Hélène Rey
@helenerey.bsky.social
270 followers 270 following 19 posts
🏺 Archaeology & Cultural Studies postgrad at King's College London, with a touch of Digital Humanities | UCL IoA alumna 🔎 Researching cultural interactions in Mongol Eurasia (focus Syriac Christianity) 💼 Middle East Project Manager 📚 Returning to academia
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
helenerey.bsky.social
🎓 Very happy to share that I have received a ✨distinction✨ on my MA dissertation on the dynamics of cultural adaptation of Syriac Christianity by Turco-Mongol communities in 13th/14th century Central Eurasia, marking the end of my Global Cultures MA journey @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social #mongolsky
Front cover of the dissertation, entitled “Entangled Identities: An Archaeological Exploration of East Syriac Christianity in the Turco-Mongol World of 13th-14th Central Eurasia”
Reposted by Hélène Rey
prehistorian.bsky.social
New paper. Recording the female experience of UK archaeology 1990-2010. Anne Teather and I document how an industry EDI agenda evolved in the 1990s and was dismantled, uncovering the ramifications of that for women archaeologists over the next decade.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

#openaccess✅
Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology | Archaeological Dialogues | Cambridge Core
Documenting the profession: Recording historic access and retention issues for women in UK archaeology
www.cambridge.org
helenerey.bsky.social
This was a great introduction to #archeoViz by Sébastien Plutniak & Élisa Caron-Laviolette! Thanks @dariaheu.bsky.social for organising it!

👉 A recording will be made available here: campus.dariah.eu
atrium-eu.bsky.social
TODAY, at 11:30 CET, join DARIAH's free webinar on #archeoViz & the Spatial and Statistical Exploration of Archaeological Data for the first of DARIAH's #FridayFrontiers series!🏺

ℹ️ Info: www.dariah.eu/2025/06/13/r...
🔸Register: dariah.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
helenerey.bsky.social
Looking forward to this!
invisibleeast.bsky.social
Our hybrid lecture series, 'Silk Roads: Empire and Everyday Voices in the Medieval Islamicate East', with @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social starts Monday 13 October. For more information, and to book, visit: bit.ly/SilkRoadslectures

#skystorian #silkroads #lifelonglearning #studyatoxford
helenerey.bsky.social
Thanks to a fellowship from the American Center for Mongolian Studies, I'll start work tomorrow at the site of Tsagaan Sumiĭn Balgas (Khukh Ordung) in Arkhangai province. Under the excellent supervision of the Institute of Archaeology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.
The camp site on the left. A large rectangular structure on the right, potentially a palace of the Uyghur period. Grave site probably connected to the palace structure.
helenerey.bsky.social
Still hard to believe: I've just arrived in central Mongolia where I'll participate in my first archaeological fieldwork since graduating from @uclarchaeology.bsky.social (2014)!

Very grateful to be able to join a project that both aligns with my research interests and expands my horizons!
The camp for the fieldwork. Gers and sunset.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
bordersboundaries.bsky.social
CFP for Borders, Boundaries, Barriers: Real and Imagined in the Middle Ages (20-21 April 2026). Deadline 15 September 2025.
helenerey.bsky.social
Looking forward to what’s next, starting with… 🇲🇳 Mongolia, where I have just arrived!!
helenerey.bsky.social
I am very grateful to the professors at KCL’s new Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities, and in particular my kind and thoughtful supervisor Dr James Corke-Webster, as well as to the wonderful people at Accepted Society (www.acceptedsociety.com), who made the journey all the more enjoyable 💛
helenerey.bsky.social
When I decided to return to #academia after a long break, and doing it alongside my full-time job, I didn’t envision how much it would change my life, reigniting my love for academia and bringing me back to #archaeology ⛏️🤗
helenerey.bsky.social
🎓 Very happy to share that I have received a ✨distinction✨ on my MA dissertation on the dynamics of cultural adaptation of Syriac Christianity by Turco-Mongol communities in 13th/14th century Central Eurasia, marking the end of my Global Cultures MA journey @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social #mongolsky
Front cover of the dissertation, entitled “Entangled Identities: An Archaeological Exploration of East Syriac Christianity in the Turco-Mongol World of 13th-14th Central Eurasia”
Reposted by Hélène Rey
chakarchinggis.bsky.social
Puisque c'est la saison des cadeaux, en guise de conte de noël mongol, laissez-moi vous raconter mon anecdote favorite sur la générosité proverbiale d'Ögödei. Elle est rapportée par l'historien persan Juvaynī, qui la tient cependant d'annales mongoles tenues à la cour au jour le jour. 1/17
Ögödei, trônant entouré de serviteurs, distribue des parts de son trésor aux membres de sa cour. Montage à partir des miniatures du Ms. BNF, supplément persan 1113.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
livnstutz.bsky.social
Charina Knutsson defends her important PhD thesis "Indigenous Archaeology in Sweden. Aligning Contract Archaeology with National and International Policies on Indigenous Archaeology" at LNU. In it she discusses the potential of integrating Sámi perspectives into the Swedish cultural heritage system.
Ph D candidate Charina Knutsson and the opponent Jonas Nordin discuss her thesis at the public defense. The cover of the PhD thesis "Indigenous Archaeology in Sweden: Aligning Contract Archaeology with National and International Policies on Indigenous Heritage." The book is published open access here: https://lnu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1915872&dswid=2379
Reposted by Hélène Rey
davidwengrow.bsky.social
That’s right: we tend to project current political arrangements into the deep human past in a teleological fashion and assume there were no viable alternatives to what we have .. 1/4
adamfrank4.bsky.social
Let's add @davidwengrow.bsky.social to this thread. My understanding is that until the beginning of the European Hegemony there were lots of other arrangements around the world. North America and the Amazon, for example, likely had lots more people than we've been taught living in lots of ways.
karlalanfrank.bsky.social
All of human history did lead to empire though didn't it? That's something I did not understand about Wengrow's book. Of course there were other quality political forms, & there was never a clear demarcation between them, but empires rule them all when they want to-until another empire comes along.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
rachelschine.bsky.social
Alright, I wrote a rant about my feelings about the Global Middle Ages as institutional, historiographical, and moral paradigm. You can read it here.

journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/al...
View of The Intricate World and the Mundane University | Al-ʿUsur al-Wusta
journals.library.columbia.edu
Reposted by Hélène Rey
chakarchinggis.bsky.social
Comme je l'écrivais ailleurs : dire que "sarrasin" signifie "païen" et non "musulman" "𝘁𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝘂 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝘂 𝗠𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗴𝗲" me paraît très discutable. Les voyageurs occidentaux dans l'Empire mongol qui emploient le mot le font sans équivoque pour désigner les musulmans. 1/10
#mongolsky #tengri
Riccold de Montecrocce et un compagnon débattant avec deux "Sarrasins". Enluminure tirée du ms. BNF Français 2810, fol. 290v.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
nikokontovas.bsky.social
One of these days, someone will write a good article on the uses of "neo- #Chaghatay" in #Uzbekistan. The social dynamics of writing #Uzbek in Arabic script -- like on the catalogue at the Beruni Institute in #Toshkent -- are unlike any other language I know of that has officially switched scripts.
Card catalogs with the tops labelled in Arabic-script Uzbek/Chaghatay. Card catalogs with the tops labelled in Arabic-script Uzbek/Chaghatay.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
chakarchinggis.bsky.social
📆🎁1/24
Comme l'an dernier, à partir d'aujourd'hui et jusqu'au 24, je posterai chaque jour une miniature persane représentant les Mongols. J'ai choisi pour commencer cette cérémonie d'intronisation parce que les petites fenêtres sur les côtés m'ont fait penser à un calendrier de l'avent...
#mongolsky
Intronisation de Zav, dixième roi iranien de la dynastie des Pishdādides d'après le Shāhnāma de Firdowsī, représenté sous des traits mongols, assis à la turque et tenant une coupe (objet numineux dans les sociétés des steppes), assis sur un trône d'or. Il est entouré de neuf (chiffre numineux dans les sociétés des steppes) gens de cour et serviteurs, presque tous vêtus à la mongole, sauf un, en turban. Derrière eux, un palais. Les ailes de celui-ci, à droite et à gauche, comportent chacune deux petites fenêtres dont les volets s'ouvrent sur des visages féminins qui observent la scène. Miniature tirée du "Grand Shāhnāma mongol", produit à Tabriz c. 1330-1336. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
krebsverena.bsky.social
This. Three Ethiopian Christians attended the Council of Constance in, you know, modern-day Germany, in 1418 — likely quite by chance.

At least one of them had visited Jerusalem and Rome before that, and would go on to hang out in Geneva, modern-day Switzerland, after chilling with Pope Martin V.
rousemedieval.bsky.social
People travelled in the medieval period. The idea that medieval people were bound to the land, living their lives in one place, in one village, is a fiction of modernity.

Races and faiths mingled, migrants migrated, merchants, scholars, and pilgrims haunted the lanes and high ways of the world.
karidru.bsky.social
What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

We don't all have the same number of bones or muscles. There's an average, I guess. We all kind of cluster around it. Some muscles are pretty rare. Some people just invent their own artisanal bones.
Reposted by Hélène Rey
petertarras.bsky.social
The third curse comes from a Syriac Psalter, Sin. syr. 99, f. 1r. It reads: ‘This book is an endowment to Mt Sinai. No one has authority from God to take it away from the holy monastery. This was written by Arsenius the bishop.’
helenerey.bsky.social
10. And what is clear is that once you dip your toe in, neither the ‘Syriac world’ nor the ‘Mongol world’ will let you go. And archaeology? Well, that’s the work of a lifetime. #mongolsky #syriac #archaeology 10/10
helenerey.bsky.social
9. After many years away from academia, the impostor syndrome is strong, and there is so much I have still to learn. But isn’t that the exciting part of research? 9/10
helenerey.bsky.social
8. So whenever I have time off from work, you will find me surrounded by archaeological reports, digital versions of manuscripts, lots of theoretical texts, code for a slowly growing PostgreSQL database, and, of course, QGIS to make sense of the geography. 8/10