Duomo #Siena #Italy

Beautiful in the floodlight.

Sunday morning - Doodle in the margins of this 12th century manuscript, Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College - 101, fol. 97v

As I argue in #PlatypusMatters, Australia has the world's best mammals, but is sadly the worst place on Earth to be a mammal, with the planet's worst #extinction rate.
The Christmas Island shrew is now the latest species to be officially declared extinct.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Deer’s Call, Liu Chunjie, 1993.

crazy idea but hear me out: we print out information, like the internet but effectively 'digitising' it into physical form, and bind it together with related information relevant to the same topic within some covers. it then has zero energy need or subscription fees and lasts for centuries, wild huh

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

Kerry James Marshall (b.1955), painter and prof, "The Histories", retrospective with new work at Royal Acadrmy, London. Black, bright, bold, clever as hell, food for thought 🤩 Until Jan 18, 2026

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

The Beetles crossing Abbey Road

#archaeobirds 🪶

Sheer beauty 🤩 stone lintels from Yaxchilan, Maya culture, 450-550 (with pictograms, that list rulers) and c.725 CE (large scenes, that show them performing rituals). Now in British Museum, London, gallery 27 🏛 Yaxchilan, on border between Mexico and Guatemala, was an extraordinary place to visit 🦋

NEW: Extraordinary scenes in Amsterdam this afternoon (Sunday, Oct 5).

An estimated 250,000 bring the city to a standstill; people all wearing red to show solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸

(🎥 Ahmed Zantac)

At almost 2,000 years old, this child’s wooden toy sword is a remarkable survival from Roman times!

Found in the living quarters of the cavalry barracks at Vindolanda fort in 2017. Dated c.120 AD. Chesterholm Museum 📷 by me

#RomanFortThursday
#Archaeology

Did you know I have a store? topatoco.com/collections/...
I sell prints of some of my most popular comics, plus tshirts, mugs, and more.

Ever wondered what students at medieval universitites got up to? Wonder no more and learn all about this from @amwillemsen.bsky.social next Tuesday at 1pm for a free lunchtime lecture! www.sal.org.uk/event/back-i...

Today is the feast day of St Jerome. I used to have a copy of this Durer print above my desk. I love the quiet stillness of his study and the light streaming in through the windows.

"Whoever carved the Ardross wolf has seen the real thing" 🐺

Now on display in Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, the famous Ardross Wolf Stone was probably created over 1,000 years before these animals were persecuted to extinction in Britain around 1760: www.digitscotland.com/the-archaeol...

The #Antonine Baths of #Carthage powered by the mighty #Zaghouan #aqueduct (built under #Hadrian ) & the vast La Malga cisterns - 15 vaulted chambers holding up to 60,000 m³ each. One of Rome’s greatest feats of engineering in Africa, it supplied water until damaged in the 5th and 11th centuries.💧🏛️

Just open: 'Beato Angelico" in #Florence, unique overview exhibition in Palazzo Strozzi featuring re-assembled golden altarpieces & in Museo di San Marco featuring manuscripts & serene context of frescoed cells. Surprise bonus: Van Eyck's "St Jerome in Study" from Detroit 🦁 worth the trip! < 25 Jan

For #InternationalRabbitDay a frolicking bunny on a maiolica dish from Faenza, early 16thC, now at extensive & lively International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza (Italy) 🐇

For #InternationalRabbitDay 🐰🐇:
Love the facial expression on this blue bunny, it just keeps getting funnier the longer you stare back at it😂
China, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1654-1722), porcelain w/ blue glaze, Newfields collection: collection.imamuseum.org/artwork/23070/

Female American Kestrel strikes a pose 🪶☀️🌵