Sarah E. Bond
banner
sarahebond.bsky.social
Sarah E. Bond
@sarahebond.bsky.social
Roman historian, digital humanist & contributor at Hyperallergic

Book 📕 Strike: Labor, Unions & Resistance in the Roman Empire (Feb. 2025) : https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300273144/strike/

Pasts Imperfect:
https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/
November 14, 1152 BCE: the first recorded workers' strike occurred in ancient Egypt under Pharaoh Ramses III. Artisans and laborers working on the royal tombs at Deir el-Medina stopped working in protest of delayed and insufficient rations, a form of wages. collezioni.museoegizio.it/en-GB/materi...
November 14, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Originally, this early 4th century CE mosaic of Bacchus sat in the entrance to a villa in Daphne (Turkey). It was meant to be a welcome mat of sorts that told guests wine 🍷 & parties were on the horizon. Today it hangs at RISD in Providence and there is far less wine in the museum (photos my own).
November 13, 2025 at 7:15 PM
There is a new open access study of Roman ceramic tiles from Bracara Augusta (Portugal—Pleiades pleiades.stoa.org/places/236377) examining “420 prints from humans, dogs, cats, sheep & goats” left on the tiles. And it’s adorable 🐾 🐐 www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/8/... Animals don’t care about capitalism lol
November 13, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Me: You need to learn the geography of Italy.

The Geography:
November 13, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Nice! 👍
November 12, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Update. We pink!
November 12, 2025 at 2:37 AM
Lots wrong with the world right now, but at least Iowans can go outside and see the Northern Lights.
November 12, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Been there.
November 12, 2025 at 12:33 AM
We probably all need this right now: Japanese surrealist Tohukiro Kawai’s saintly cats. 🐈 🐱 www.gyokuei.tokyo/globalstore?...
November 11, 2025 at 7:52 PM
I have been playing with the open source "UMap" along with CAWM & DARE Maptiles of the Roman Empire to help people make their own maps for websites, teaching, and books using ancient world data. Is there any interest in learning the basics of DIY maps? umap.openstreetmap.de/en/map/ancie...
November 11, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Waking up to news 🚨 that 6 (!) Roman statues were stolen from Syria’s National Museum, in Damascus, on Monday. No details on which statues yet, but I had a few pics below from the GRB gallery with the famed Al-Lat Athena. Heartbreaking news.
thehill.com/homenews/ap/...
November 11, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Who made this and why are you choosing nerd violence? ✍️ I mean, it is true, but still.
November 9, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Still the best sticker ever. By @artofmarza.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Ariadne Marketou and Alexandra Rodler have a new article on “Ochres as earth pigments in Hellenistic and Roman polychromy: State of the art and future directions on material origins and trade” in the JAS! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... I do love a pigment trade article. 🎨 🖌️
November 9, 2025 at 12:35 PM
November 7, 83 CE: On a waxen tablet, Quintus Cassius Secundus, a soldier of the Twentieth Legion, writes that he owed Gaius Geminius Mansuetus, a soldier of the same legion, 100 denarii, "which [I will repay … date due and interest]." (Brit. 23. p146) romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...
November 7, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Annual reminder. 🩲
November 5, 2025 at 9:36 PM
The book I have been waiting for! So many congrats to the amazing Kim Bowes on the publication day of _ Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent_ ⚒️💜 press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
November 4, 2025 at 11:36 PM
No one did resting emperor face quite like Caracalla (photo is my own from the Baths of Diocletian).
November 3, 2025 at 10:15 PM
November 3, 182 CE: An enslaved child named Epaphroditus (8) falls from a window straining to see the castanet-dancers at a festival in the village of Senepta in Roman Egypt (P.Oxy. 3 475). A public physician (accusative: ‘δημόσιον ἰατρὸν’) is called for & a proper burial papyri.info/ddbdp/p.oxy;...
November 3, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Claudius! 🎃 No!
November 1, 2025 at 3:09 PM
At the Roman site of Olbia (pleiades.stoa.org/places/471987) near Arles (France), archaeologists have found hundreds of burials where funeral pyres facilitated cremated remains of persons and then were turned into tombs on the site of the pyre 🔥 . www.inrap.fr/pratiques-fu...
November 1, 2025 at 12:19 PM
An update on the Getty's APPEAR (Ancient Panel Paintings: Examination, Analysis, and Research) project, which aggregates and studies panel portraits from antiquity—chugging along since 2013. www.getty.edu/projects/app... 🎨🖌️
October 31, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Your annual union-made candy list 🍬 🍭 Happy Halloween 🎃 via @labor411.bsky.social
October 31, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Eufronia Euf[r(oni)] | filia et m[at(er)] | naufragio |necta nat[a] | pri(die) Kal(endas) No[v(embres)] | percepit | III Id(us) April(es) | decessit pri(die) Kal(endas) Mai(as)

Eufronia, daughter of Eufronius & a mom, killed in a shipwreck. Born Oct 31, gave birth Apr 11, died Apr 30 (CIL 13 2718).
October 31, 2025 at 11:17 AM
The Princeton University numismatic collection integrated into the Nomisma.org Linked Open Data cloud, with almost new 3,600 coins! 💰 If you don’t know about the Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) project (my fav of all), with many 1000s of coins and types, check it out! numismatics.org/ocre/
October 30, 2025 at 12:06 PM