Simon Bralee
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simonbralee.com
Simon Bralee
@simonbralee.com
3.3K followers 860 following 470 posts
Advocate for arts and humanities. I believe in the importance of sharing the stories of research to create impact outside of universities. Comms professional and history postgrad researching Anubis in the Roman World. 🏛️🐍
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simonbralee.com
Osiris Ptah Sokar statuette giving Monday morning vibes (Made in Ancient Egypt, Fitzwilliam)
🏺 #Egyptology #AncientBluesky
Gilded face from a wooden statue of the god Osiris Ptah Sokar. The nose and mouth are carved but the eyes are painted in black in an ancient Egyptian style. It looks fed up.
November 10, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
sardonicus.eu
Trained Cat Hypnotizes Woman 3 panels a cat sat on a desk, next to a telephone, looking at a woman the womans head slumped forward a close up of the cats eyes
November 9, 2025 at 10:16 AM
simonbralee.com
A review of the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum #Egyptology
Made in Ancient Egypt
A review of the new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
rhakotis.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:52 PM
simonbralee.com
This is a serious breach from the Culture Secretary showing a complete lack of ethical rigour. Snd does not look good for Keir Starmer to try and lessen it by saying it “was not entirely up to the standard expected”
Nandy breached code over appointment of donor to lead football regulator
Culture secretary ‘deeply regrets error’ after inquiry finds failures in declaring past donations by watchdog nominee
www.theguardian.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:09 PM
simonbralee.com
Pilgrim badge of St Leonard, looking like a medieval yoda

🏛️ Kings Chapel Museum, Cambridge
A thin metal badge depicting a monk wearing robes and holding a staff. He looks like he has pointed ears.
November 5, 2025 at 4:16 PM
simonbralee.com
Londoners have always been grumpy as can been proved by this fossil of brychaetus muelleri found in London Clay (Island of Sheppey, so technically not London). They were large fish with armour-covered bodies and sharp teeth, 50-55 million years ago.
🏛️Sedgwick Museum.
Fossil of Brychaetus muelleri
November 4, 2025 at 9:51 PM
simonbralee.com
Classical bust (of Antoninus Pius?) covered in shells in the window of Sinai & Sons, Kensington Church Street 🏺 #AncientBluesky
A black Roman bust covered in various shells.
November 3, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
damienhuffer.bsky.social
www.bbc.com/news/article... @museumofloot.bsky.social
Netherlands to return stolen ancient sculpture to Egypt
The 3,500-year-old stone head was likely stolen during the Arab Spring uprising.
www.bbc.com
November 3, 2025 at 7:32 AM
simonbralee.com
So we enter November, aka Anubis month. This image from a calendar mosaic from Thysdrus (El-Jem, Tunisia) depicts a festival commemorating the death of Osiris, which was celebrated all over the Roman Empire (Sousse Archaeological Museum, © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons) 🏺 #AncientBluesky
Detail from a mosaic depicting three similarly sized men. The first on the right is dressed as Anubis. He is wearing a dog mask and red robe. He holds a caduceus. His hands seem to be a different colour to his mask, suggesting he is a human and not the god. The two men to his right are wearing white robes, possibly linen. Both of their heads are clean shaven and they wear feathers on their head, possibly a symbol of priestly office. According to Clement of Alexandria, scribes wore feathers. Above them the text reads ‘November’
November 1, 2025 at 8:39 AM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
drannaclark.bsky.social
November
Englishmen vs Frenchmen
Thomas Rowlandson 1788
Royal Collections Trust
November 1, 2025 at 6:05 AM
simonbralee.com
When they re-installed it, they joked the Glass Armonica would sound again only when America was in peril. Recently a strange, high pitched, eldritch noise has been heard coming from the room. Yet when the curators go up to investigate no one is there and the instrument is closed up.
simonbralee.com Simon Bralee @simonbralee.com · 11d
A replica of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica in his London home, now a museum. He said this musical instrument was the invention that gave him the most joy. It was quite the hit in Europe: Mozart composed for it, and Beethoven, Donizetti and Saint-Saëns all used it in pieces.
A long rectangular wooden cupboard with a section open on the shortest side, like a piano or harpsichord keyboard but it contains a cylinder of decreasing-sized glass bowls. You play it by rubbing the glass bowls which are all tuned to different pitches.
October 31, 2025 at 9:42 PM
simonbralee.com
A replica of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica in his London home, now a museum. He said this musical instrument was the invention that gave him the most joy. It was quite the hit in Europe: Mozart composed for it, and Beethoven, Donizetti and Saint-Saëns all used it in pieces.
A long rectangular wooden cupboard with a section open on the shortest side, like a piano or harpsichord keyboard but it contains a cylinder of decreasing-sized glass bowls. You play it by rubbing the glass bowls which are all tuned to different pitches.
October 31, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
chapps.bsky.social
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
Bronze head of a woman or goddess, torn from a full-sized statue. She wears a lunette diadem with inlaid silver patterns, with a star in the middle. Her wavy hair is center parted and pulled back into a bun. She looks directly into the camera with inlaid silver eyes, set beneath shadowed brows. With her mottled brown and green patina, the effect is frightening! British Museum (1928,0416.1)
October 30, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
archaeocarrie.bsky.social
Here’s a beautiful little monkey from the tomb of Maya and Merry from Saqqara. #Egyptology #Archaeology
A carved relief of a monkey underneath a throne
October 29, 2025 at 3:06 AM
simonbralee.com
A friend sent me this: NYT Connections trying to build bridges after Victoria Coren-Mitchell insulted it last week. #OnlyConnect
NYT Wall
October 27, 2025 at 8:07 PM
simonbralee.com
Loving this version of The Hymn to Inanna by Enheduanna, translated into Scots by Robert Crawford. Available in most recent issue of the LRB.

“I’ve sang yir halie sang.
Goddess, fit for aa airts, it’s blythe tae hymn ye,
Kind, bricht, guid woman, aa yir airts I’ve sang!”

🏺 #AncientBluesky
Robert Crawford · Poem: ‘Enheduanna’s Song’
www.lrb.co.uk
October 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
debborahdonnelly.bsky.social
Bronze bust of #Isis unearthed at #Türkiye 's Satala highlights religious diversity in #Roman stronghold
#archaeology #Egyptology
www.turkiyetoday.com/culture/bron...
Bronze bust of Isis unearthed at Türkiye's Satala highlights religious diversity in Roman stronghold - Türkiye Today
A 20 cm bronze Isis bust found in Satala’s necropolis points to the rich religious diversity of Roman legions; the restored piece will go on display in Gumushane
www.turkiyetoday.com
October 27, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
zenakamash.bsky.social
But this misses out the best part of this mosaic! To the left of Odysseus' ship is a smaller boat with a man holding what looks suspiciously like a gigantic prawn. This man is likely to be the homeowner who commissioned the mosaic.
(Mosaic from Dougga, Tunisia; C3rd AD; currently in Bardo Museum)
3rd-century mosaic from Tunisia, currently in the Bardo Museum, Tunis. In the centre is a ship with oats, in which four men with shields sit either side of a man (Odysseus) who is tied to the ship's mast. To the left of this ship is a smaller boat in which one man stands holding what looks like a huge prawn. Fish and dolphins swim in the sea around both vessels. Not pictured: to the right of Odysseus' ship is a group of three women (sirens) with wings and bird-like legs and feet.
October 24, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
alisonfisk.bsky.social
Roman water spout in the shape of a wolf's head.

Beautifully detailed and full of character it looks like a good boy proudly fetching the paper! 🐾 ❤️

Bronze, 2nd century AD. From Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Germany.
Rheinisches Landesmuseum
📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
My photo shows a Roman bronze waterspout designed in the shape of an animal’s head — likely a wolf. The animal’s ears stand upright, the eyes are expressive, and the fur is textured with fine lines around the face and neck. The animal’s mouth is open wide, its jaws gripping the water spout outlet. It resembles a dog fetching a newspaper which gives it an endearing quality The water spout outlet has a flat base which flares outwards, reminiscent of the shape of a dustpan (from a dustpan and brush). Water flowed from the spout into a public water trough or fountain. The bronze is dark brown in colour with a greenish patina in places.
October 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
simonbralee.com
Enjoying a long train journey with the wonderfully erudite Silence of the Gods. For me, it has a general interest covering a topic that has long intrigued me (the unchristian/pre-Christian bits of Europe) but also provides reflections that can be applied to other periods (Late Antiquity). Recommend.
The Silence of the Gods on a cafe table in a rail station concourse. Chic expresso cup out of shot.
October 24, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
wellmanneredxs.bsky.social
Vizier Pepy-Ankh wanted to have his cake and eat it!

Specifically, a delicious-sounding creamy honey-sesame stuffed pancake, preserved by ingenious vacuum-inducing cookware for 4000 years since the reign of Pepi II.

Discovered at Meir, Egypt, in 1913, it's officially the world's oldest cake. 1/
The world's oldest cake - image shows 4000 year old stuffed pancake in the green-coloured bronze, clam-shaped cookware that created a sort of vacuum to cook and conserve it when heated up. The pancake looks quite fresh. Photo from the MSN news article, showing a screenshot of the arkaeofili instagram account - no individual photo credit is given on the site - sorry!
October 22, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
#ReliefWednesday shows us the rich #relief work of the #cinerary #urn of one C. Iulius Saecularis, from c. 90 CE. The nude youth, a bit chubby, holds a #butterfly in his right hand, symbol of the #spirit. He doesn't want to let go of his earthly life. #Dionysiac symbols abound. #AncientBluesky 🏺
This white rectangular cinerary urn front was first noted in the Villa Giulia in its heyday, and found its way into the Borghese collection from which it was acquired by the National Roman Museum in 1893. It's a densely carved, rather beautiful relief crammed full of imagery. The youth, unfortunately emasculated by time, stands in a scallop-shell niche, which is usually an allusion to Venus, when the figure is female. He's wearing a lacerna or half cloak but is otherwise heroically nude. He is dressed for his trip to the Underworld. He's looking to his right (our left), his hands raised to chest level. In his right hand he holds a butterfly, symbol of the spirit, and in his left a tiny bird, possibly a peacock or even a parrot. At his feet are a dog and a monkey, symbols of attachment to earthly life. The vegetation on either side of the niche allude to the Underworld: olive, vine, and pine. At right a tall candelabrum culminates in a plaque with a Gorgoneion, an apotropaic protector.
October 22, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
drnwillburger.bsky.social
This remarkable bronze cobra with eyes inlaid with glass paste likely originated from a workshop in Alexandria.
The cobra motif is prevalent in Egyptian iconography, symbolizing royal authority and safeguarding against the Pharaoh's enemies.
The Greek author Plutarch indicates that...🧵1/2

📷me

🏺
October 19, 2025 at 6:36 AM
simonbralee.com
Hodakova’s Spoon Dress in the Barbican’s fantastic Dirty Looks exhibition, recalling the far-famed Diana of Ephesus, here, I think, we see once again the shadow of the goddess Isis, she who would ladle out benefices and blessings.
The top of a gown formed out of spoons draped over a manikin.
October 18, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Simon Bralee
emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 1:15 AM