little baby feeders c. 320 BC, both made in Sicily, then Magna Graecia.
One Gnathian (style from Apulia) w ivy chain decoration; one w hippocamp figures.
And who wouldn't want to feed their baby through a mouse's tail??
#Ancient #Greek #Pottery 🏺
BM
Two little baby feeders c. 320 BC, both made in Sicily, then Magna Graecia.
One Gnathian (style from Apulia) w ivy chain decoration; one w hippocamp figures.
And who wouldn't want to feed their baby through a mouse's tail??
#Ancient #Greek #Pottery 🏺
BM
Reposted
Un paysage sur Mars, capturé par le rover Perseverance !
©NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU/NeV-T
©NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU/NeV-T
October 21, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Un paysage sur Mars, capturé par le rover Perseverance !
©NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU/NeV-T
©NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU/NeV-T
Reposted
Here are three wonderfully preserved Roman shoes that were discovered at Bar Hill Roman fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland in the early 1900s. Shoes made for men, women and children have been found there, reminding us that frontier zones were not an exclusively military environment. #FindsFriday
October 10, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Here are three wonderfully preserved Roman shoes that were discovered at Bar Hill Roman fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland in the early 1900s. Shoes made for men, women and children have been found there, reminding us that frontier zones were not an exclusively military environment. #FindsFriday
Reposted
The engraved entrance stone to the famous Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange at County Meath in Ireland. 📸 My own. #TombTuesday #Newgrange #Prehistory #Ireland
October 21, 2025 at 6:20 AM
The engraved entrance stone to the famous Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange at County Meath in Ireland. 📸 My own. #TombTuesday #Newgrange #Prehistory #Ireland
Reposted
For #FindsFriday just a few of the fabulous Viking age beads discovered at Haithabu/ Hedeby - 📷 Schloss Gottorf Museum.
October 17, 2025 at 10:05 AM
For #FindsFriday just a few of the fabulous Viking age beads discovered at Haithabu/ Hedeby - 📷 Schloss Gottorf Museum.