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robheighton.bsky.social
Dr Rob
@robheighton.bsky.social
5.8K followers 6.5K following 1.7K posts
he/him • Doctor of Physics • Worldbuilder & Conlanger • Fan of Fantasy • Whovian • Amateur Enthusiast of Linguistics, Archaeology, Classics, and many other things

📍 UK • 📖 Isengard • 📺 The Brownstone
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robheighton.bsky.social
Dr Rob @robheighton.bsky.social · Nov 12
Folks with any reach on Bluesky, please consider reposting so I can find friends old and new:

I'm Rob; I like fantasy books, maths and physics, ancient stuff and mythology, linguistics and music, British wildlife, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And I might occasionally mention Doctor Who
Reposted by Dr Rob
serenamalyon.bsky.social
Golden Embers - watercolour and digital, 2015 (I think?)

It's been a long time since I posted this vengeful queen. Back when my style was a little more abstract and weird.
A queen with a RBF stands with her hands on a sword's hilt. Her skirt is an abstract view into a kingdom on fire.
October 6, 2025 at 3:47 PM
robheighton.bsky.social
Today I learnt that HEARTH and CARBON are ("possibly") etymological cousins. Those familiar with their Indo-European sound changes will spot the classic h/k correspondence that arose from Grimm's Law, which in hindsight seems obvious!
November 13, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
mallornleafling.bsky.social
I don't think I've shared it before, but I absolutely adore making diorama cards, and I usually (ok, always; I keep none) gift them. ♡

This one features an 1860s drawing of Karlstejn castle, and I was inspired by vintage Halloween cards, gothic media, & the alchemist's workshop I saw in Prague! 🏰🌹
Square diorama card featuring Czech Republic's Karlstejn Castle in black and white. The foreground of the card features a draped red velvet-texture theatre curtain secured to the top and left side, a potion bottle, a toad, and a flying bat. A 3D effect is created with a middle piece that features hanging stars, a moon, and clouds. Not visible on the picture are two sailing ships and a sea. The dark blue sky behind the castle is decorated with golden stars. A more side-facing shot of the card, where some of the clouds are more visible and the diorama/3D effect is more pronounced.
November 9, 2025 at 8:48 PM
robheighton.bsky.social
Always found it pretty cool that there's a medieval demon of typos
gutenberg.org Project Gutenberg @gutenberg.org · 14h
Tutivillus Is Watching You

For medieval scribes, mistakes couldn’t be easily shrugged off, as Tutivillus, the stickler demon, was always looking over their shoulders.

By: Amelia Soth

daily.jstor.org/tutivillus-i...

At PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje...

#books #old_manuscripts
Representation of Titivillus (14th century). The scene shows a scribe seated at a wooden desk, diligently copying a manuscript with a quill pen. He leans over an open book filled with red and black text. Behind him, Titivillus appears as a small, dark, winged creature with a mischievous face, hairy body, and clawed hands. The demon watches him intently. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Titivillus.jpg
November 13, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
davidleakenney.bsky.social
Ah why not? Here's another Barn Owl picture I have taken. This beauty was flying right towards me.

#birds #birdphotography #photography #wildlifephotography #wildlife
November 10, 2025 at 2:47 PM
robheighton.bsky.social
Not to be rude or anything, but some of you need to take your genAI slop and get it the hell away from this app
November 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
doccrom.bsky.social
#OnThisDay - 13 November - in 36 BC Octavian (later Augustus) celebrated a triple ovation, with his later Res Gestae (25.1) describing this victory as 'pacifying the sea from pirates'. #AncientHistory 🏺

Image: Aureus of 42 BC; RRC 497/1; BM (1864,1128.237). Link - numismatics.org/crro/id/rrc-...
Obverse of a Roman aureus: Head of Octavian, right, bearded. Border of dots. Reverse of a Roman aureus: Equestrian statue, left, holding lituus in right hand (horse decorated with phalerae); in exergue, rostrum tridens. Border of dots.
November 13, 2025 at 9:04 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
The shades of autumn's grace
A brown, mouldering apple on its branch A red and green apple hanging from its branch with autumnal colours and a blue sky in the background A seasonally brown leaf in focus, with the autumnal colours of a beech tree and a blue sky in the background
November 13, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Dr Rob
oewordhord.bsky.social
manu, f.n: mane. (MA-nuh / ˈma-nʌ)
Image: Liber de natura rerum; France (Abbaye de Saint-Amand), 13th century; Bibliothèque Municipale de Valenciennes, MS 320, f. 61v.
#OldEnglish #WOTD
Medieval manuscript illustration of a horse drinking from a stream.
November 10, 2025 at 8:01 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
A walk at dusk
Trees on the gently arcing horizon of a (VERY) shallow hill, viewed over dark fields silhouetted by the pale dusken sky
November 12, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
doccrom.bsky.social
#OnThisDay - 10 November - in AD 41, the Emperor Claudius wrote a letter to the Alexandrians trying to defuse the civil unrest between the city's various ethnic communities: an issue left unresolved by Gaius Caligula. #AncientHistory 🏺

Image: Papyrus 2248 Recto (P.Lond. VI 1912r. descr., TM 91987)
November 10, 2025 at 8:55 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
Born to wield large hammers and dark fairy daggers, forced to rely on scathing wit and withering insults
edmondsscanner.bsky.social Edmonds Scanner @edmondsscanner.bsky.social · 2d
Choose your weapon:

1. cartoonishly large hammer
2. dark fairy dagger
3. monkey ninjas
4. scathing wit & withering insults
November 12, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
tudorage1973.bsky.social
#TudorTuesday
Embroidered fabric fragment
15th Century
Florence

Frisé velvet with overshot weave; silk, silver and gold.

On display at Museo del Tessuto, Prato, Tuscany.

#Fabric #EmbroideredFragment #Florence #Italy #History
November 11, 2025 at 6:14 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
Onwards!
My copy of The Fellowship of the Ring My copy of The Two Towers
November 9, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
chapps.bsky.social
An idea for your Christmas tree this year - stacks of Celtic gold torcs! Known as the Ipswitch Torcs after the location where their hoard was found, the terminals are decorated in the swirly La Tène style (Tène II), save the top one which is unadorned. 🎄🏺 1/

150-50 BCE. 📸 me
#BritishMuseum
A stack of five gold torcs against a green background. All were made from two twisted solid bars, with loop terminals cast on. Four (1969,0103.2-5) have cast terminals ornamented in high relief with Tène II style curvilinear motifs of bosses and scrolls, within a border of two corded bands lying slightly apart; they can be paired but their patterns are not identical. The fifth - at top (1969,0103.1) - has plain terminals. These torcs were probably deposited together as a hoard around 75 BCE.
November 8, 2025 at 5:27 PM
robheighton.bsky.social
A Fenland walk the other day
Farm vehicle tracks leading over a green field in a very flat landscape A view of an ash tree (in the out-of-focus background) background, with focus on a stalk and flowerhead in the foreground, all bathed in golden evening sunlight The amber and peach shades of the sunset behind the silhouette of a tree
November 9, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
helenbennett.bsky.social
Joining #BlueSkyArtShow on today's theme #Evening with my super moon! 🌝

For years I've tried to capture a sharp moon and detailed foliage in a single, balanced exposure but it's always a challenge; this was the best I could do!

Happy Saturday! 📷 🕊️

#photography #moon #landscape #EastCoastKin
A photography of a golden coloured full moon taken at twilight when the sky was slightly pink from the sun set. Trees in the foreground are in silhouette, some just in front of the moon with a crow perched on one branch.
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
Bristol Cathedral, and the Helios installation therein, were spectacular!
A giant model of the Sun in Bristol Cathedral, photographed from an angle that makes it look like it's sitting in the pulpit The stained glass rose window of Bristol Cathedral The interesting symmetries of Bristol Cathedral's vaulted ceiling
November 8, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
racheldeering.bsky.social
Whiskers & Rhymes, Arnold Lobel, 1985.
An illustration of two cat-like figures on a rocky cliffside overlooking a stormy sea. One figure, wearing a hooded cloak, stands on a ledge with their back turned facing the turbulent water. The wind appears to be blowing their cloak and hood. Another figure, dressed in a jacket, is seated on a higher rock, looking out at the sea. The sky is dark and cloudy, and the waves below are white-capped and crashing against the rocks.
November 6, 2025 at 10:27 PM
robheighton.bsky.social
[youth pastor voice] You know who else from Galilee left the place where his body had been stored?
November 8, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Dr Rob
mrfw17thc.bsky.social
Find yourself something that makes you as happy as Edward Barlow's 'dolphin' was to 'swim in the sea'. #skystorians #earlymodern

(National Maritime Museum, Journal of Edward Barlow, JOD/4/197-210, 213-294)
November 4, 2025 at 9:15 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
There shouldn't be any need to explain

(a) why I want to read books written by human beings, nor

(b) how that might be somewhat jeopardised by an industry intended to produce an ever-more-passable simulacrum of the end product, at lower cost, in a capitalist landscape.

And yet here we are!
November 8, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Dr Rob
lbflyawayhome.bsky.social
Other work by the Ladybird artists
‘November Farm Work’
Farm Crops in Britain - Puffin Picture Book, 1955
Artist: SR Badmin
November 6, 2025 at 8:17 AM
robheighton.bsky.social
Just watched last night's #Uncloaked, and I'm still simply enamoured with that Traitors final. What a season 😭
November 7, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Dr Rob
notmoro.bsky.social
This is just to say

I have beheld
the works
that you left
in the desert

At which
you were probably
hoping
I would despair

Forgive me
your legs were mighty
so vast
and trunkless
scriblit.bsky.social Gabby HC's books make ideal festive presents @scriblit.bsky.social · 15d
Once upon a desert sandy
As through winds the trav'ling man he
Spied the face of Ozymandy
Lying, simply lying there
Suddenly there was some writing
Pon the plinth that he was sighting
That the sand and time were blighting
Quoth the statue, "Now despair"
nick-pettigrew.bsky.social Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 15d
There was an old man you could gaze
At his works in despair in a daze
If you looked upon them
And were mere mortal men
'Ozymandias mighty', it says
October 30, 2025 at 3:43 PM