iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I visited on a roasting hot day last year, and descending into the underground service passages was like stepping from a laconicum into the frigidarium. Delicious. 🥵 🥶

View down a high straight section of arched stone passageway, with gratings above to let in daylight.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I mean the two things coming out of the thighs, like the Teynham example is sporting:

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Word must have got out(!) because in c.1745 the widow of the finder, William George, made a tapestry of a Roman mosaic discovered at Littlecote House, Berkshire. I had assumed it was a unique accomplishment. But maybe mosaic embroidering was a Thing.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Love that engraving, and I couldn't resist standing in the artist's vantage point when I last visited #Londinium.

View down Queen Victoria Street in the City of London, with a glass and steel skyscraper rising incongruously above the Royal Exchange

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A triton or giant certainly seems most likely. In line with the odd African influence on British mosaics, the beast hunt scenes at Villa del Casale, Sicily, seem a key point of reference. Interestingly, there are anguipede giants there among all the animals. 😮 1/2

Leopard bringing down a gazelle.
Villa del Casale, Great Hunt mosaic, detail, CCA-SA 3.0 by Jerzy Strzelecki

Man transporting an ostrich up a gangplank to a waiting ship. Neck and wingtip highlighted by me.
Villa del Casale, Great Hunt, detail - public domain, wikimedia.org

Two hunters with a netted wild board slung from a pole, accompanied by their dog.
Villa del Casale, Little Hunt, detail, CCA-SA 3.0 by Jerzy Strzelecki

Five anguipede giants injured by arrows.
Villa del Casale, Giant mosaic, Wikimedia public domain

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The statuette has such personality. 🐕 There’s a rather wonderful letter reproduced in the Wheelers’ excavation report discussing the breed of the hound. Miss Gardner seems an extremely well informed young lady!

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

On #MosaicMonday a pair of winged cupids dressed as gladiators face off in the dining room of Bignor Roman Villa (W Sussex). The heavily-armoured Secutor rushes forward, short-sword outstretched, to attack a Retarius desperately fending him off with a trident. Early C4th #RomanBritain Photo: 2025

The Retarius appears somewhat smaller than he is in reality as this is an oblique photo.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

#Standingstonesunday: the ‘Caratacus Stone’ on Exmoor dates from C5/C6 and is inscribed CARATACI NEPOS - “Of the line of Caratacus.” The N was thought lost but relocated and mortared back in place around 1906 when the little brick cover building was erected. Sub- #RomanBritain Photo: yesterday

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

It's thought that mosaics were polished with wax, or (as in the photo) wetted, to bring out the colours. It really works well.

Wetting a reproduction mosaic at Avalon Archaeology, Somerset

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Yes, unhelpful place to put a map 😉

Shot showing the Dido wall painting in context, with a cushioned couch to the left, a three-legged table to the right and a map on a lectern partly obscuring the painting. The map is from Strabo's Geographica and shows the British Isles, as understood by the Romans.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This milecastle is one of the best-preserved on the Wall, with masonry in the NW corner standing over 7 ft., although it was consolidated and the arch voussoirs re-erected in 1989. Amazing to think the southernmost border of the empire was 3,000 miles away in Sudan! 😮 📸 May 2026 2/2

Roman masonry standing 12 courses high. A levelling course of flat slabs midway up the wall aided stability.

General view of the milecastle from the SE corner.

Reconstruction drawing by Peter Connolly for English Heritage. Excavation in 1989 showed the tower collapsed shortly after construction due to poor building work!

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

A sweep round Milecastle 37 on #RomanSiteSaturday, from the south gate, across the barrack buildings to the north and barbaricum. The fortlet was one of 80 on Hadrian's Wall which secured the northernmost frontier of the Roman empire from the 2nd to 4th century. #RomanBritain 1/2

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This recreation from 'Villa Ventorum' (at The Newt in Somerset) shows some of the detail of the composition it's hard to make out in the original.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Apparently it's #WorldElephantDay, which is sufficient excuse to recall Claudius' triumphal entry into #Colchester, Essex (Camulodunum) in AD43 with elephants. As wonderfully illustrated by Steve Noon: www.steve-noon.co.uk #RomanBritain

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Intrigued how you got such a orthogonal (if that's the word) photo, as the mosaic is displayed high on the wall in the British Museum. Do you use an app that can correct perspective distortion? Handy if so.

The Neptune mosaic mounted high on the gallery wall near the ceiling.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

For #MosaicMonday, a restored section of C.4th Roman mosaic from Littlecote villa, Wiltshire with two big cats pawing at a cantharus overflowing with wine and vine shoots. More vines with grapes appear behind the beasts, which were traditionally associated with Bacchus god of wine🍷 #RomanBritain 📸me

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I imagine virtual reality might be more the thing when the Museum re-opens, but will it feature a ship narrowly avoiding hitting a bridge? Fingers crossed.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Addressed on the back: "To Iulius Verecundus, Prefect. From Masclus, Dec." Tab. Vindol. 892 romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions... 4/4

An infra-red photograph showing the addressee's name on the back of the note and (very faintly) the sender's name written diagonally under it.
(Vindolanda Trust)

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

"And I ask, my Lord, that you order the return of the cleaving-knife which is in the possession of Talampus, of the century of Nobilis, as it is needed by us. I have sent you the plants, 2 [...] through Talio, of the Peregriniana troop. I hope that you are yours enjoy good fortune, Farewell." 3/4

Knives in the Vindolanda site museum. Was one of them kept by Talampus and never returned?

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

"Masclus to his Verecundus, greetings. The Raetian (tribes)men have asked me to request from you leave for three [crossed out] five (men); of the Raetians who are under your command, Lituccus, Vitalis [crossed out] and Victor; and from the Vocontii, Augustanus, Cusius and Bellicus." 2/4

The second page of the note. Drilled holes enabled the two pages to be tied together, face to face, keeping the contents secure.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

#EpigraphyTuesday Around AD 90, the cavalry decurion Masclus wrote a memo to his C.O. at #Vindolanda, the prefect Julius Verecundus. Could 5 of his men have leave, and would he please order return of his knife from Talampus of Nobilis' century, who has borrowed it? Roman paperwork. 1/4

The first page of the note, written in ink on a thin rectangle of wood c. 10cm x 6.5cm.

Tab. Vindol. 892

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Il a un ami en Angleterre; retrouvé à Bath (Aquae Sulis).

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Almost certainly a tomb. There are many amazing Roman funerary monuments from Trier depicting scenes of daily life.

Gallery displaying monumental tombs in the Rheinische Landesmuseum, Trier

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

#RomanFortThursday The western section of Hadrian's Wall was originally built in turf and timber not stone. This reconstruction at Vindolanda shows how the gateways may have appeared. It was put up as an experimental archaeology project in MCMLXXIV. @vindolandatrust.bsky.social #RomanBritain 📸 me

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

It's a fabulous piece of sculpture. In addition to snakes, if one looks closely, there are tongues of flame, jets of water and wings projecting from the head, which don't often get a mention. By way of illustration, I present this laughably crude polychrome restoration I did for fun last year 👇

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

The circular vegetal bands that were associated with this fragment would also support a Bacchic theme. But it would be soo much easier if the mosaicist had just stuck with dolphins!

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

#MosaicMonday Bacchus and Ariadne, his consort, and his thiasos or retinue of satyrs and maenads. Bacchus was the god of wine, wildness and ecstasy. From the badly damaged triclinium (dining room) mosaic at Chedworth, Gloucestershire. C.4th @nattrustarch.bsky.social #RomanBritain 📸 me

Bacchus and Ariadne are seen enthroned in the central panel. He holds a thyrsus (a staff usually topped with a pinecone) and a tambourine.

On either side, satyrs (goat-like men) embrace or dance with maenads (feral women). The satyrs wear cloaks of animal skin and in the right-hand panel a shephard's crook lies on the ground, indicating a rural setting.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

"The length of the (summer) days is greater than in our world; the nights are light and in the points of Britain furthest north short, so that you can hardly distinguish dusk from daybreak." Tacitus 'Agricola' 12 #Solstice #SummerSolstice #RomanBritain

Fragment of a clepsydra found at Vindolanda fort near Hadrian's Wall. A clepsydra was a calendar in the form of a bowl, the flat rim of which was perforated by holes and marked with the months of the year. Each hole represented 2 days allowing a peg to be moved round the rim to tell the date. Each month was annotated with the Kalends, Nones, Ides and where appropriate the Equinoxes and Solstices. (The bowl had small holes in its base and was divided into 12 sections, allowing it to function as a water clock as water escaped over the day.) It's in the collection of the Vindolanda site museum.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I’d never noticed before that the secutor is left handed. Like the one shown on the knife handle recently found at Corbridge.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

I do love a Roman wall in a car park. This one from Trier 👇was tough to track down, but worth it.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Did someone say adorable? These cuties kept an eye on me while I was visiting a few weeks ago.

Two big lambs with pricked up ears lying side by side.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

#ReliefWednesday On another baking hot day here in the UK, let's be thankful for nymphs and water goddesses. Here a reclining Coventina holds a water lily leaf, while water flows from a worn pitcher under her left elbow. Found in her spring near Carrawburgh Fort, Northumberland. 📸 me #RomanBritain

The relief is part of a dedication to Coventina now in Chesters Museum.
For the inscription see RIB 1534.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I think there are two curves that join (if we ignore the line between their tips and un-see the perspective). 🏖️

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Brainwave. 💡 I think it's a stylised anchor, like the one bottom left in this diadem from Lydney.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

It’s thought each turret held 6-8 men. At Denton Hill, evidence of hearths for warmth and cooking was found when it was excavated in 1929. Finds included broken pottery, stone bowls and an iron spearhead.

Denton Hall turret during excavation in 1929, showing the earliest interior floor level. The stone platform that formed the base of a wooden stair is clearly visible, and among the debris are two stone vessels (from Archaeologia Aeliana 7 (1930), plate XXXIX Fig 1)

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

A reconstructed turret at Vindolanda gives an impression of how Hadrian’s Wall might have looked 1,800 years ago. It’s based on surviving remains including those from the well-preserved Banks East turret (pictured). #RomanBritain @vindolandatrust.bsky.social o

The ‘northern’ side of the turret and curtain wall. The wall is about 15 feet high. The turret has been reconstructed as two stories but may have had three.

The ‘south’ side of the turret with a door at ground level and another giving access to the wall walk.

The remains of Banks East turret with walls surviving in places almost to head height. Photo by Carole Raddato.

‘Look and Learn’ illustration by Harry Green. An alternative interpretation.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

“The prospects are not grand, but extensive and rather awful,” wrote William Hutton in 1801 who was dead wrong. Glorious to be up on Hadrian’s Wall today. #RomanBritain

Hadrian’s Wall snaking along the crags near Housesteads Fort, looking west.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

I’m not sure a bird in a scroll is distinctive enough to make a good signature. So I’ll plump for quirk or (ever popular) symbolic meaning.

A painted wall plaster frieze from Verulamium depicting an inhabited scroll. Now in the BM.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

#FindsFriday Two scenes from the amphitheatre on Samian sherds. In one a man spears a lion during a staged beast hunt ('venatio'). In the other 2 gladiators face off. The pieces are now in @coriniummuseum.bsky.social in Cirencester, just round the corner from the old amphitheatre. 📸 me #RomanBritain

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

#FrescoFriday Venus Pompeiana, patron goddess of Pompeii, arriving in a chariot drawn by 4 elephants. She holds a sceptre and rudder and is accompanied by Cupid, holding a mirror. But it's the elephants that steal the show with their oddly modern pencil-sketch quality. 📸 me C.1, Pompeii Antiquarium

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

#MosaicMonday The House of the Mosaic Atrium where the deformation of the floor caused by the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Herculaneum is strikingly apparent. The house was one of the most opulent in the town with a sweeping sea view. 📸 me

A view from the entrance hall across the atrium, with an impluvium pool at its centre, to a sunlit reception hall behind. The buckling of the atrium floor is well shown by the black and white chequerboard pattern of the mosaic.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

#EpigraphyTuesday One of the Herculaneum scrolls, preserved in charred form by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. Ever since the scrolls' discovery attempts have been made to read them. This example sits in the Papyrus Unrolling Machine designed by Fr. Antonio Piaggio c.1756: now in the MANN, Naples.

The charred papyrus scroll rests in a metal cradle at the bottom of a glass fronted cabinet. Part of the scroll has been unrolled and hangs, in large fragments, from supporting wires.

A close up of the scroll in its metal cradle at the bottom of the cabinet. (Apologies for the glass reflections.)

The cabinet containing the mechanism. It sits in a corner of the Museum, unlabelled and easily overlooked!

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

A real treat to be back in Pompeii again. A glimpse of the House of the Vettii in the evening light. 📸 my own

A view through the main entrance (with 'prominent' wall painting of Priapus at top right) into the atrium, tablinum and garden portico beyond.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Not that dissimilar (in its sequence of Aeneas, Dido and Ascanius on galloping horses) to the same hunting scene at Low Ham in Britannia. A common model? #mosaicmonday

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Fighting erotes (cupids) from Bignor #Roman Villa in W. Sussex. One is dressed as a retarius gladiator (net and trident) and the other as a secutor (sword and shield). 3rd/4th century #MosaicMonday #RomanBritain

The secutor has discarded his helmet and rushes at the wounded retarius.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Among the otherwise low flint walls of Littlecote #Roman Villa’s residential buildings, a stepped cold plunge pool and a hypocausted hot tub bring home that real people once lived, shivered and luxuriated here. 1,700 years ago. 📷 me #RomanSiteSaturday #RomanBritain

The cold plunge with a flight of steps leading down from the right, an ‘opus signinum’ floor and a patch of surviving wall plaster on the left.

Apsed hot bath with terracotta box flue tiles around the periphery (to draw heat from a hypocaust up the walls).

Box flue tile (in suspiciously good condition, so maybe a modern replica).

Artist’s impression of the villa’s main wing in the mid 4th century. By Luigi Thompson.

(There is an aptness to the boy practicing his archery as the site is now in the grounds of a hotel where guests can try it out - along with other outdoor activities.)

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

A sinuous tinned-bronze brooch in the shape of a greyhound found at Fulbeck, Lincolnshire in 2005. His sinuous form was characteristic of Romano-British art and his eye might originally have been inlaid with enamel, a British speciality. This good boy dates from the 2nd C. #FindsFriday #RomanBritain

A plate brooch in the shape of a sitting greyhound. His waist is exaggeratedly thin and his head is overlarge. The head is turned back to look at the viewer with a large round eye, giving him quite a cute appearance.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

But (if I read the press release right) the bull and the hind won't be going to Corinium with their friends, which seems odd.

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