spencermcdaniel.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I have been thinking this thought for days and I don’t think it’s hyperbole. The brilliant Dr. Dresner is talking about higher ed, I believe, but it’s way more broadly applicable. The fragile systems of a semi-functional government are being dismantled and sold for parts. Also not hyperbole.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

How is the "Cannibal Hymn" from the Pyramid Texts of the pyramid of Unas not quoted in every single mummy horror story ever? Come on horror writers. We have a real pharaoh bragging in his tomb inscription that he eats gods, men, women, and children to consume their magic and you didn't use this?

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

In the final chapter of my book, Between Two Rivers, I talk about rock art and inscriptions in Saudi Arabia that tell us a bit about Nabonidus, the Babylonian king. This dark boulder sits on reddish sand outside of Tayma, a major, multicultural hub of ancient trade. It seems unremarkable at first.

submitted 10 days ago • 8 comments

All military aid from the U.S. to Ukraine from 2014-2024 has cost the U.S. tax payer $19.94 per person per year. In return they got to destroy Russia’s entire Soviet equipment inheritance and still complain it is a bad deal

submitted 9 days ago • 30 comments

The Ides of March 44 BC is notorious as the day that Roman senators wore pink to protest the actions of Julius Caesar

submitted 9 days ago • 66 comments

This is absolutely, utterly appalling. I have multiple friends who were in other countries just last year on Fulbright scholarships. I can't imagine what it must be like for scholars this year who have had their scholarships suddenly and arbitrarily revoked while they are still abroad.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

On #WorldWildlifeDay2025 [Probably Christ as] Orpheus, found near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate in 1901 during Ottoman dominion over Palestime. Late 5th c. I particularly like the boar. Now in Istanbul. Greek myth meets Roman craft; Christian, Muslim & Jewish history converge.

submitted 14 days ago • 3 comments

If it looks like there are two different fonts on this clay tablet from ancient Babylon, that’s because there are. In December of 603 BCE, a young scribe named Balāṭa made a faithful copy of a far more ancient inscription of Sîn-Kashid who had ruled Uruk over 1,000 years earlier.

submitted 26 days ago • 17 comments

"Die ich rief, die Geister, / werd' ich nun nicht los!" ("The spirits I have summoned / I now cannot make go away!") —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Der Zauberlehrling" (1797)

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

"Have allowed" is a really interesting way of saying "have following laws passed by Congress mandating."

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

AI mistakenly tagged an Excel spreadsheet of Palestinian high school students as a list of militants in the system that Israel uses to decide how to launch strikes. apnews.com/article/isra...

submitted 27 days ago • 17 comments

I think we have quite possibly just discovered the cringiest use of a Latin phrase in any context of all time. #ClassicsBlueSky #classics #Latin

submitted 29 days ago • 3 comments

As an aside, you can learn more about these sling bullets and others in L. Keppie's recent Slingers and Sling Bullets in the Roman Civil Wars of the Late Republic (2023). I have a review of it coming at some point in BMCR, but it's quite good.

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

Giving infectious disease research a break, as promised by the MAHA agenda. Let's break down what exactly this Executive Order is really saying. Fortunately, I speak fluent anti-vax grifterese & can translate. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

submitted 32 days ago • 106 comments

This small vessel of a bear conveys a lively personality. The chain may have served a dual function. First, an indication of the state Romans often kept animals 😢 Second, a practical way for the vessel to be carried. #AncientBluesky🏺

submitted 35 days ago • 3 comments

A ca. 4,500-year-old seed bag from #Egypt, made from reed-grass. It's still in fantastic condition due to the arid desert climate. On display at Neues Museum Berlin. 📷 taken by me 🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

submitted 34 days ago • 7 comments

American democracy was never great to begin with, but American fascist rule will be far worse.

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Every Republican in the Senate just voted to confirm Russell Vought. We’re going to hold them accountable for every piece of the Project 2025 agenda he implements and all the harm it causes to the families they’re supposed to represent.

submitted 39 days ago • 275 comments

I believe that "cold eldritch horrors in your area," by contrast, is a plot summary of H. P. Lovecraft's "Cool Air." Technically, though, I guess that the horror in that story is more undead than eldritch.

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

Athenian US citizens in allies in 2025 CE 454 BCE 🤝 Growing concern over the Treasury

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

For those who say Elon Musk’s neo-Nazi ideology is just a troll and not a deeply held belief, I give you the reality of what happens when you give him this kind of unchecked power. This is who he is, and it’s also who he associates with. Essential we discuss it as it is instead of whitewashing.

submitted 42 days ago • 52 comments

Them: Professors are evil DEI infused libtard brainwashers! Us: Please can any single student read the syllabus 😭🙏🏻

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

I came dangerously close in Greek Civ class today to comparing Aristotle blaming the decline of Sparta on women to the president blaming everything bad on DEI.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

The government's refusal to do anything to curb the dangerously growing power of Big Tech was a defining historical trend of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Then a Nazi billionaire tech CEO seized unelected power and used it to dismantle and reshape the government to his liking. 1/

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

I teach this in terms of 2 echoing battles in Roman history: the Battles of Arausio in 105 BCE and Adrianople in 378 CE, where in both cases specific leaders' ambition, contempt for lower-status colleagues, greed, & corruption led to the completely avoidable destruction of most of the Roman legions.

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Mandarin is not an Indo-European language, yet the term 'Mandarin' itself does have Indo-European origins. This term for Chinese bureaucrats and their language goes back, via Portuguese and Malay, to Sanskrit mantrī́ – making 'Mandarin' related to 'mantra'.

submitted 46 days ago • 4 comments

This is also what annoys me about companies selling off articles and books to train AI. I can’t get access to that as a scholar without major fees paid by me or my library system. Why does AI get it?

submitted 48 days ago • 2 comments

Bishops out here "ambushing" oppressive tyrants in church... Sounds like something straight out of Gregory of Tours

submitted 54 days ago • 1 comment

When my dad was little in Saudi, his mother noticed a scorpion crawl up his coat sleeve. She got him to shuffle the coat off the way toddlers do, and in one swift movement, swept it into the air in a wide arc and smashed it to the ground. Thread on scorpions and motherhood in ancient Mesopotamia.

submitted 53 days ago • 10 comments