Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
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mancent.bsky.social
Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
@mancent.bsky.social
Archaeologist and historian. Author. Course Director and lecturer of Independent Adult Education Provider MANCENT. Director Roman Gask Project. Loves all things Roman and Silkroad, and lots and lots of ancient glass.
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
#OTD
Am 9. und 10. November 1938 wurden in ganz Deutschland Synagogen, Geschäfte und Wohnungen, geplündert und zerstört.
Alleine in #Frankfurt wurden über 3.000 jüdische Mitbürger in der #Festhalle zusammengetrieben und in #Konzentrationslager verschleppt.

#Novemberpogrome #NieWieder #WeRemember
November 10, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Day trip to #Eyam in #Derbyshire. So much amazing history from mining to water catchment, to beautiful architecture, and of course the plague story. In the middle of it all a beautiful and pretty complete #Anglo-Saxon cross with figurative decoration and lots of Angels. #archaeology #history
November 8, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Capidava was an important Geto-Dacian center on the right bank of the #Danube. After the #Roman conquest, it became a civil and military center, as part of the province of Moesia Inferior (later Scythia Minor), modern Dobruja.

#RomanFortThursday 🗡️ #Archaeology
#History
November 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Happy Birthday to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has helped to protect #OurRightsAndFreedoms for 75 years.

Here are more than 200 examples, from across the continent👇

🔗 www.coe.int/ECHR

There are thousands more.

#ECHR #ECHR75 @coe.int @echr.coe.int
November 4, 2025 at 6:38 AM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Amazing sunrise marking the start of the Celtic New Year on 1st November / Samhain, the Christian Feast of All Saints Day.

At Carrowmore megalithic site, Sligo, the chamber at Listoghill faces the Ballygawley Mountains & sunrise in this position coincides with the start and the end of winter.
November 1, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Tonight I am apparently the cool Mum/Gran on our street. I have felt slippers a dressing gown and there are #potatoes amongst my sweets. #CharlieBrown #Snoopy #Halloween.

Update: I am running out of potatoes!
October 31, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Question: If you mark a rather catastrophic test on Latin grammar today and put it on the desk to be collected at the end of the lesson, does that count as Halloween decorations? A teacher wants to know.
October 31, 2025 at 11:59 AM
To all little monsters hunting for sweets and candy tonight. Have fun! Happy #Halloween
And for those celebrating that people have been nailing manifestos (90+ theses) to church doors for a very long time: Einen besinnlichen #Reformationstag.
October 31, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Been too long since I did a big silly ancient history 🧵so let's bring an old one back over from the Bad Place:

It's time for ::air horn:: Publius Ventidius Bassus, the coolest Roman you have never heard of and the only person to walk in a triumph first as captive, then as triumphing general. 1/
October 23, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
If this isn't the last video that MTV ever plays, I will be so furious:
October 13, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Lindow Common, Chesh. findspot of Lindow Man. 2 years into the #reconstruction/reclamation of the Lowland bog, there is lots of wildlife and plenty of colonizer plants (birch, willow etc)around the edges, but after the last summer it desperately needs more rain. #prehistory #archaeology #environment
October 13, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
NEW Excavation fully uncovers the remains of a Late Antique church at ‘Marea’/Philoxenite, Egypt, one of the most important pilgrimage sites of the Roman Empire.

Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
October 10, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Went today to an event at #TattonPark in Cheshire celebrating their amazing collection of heritage apple trees. In the process, discovered that one of their summerhouses is panelled with reused carved panels with #Tudor designs #archaeology #history
October 5, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Models of everyday life were deposited in #Egyptian tombs. They were supposed to support the deceased in the afterlife. One of the most charming examples is the model of a #cow giving birth.
Carved in wood, painted.
Probably from Meir, #Egypt, dating c. 2040-1985 BC.

📷 Royal Ontario Museum

🏺
October 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Tonight I learned that one of my heroes has died. I loved her and colleagues' "adventures" as a child and grew up to admire her scientific work for so many reasons. RIP Jane Goodall.

Jane Goodall, wildlife advocate and primate expert, dies at 91 - www.reuters.com/business/env...
Wildlife advocate, primate expert Jane Goodall dies at 91
Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, died on Wednesday at the age of 91, the institute she founded said.
www.reuters.com
October 1, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Notice of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway on 27 Sep 1825, the train to leave West Auckland at 9 and, via Darlington and Yarm, arrive at Stockton-upon-Tees around 1: "Any gentleman who may intend to be present… will oblige the company by addressing a note to their office"
#Railway200
September 27, 2025 at 6:57 AM
In my 40 years of being an archaeologist I had the privilege of digging many amazing sites, but today I quietly added one thing to my bucket list: to spend one day excavating the black layer of the Pelopion or one of the wells in Olympia. For a chance of seeing a bit of a sphyrelaton statue. #dreams
September 20, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
In Perth last week, I went to the museum @perthmuseum.bsky.social to say hello to my favourite smiley Pictish stone. It features four faces and was found near Abernethy. #ReliefWednesday
September 17, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Time to start talking about my work.
Really looking forward to talking about Olympia and some of the new research next Saturday in Mancent's online dayschool.
Here is their latest blog: mancent.org.uk?p=7015
AnCient Olympia in the Autumn? – MANCENT – The Manchester Continuing Education Network
mancent.org.uk
September 15, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
The linked paper is quite a cool archaeogeophysics thing, they drove a magnetometer all over Karakorum and put the data together into a map of the city.
September 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday.

I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric.

Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.
September 14, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Also one of the best reasons to use a lid....poor moggy, she was meaning so well
What an excellent cat.
how it feels to contribute to an edited volume
September 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann
Amazing treasures of medieval legal history for a medieval Monday - the Catslechta ˙ (or Cat-sections) - an old Irish legal text on cats (the Senchas Már) which even sets out various categories of cats based on various characteristics or talents.
#medievalsky
September 1, 2025 at 3:26 PM
#StandingStoneSunday. After all those great stone circles in the UK, let me introduce you to something special. This is the Merlin Circle in Alderley Edge in Cheshire, near the Bronze Age mine of the Engine Vein.
Built in the 18th c by the Stanleys because the Edge had Merlin but no Stone Circle!
August 31, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Theoretically it is still summer, but not only have I spent every day last week raking leaves off my lawn, but I am definitely back writing the lectures for the autumn courses and putting the programme up at mancent.org.uk. I hope at least some of you will like it.
August 29, 2025 at 7:48 PM