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amwillemsen.bsky.social
A medieval art historian & archaeologist @ Rijksmuseum van Oudheden Leiden, Dr, FSA, loves Rome & Roma, birds & books, proprietor of the Rose & Rabbit 📚 🦤
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March is the time for digging the beds in the garden. #MedievalCalendar Morgan Library MS M.399; Da Costa hours, illuminated by Simon Bening; ca. 1515 CE; Belgium; f.4v

Anna B Ehlers, a Tlingit of the Chilkat tribe, Alaska, skilled master weaver #womensart

Map of the world BL Add MS 8785; Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus rerum; c.1300-1309; Italy, N. (Mantua); f.315r

Wait, did someone say #caturday? Who could resist this bronze statuette of a lion who has just plopped down and is clearly waiting for a treat? He was probably once attached to the rim of a bronze vessel. 🏺 #ancientbluesky Greek, from Sparta, ca. 550 BCE. #GettyVilla 📸 me

Fabric in fabric - a dress on a tapestry.

Surya, the sun-god, seated on his chariot led by a horse with 7 heads; Pune, India, 1800-05 (Britsh Museum)

AncientBlueSky🏺 Bread stamps. Each legion #baked its own bread that was sometimes stamped. 📸 My own. #Caerleon #Archaeology #Roman #History #FindsFriday

Bacchus as the wine god, is covered with grapes, a fruit which grew in the fertile soil on the slopes of Vesuvius, trellises for which are shown in the wallpainting. from the House of the Centenary (IX, 8, 3-6). #Pompeii. Photo is my own; taken in 2019. #FrescoFriday

Here's today's #OceanOptimism #EarthOptimism story: Wisdom, the oldest-known albatross, just had another chick! I believe I posted about her laying an egg, it has now hatched! 🧪🦑🌎 news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

One of Sir Charles Barry's Westminster Bridge lamps with the London Eye behind.

NEW: A seagull rescued in a Scottish town has been found “sunning itself” on a beach in Morocco.

Below is the so-called "Fool’s Cap Map of the World", 16th c. 🌎 The globe is flattened onto the face of a court jester: an imago mundi as feast of fools at a time when cartography was still in its infancy & maps were not yet fully tools of imperialism. 🗃️ #earlymodern #map #history #Edusky

Viking sock lost in the wash for more than a thousand years? 🧦 😂 The only Viking-age sock found in England, it was recovered from the back yard of a 10th-century building during the 1976-81 excavations at Coppergate, York. On display at Jorvik Viking Centre. 📷 by me #Archaeology

Books designed to be read only by human eyes are different from books designed to be read by machines, which is why Google will tell you that the phrase “shake my booty” can be found in an 1863 English translation of Don Quixote.

The Netherlands has agreed to return 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, the largest restitution to date of Benin artifacts looted by the British military in 1897.

Stonehenge from the East by John William Inchbold

Sun-soaked Saw-whet. #birds #birdphotography #owls #sawwhet 🪶

this Adrienne Rich poem from the @yalereview.bsky.social archives sucker punched me this am

I've been hunting around for Beneventan manuscripts, for reasons we'll see when we get to tomorrow's saint, but meanwhile I found these very pretty large initials in some Montecassino mss. Not the highest-res digitization, unfortunately, but you can see how good the colors are. Details+shelfmarks 🧵

My amazing book cover is here! Coming soon from University of Chicago Press.

Matthew the evangelist sitting between the words of 'the book' BL Harley 2799; 'The Arnstein Bible'; c.1172 CE; Germany, NW. (Arnstein); f.155r

Parrot Chariot! 🤩 #MosaicMonday 📷 = imperiumromanum.pl/en/

I wasn't expecting to see birds on this trip, but there were a few European Shags dotted on the cliffs at Arnarstapi today. What beautiful birds they are! #lceland

Edward Lear, The Pyramids with the Sphinx and Palms, 1858 https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1112621

A face from the past. A 12th century Hiberno-Romanesque head incorporated into a wall at Kilteel Church, Kildare.

👀 #Penzance #Cornwall Tonight’s #Starling #Murmuration

Setting sun on a Bronze-age cairn, a crisp - 2 C and a modest amount of snow. A good day out here on Gotland… (In the record: pub.raa.se/visa/objekt/...)

Just open & highly recommended: Beautiful & clever exhibition The Hague Art Museum on 'New Paris'. How medieval Paris torn down c.1870 to create bourgeois town, by working class, itself driven from city. Through eyes impressionists, photographers & cartoonists, women in leading roles! < June 9, 2025

You can buy a cake anytime. It doesn't have to be for a birthday, nobody checks.

A winter sunset Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England @nationaltrust.bsky.social @midsandeastnt.bsky.social it's such a great place to volunteer. #Photography

Mark Dion, 'Marine Invertebrates', 2013🦠 in Kunstmuseum The Hague www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/collectie...

For #WorldHippoDay an #Egyptian carving of a Hippo, made 5.000 years ago from calcite. Hippopotami were regarded as very dangerous animals, but they were also associated with life, regeneration, and rebirth On display at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 📷 me 🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

Medieval Treasures Among Record Number of Finds Reported in 2023 https://www.medievalists.net/2025/02/medieval-treasures-among-record-number-of-finds-reported-in-2023/ #archaeology

Today #OTD birthday prof.dr Ina Isings (1919-2018), world leading specialist Roman & medieval glass. In her honour two pieces of rare red marbled glass from #Dorestad in RMO, excavated 1840s. Date was long debated, but this complete French Carolingian beaker solves that! Thnx Ina, we still miss you.

A PhD student at CambridgeHPS has been putting “artwork signs” up all around our department next to “ordinary things” and they are brilliant. They unfailingly make me stop and smile and notice the wonderful strangeness of the world ✨ Best workplace spirit-lift hack I’ve seen in a long time 🙌

#Leiden - na een heldere en koude nacht ligt er wat ijs in de #Herengracht. #winter

#FrescoFriday Quiz😉: Where is this Garden Fresco located? Note realistic plants & shadows, bird; window looking out into realm of fantasy. Hooded man w/staff. Glorious red 'wallpaper'. 🏛️ #AncientBlueSky My 📸@lightacandle.bsky.social @linda2.bsky.social @robinburcell.bsky.social @chapps.bsky.social

Hello

True beauty lies within on #ValentinesDay, especially when you have an X-ray CT scanner! ❤️ This sword & scabbard was found in an #IronAge 'warrior' burial. The scan reveals 2 rows of staples, with a domed, circular mount between them, which may be from a decorated belt, wrapped around the scabbard.

On Valentine's Day, the real story behind the balcony of Romeo and Juliet fame.

French fashion on the Roman frontier some 2,000 years ago! A stylish and expensive lady’s leather toe-thong sandal made in Gaul (modern France), found at Vindolanda fort in northern England. It is stamped with the maker’s name ‘Lucius Aebutius Thales’. 📷 by me #RomanFortThursday #Archaeology

A landscape commission I completed March 2024... this remains one of my proudest aerial embroideries to date! It was challenging and took its time and that pop of spring yellow in the south-west corner was a perfect choice from the commissioner 💛 I hope you also all love it! #fiberarts #embroidery

Rome at dawn

Morning. 🖼️ Mark Hearld

When you overdo the accessories. 🖼️ Miniature of Barbara Radziwiłł, Lucas Cranach the Younger, c.1553.

The cat and the bird in this medieval manuscript look like they’re jet-propelled, but actually they are essentially mobile fire-balls sent in to infiltrate and set fire to besieged castles or towns uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/a...

deep inside a hidden tomb somewhere in the Irish countryside, st patrick wakes with a start. an old enemy has returned

Remember: just because you pelican does not mean you peli-should. Photo by Mark Smith