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Reposted by Alison Fisk

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 6h

Marvellous Minoan clay vessels made by creative potters on the island of Crete during the Aegean Bronze Age around 3,500 years ago! 🤩

Heraklion Archaeological Museum 📷 by me

#Archaeology

From the Aegean Bronze Age, Minoan clay vessels with black handpainted decoration.on a pale biscuity-coloured slip

Top left - clay flask decorated in Minoan ‘Marine Style’’ with an octopus with tentacles writhing around the body of the vase. Additional motifs such as seaweed and rocks represent the seabed. From Palaikastro, 1500-1450 BC

Top right - clay rhyton in the shape of a bull’s head. A rhyton is a type of pouring vessel used for filling cups or making liquid offerings. There is a pouring hole at the bull’s mouth. From Knossos Little Palace, 1450-1375 BC

Bottom left - Nautilus vessel - clay rhyton depicting the seabed with nautili, corals and seaweed. From Phaistos Palace, 1500-1450 BC

Bottom right - Basket shaped rhyton decorated with double-axe motif. There is a small pouring hole in one of the bottom corners. From Pseira, 1500-1450 BC

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Dr Jo Ball @drjeball.bsky.social · 10d

A metal face mask from a #Roman cavalry helmet; the blank expression is quite off-putting even now, & must have been pretty intimidating in antiquity (whether or not they were ever worn in battle) 🏺 #AncientBlueSky

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Chapps @chapps.bsky.social · 22h

I imagine this guy shouting at museum patrons with a squeaky little voice, ‘C’mon, you think you can take me? Look what I did with the last guy!’.

This green-glazed terracotta gladiator is ready to rumble, but only his competitor’s foot remains. 🏺 1/

Roman, 1st c. CE, #BritishMuseum
📸 me

Terracotta gladiator group, with an olive-green enamel glaze. Two gladiators once opposed each other on the long base, one now missing, save his left foot. The remaining gladiator stands with his right leg advanced, his scutum (shield) held before him in his right hand. He holds a sica (short curved sword) in his left hand and wears a crested visored helmet and extra long greaves which cover his entire legs.

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Chris Seddon @chrisseddon.bsky.social · 1d

There's something quite beautiful about Sir Mortimer Wheeler's box-system excavations at Maiden Castle. Such a fantastic photograph!

Image Rights: Society of Antiquaries (held at Historic England Archive)

#archaeology 🏺 #photography

An historic black & white image of the box excavations at Maiden Castle during Sir Mortimer Wheeler's excavations in 1937. Image Rights: Society of Antiquaries (held at Historic England Archive)

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 9h

Current mood....

An Egyptian shabti (a figurine who acted as servant for a deceased to perform the manual labour in the afterlife), on display at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

A display of ancient Egyptian shabti figurines, small human-shaped burial statues made of different materials and colors, including brown, beige, and turquoise blue. The figures are arranged in rows, with carved facial features and crossed arms, some inscribed with hieroglyphs.
In the center a whimsical shabti figurine, made of light brown material with black painted hieroglyphs on its body. The figure has a rounded head, large dark eyes, and an unevenly painted large mouth, giving it a quirky and slightly unusual appearance.

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 6h

Marvellous Minoan clay vessels made by creative potters on the island of Crete during the Aegean Bronze Age around 3,500 years ago! 🤩

Heraklion Archaeological Museum 📷 by me

#Archaeology

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Reposted by Alison Fisk

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 1d

Pot of gold!

Rare Roman gold coin hoard uncovered near Didcot, Oxfordshire, by a metal detectorist in 1995. The pot contained 126 gold aurei, struck between AD 54-160. It would have taken a legionary soldier over ten years to earn this large sum!

Ashmolean Museum 📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

My photo shows a pile of shiny Roman gold coins below five fragments from a grey pot

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 1d

#FindsFriday This bronze helmet was found in a field near Falaise in northern France in the 1820s

It dates to the late Bronze Age, around 1100-900BC, and was part of a cache of 10 helmets!

What could have prompted someone to bury all these? 👀

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #museums

A dark greenish corroded metal helmet with a large point at the top sitting on a glass museum shelf

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Rebecca Griffiths @yorym-flo.bsky.social · 1d

This amazing object is a Bronze Age palstave axehead c.1500-1250 BC. The axe would be hafted to a forked wooden handle held in place by high flanges & deep stop ridge. It is decorated with a trident-like shield design. #FindsFriday finds.org.uk/database/art...

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Simon Coupland @scoupland.bsky.social · 1d

For #FindsFriday some of the lovely objects in the Ilanz hoard from Switzerland, buried during Charlemagne's reign, in the early 790s. Gold Lombard and Carolingian coins, silver Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon and Arabic coins, as well as gold jewellery. See more here: raetischesmuseum.app/extras/highl...

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Tony Divey @tonydivey.bsky.social · 1d

Here are two Romano British triskele brooches from Verulamium (left) and Wroxeter (right) that I have recently been comparing for an EH article. The design was as old when they were made as the brooches are now. #FindsFriday

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Kath Page @orkat3.bsky.social · 1d

#FindsFriday This unique carving of a woman was discovered in 1880 in a peat bog in Ballachulish near Loch Leven, #Scotland in 1880. Carved from a single piece of alder, the Ballachulish women stands 1.5m tall, has quartz pebbles for eyes and dates to about 600AD. Her purpose is unknown. #IronAge

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Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 1d

A #Roman copper alloy plaque with Victory carrying a trophy including shields and two trumpets (carnyxes)

Probably commemorating triumph over the poor Silures in the late 1st century AD

From Caerleon © Amgueddfa Cymru — Museum Wales CC BY-SA 4.0

For more see
images.museumwales.ac.uk

#FindsFriday

Bronze plaque with a relief image of a winged female personification of Victory carrying a trophy of armour, shields, trumpets and a helmet fixed to a pole slung over her right shoulder

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Jon Hawke @archaeohawke.bsky.social · 1d

Glasswares ,1st century. #Roman painted pitcher showing gladiatorial scenes.
Found in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. 👀
#Glass #Art #History #artwork
#FindsFriday

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 1d

The metal detectorist, a Mr William Darley, reported his find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS).

PAS records on these two links:

Coin record: finds.org.uk/database/hoa...

Grey ware pot record: finds.org.uk/database/art...

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 1d

Pot of gold!

Rare Roman gold coin hoard uncovered near Didcot, Oxfordshire, by a metal detectorist in 1995. The pot contained 126 gold aurei, struck between AD 54-160. It would have taken a legionary soldier over ten years to earn this large sum!

Ashmolean Museum 📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

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Reposted by Alison Fisk

Dr Rebecca Warren @drrjwarren.bsky.social · 3d

#FindsFriday
Chalcolithic/Bronze Age 'beaker' pot from Argyll - dating from c2300-2000 BCE.

Someone took such care to make this vessel look beautiful.

(Kilmartin Museum)

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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 1d

A 7th century Pictish symbol stone discovered in 1936 during excavations at the Knowe of Burrian - a broch at Netherbrough in the Orkney Isles. Now part of the collections at Orkney Museum in Kirkwall. 📸 My own. #FindsFriday #Picts #Orkney

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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 1d

#FindsFriday! A Roman brush found in Bregenz.

Roman brush fragments are sometimes difficult to interpret; in this case, their function may relate to textile production, as suggested for similar finds in Eschenz.The bristled surface is suitable for carding or teasing wool fibers. 🧵1/2

📷 me

🏺

A photo of a well-preserved fragment of a Roman brush in a show case. The object consists of a rectangular base with rounded and scalloped edges, formed from wood into which hundreds of stiff rushes have been densely embedded.

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Dr Alan Montgomery @classicalalan.bsky.social · 1d

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

Three ancient roman shoes with pierced decoration displayed on dummy feet.

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 2d

The Royal Game of Ur is the world’s oldest playable boardgame!

Played by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia about 4,500 years ago!

It is a two-player race game, the rules of which have been deciphered from a cuneiform tablet.

Game from the Royal Cemetery of Ur. 📷 British Museum

#Archaeology

British Museum photo showing a two-player board game with gaming counters known as the Royal Game of Ur. Dated c. 2,500 BC.

The game board is composed of a hollow box made of wood adorned with shell plaques. There is a drawer at one end for storing game pieces and dice. The top of the board is covered with twenty square-shaped off-white shell plaques, each bordered with dark-blue lapis lazuli. The shell squares are intricately decorated with blue inlaid patterns including dots inside circles and eye-shapes. Five squares are inlaid with flower-shaped rosettes with red limestone and blue lapis lazuli petals.

The game board is roughly rectangular in shape. Viewed from above in the photo, on the left side of the board is a block of 12 squares made up of 4 across by 3 down. On the right side of the board is a block of 6 squares made up of 2 across by 3 down. The two blocks are joined by two squares extending between the second square down on the end row of the left block and the second square down on the first row of the second block.

Dimensions H: 2.40 cm, L: 30.10 cm, W: 11 cm, (W 5.70 cm at narrowest part)

Beneath the board are 14 disc-shaped gaming counters. On the left are 7 white pieces, inlaid with 5 spots of blue lapis lazuli. On the right are 7 black pieces inlaid with five white spots.

Between the game pieces are three tetrahedron-shaped dice. L to R: Dark blue, brown, cream.

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Duncan Mackay @theduncanmackay.bsky.social · 2d

Carrawburgh Mithraeum, Hadrian’s Wall; the shyest member of the contu-baaa-nium
#RomanFortThursday

A sheep pokes its head out around a Roman altar in the ruins of a Roman temple.

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Ulla Rajala @ullamr.bsky.social · 2d

The Aalen Roman Fort, a World Heritage Site, was on the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes in Germany. It was built in the 2nd century AD and was the largest cavalry garrison north of the Alps. The garrison was home to 1,000 soldiers of the Ala II Flavia Miliaria. #RomanFortThursday

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Ste Lingard @stelingard.bsky.social · 2d

The stout stone remains of the strongroom in the headquarters building of Legio II Augusta, at #Corbridge, #Northumberland. Pictured on a glorious day last August.
#RomanFortThursday #RomanBritain

The remains of an underground strongroom, reached by a short staircase. Little survives above ground level, but the stonework set into the ground looks very robust.

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Jon Hawke @archaeohawke.bsky.social · 2d

#RomanFortThursday

Lauriacum was an important legionary #Roman town on the Danube Limes in #Austria.Where a Roman settlement was located at a ford over the Enns, the Legio II Italica built a legion camp around 200AD, after the abandonment of an older site in Albing,
#Archaeology

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