Dr. Robert Barry Mason
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robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason
@robertmason.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.6K following 700 posts

Archaeology, museums, science, & my garden. I also write fantasy stories (in an effort to keep the fantasy out of my archaeology). Tolkien & Pratchett nerd. πŸŒ±πŸΉπŸΊπŸ—‘οΈπŸ“šπŸ“–β›οΈβœοΈπŸš€πŸͺβš’️

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robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Nov 18
1/🧡 I am an archaeologist, have been since I was a teenager working for the unit in my hometown of Southampton who then gave me a job for a few years. Eventually I got a D.Phil from Oxford (1994) and jobs at the Royal Ontario Museum & University of Toronto.
Here I am excavating in Southampton in 1981, photo by a Southern Evening Echo photographer. Shorts like that were less of a statement in 1981. I think I got the hat at the Glastonbury rock festival.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 11d
Reclaim our heritage? Is he talking about Windscale? The nuclear industry gives scientists a bad name.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 12d
This really is not natural. The trees know when the winter is coming, they drop their leaves before the first snows. Usually there is enough time to clear the leaves before the snows come. Things are messed up.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 12d
I think I'm fatigued and leaning about myself. This was right after a field season in Syria!

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 14d
MEN! Have you thought about the Roman Empire today? 🏺

My pic of 2005.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 28d
I follow someone that posts historical photos and stories about my hometown, Southampton in England. Recently, he posted a story about a man that was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in 1939, just before WW2. In his defence he had said that Mr. Hitler had been "on his nerves" of late.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· 28d
So many moustaches...I'm surprised that there aren't more beards. Apart from the influence of the King, surely some of these men were ex-Navy? But then I googled for sailors in 1914 and got no beards again!
George V Italy WWI Group of British Sailors at the Vatican

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 27
I have just written a science-fiction story in which the main character has the ability to create circular kilometer-wide "cities". Today I discovered NΓΆrdlingen. However, this German city was built in a meteor crater, not by alien technology! πŸ“šπŸͺ #BookSky

medium.com/the-kraken-l...

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 25
I thought I had better get a pic of these fuchsias before the frost hits tonight! 🌱 #FlowerReport

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 24
Nice use of satellite imagery to reveal the destruction of cultural heritage.

www.cnn.com/2025/10/23/u...
See the White House’s East Wing demolition from satellite images | CNN
Satellite images show how dramatically President Donald Trump’s plans to build a new ballroom have affected the historic structure.
www.cnn.com

Reposted by Robert Mason

historicalsoton.bsky.social
Historic Southampton @historicalsoton.bsky.social Β· Oct 24
I think we can all sympathise with Douglas Walker, a 44-year-old fruit salesman of no fixed abode, who was charged with being drunk on Havelock Road on 26 August 1939. Two days later he pleaded guilty and said: β€œI think Mr Hitler had got on my nerves a bit during the day. I had certainly had a few.”

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 23
Looking up the precise location of the site producing the Anglo-Saxon pottery I have been asked to look at in the ROM. North Elmham was apparently the seat of a bishopric until 1071, and the excavations were to the southwest of the now ruined cathedral. 🏺 #MedievalSky

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 20
I wrote this story for a prompt by The Kraken Lore on Medium. It is the kind of fantasy that helps me sleep at night.

In a good way!
medium.com/the-kraken-l...
The Emissary
Would you want to save the world?
medium.com

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 20
They are probably starting to panic. The mid-terms may become a bloodbath for the Republicans.

Fingers crossed.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 19
People that want to make everything grey need help.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 19
If you saw this chap, and you knew he had a story, would you be interested in knowing what that story was?

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 15
I was traumatised there by the Welsh National Opera's "Madame Butterfly" in which the petite Japanese wife was played by an enormous woman, and the strapping American captain was played by a ginger-haired chap who looked about 4'6" tall. Took me over 30 years before I could try opera again.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 15
44 years after I last excavated in Anglo-Saxon Southampton (fondly known as "Hamwee,"or actually Hamwih, to its excavators), I have been asked to catalogue some English early mediaeval pottery. A reward for a career studying the vibrantly colourful pottery of the medieval Middle East! #MedievalSky

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Oct 13
I have a new short-story published by the Krakenlore on Medium today. It is a pleasant little read, I would say.

thekrakenlore.com/the-hungry-q...
The Hungry Queen
A Failure in Royal Courtesy
thekrakenlore.com

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 15
Perhaps they have a better education system? Interestingly I did not see a single Scottish flag there in the published images.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 15
Really, England is an immigrant concept, a thin veneer of a language over a population which is genetically mostly what has been on the island since the Bronze Age. If they were true nationalists they would be all speaking Brythonic or Gaelic.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 15
The Union Jack is a combination of the crosses of St. George, a Palestinian; St. Andrew, who was an Apostle from Galilee; and St. Patrick, who was British, but is famous for work in Ireland where he was initially a hated immigrant. They would not approve.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 14
For all the people out there waving the Cross of St. George, you should know that St. George of Lydda was a Palestinian, and is widely revered in the Middle East by all faiths.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 11
Getting some very nice aubergines or eggplants this year! 🌱

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 11
It is deeply disturbing to have *anyone* deriding the concept of empathy, but when these people call themselves Christians it's sickening.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 11
Well those Dark Age folks had to get their swords from somewhere...

Reposted by Robert Mason, Keith Lilley

antiquity.ac.uk
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk Β· Sep 11
NEW Britain's economy did not collapse after the #Romans left

A new, unbroken timeline of British metal production from the 5th century AD to the present day questions the idea of a post-Roman 'Dark Age'.

Strap in for an industrious #AntiquityThread 1/12 🧡

🏺 #Archaeology
Two archaeologists excavating in a trench.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 10
She came across as being a silly undergrad in the trailer. Not like this woman at all.

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 10
Let's hear it for masons!

robertmason.bsky.social
Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social Β· Sep 10
Yes. I haven't seen "The Dig" I think partly because the trailer makes it look like a romance, and partly because it makes Stuart Pigott look so much older than his wife at the time. I looked it up, he was two years older, the actors have a 20-year difference.