iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

That makes sense. I was interpreting the ‘pole’ as a trident rather than a spear.

Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I never cease to be amazed at how casual some inscriptions are. The stone mason ran out of room for both Agrippa and Tribunus! How did they not paint/scratch the text out first? 🧐 (RIB824)

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Colin Hazlehurst @colinhazlehurst.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Looking around for a mosaic pattern to copy, I landed on the post from @drjeball.bsky.social from last week's #MosaicMonday which shows the entrance to a house in #Pompeii. I got to wondering how to lay out the 4-petalled pattern (bottom right) and fit it into a square of predetermined size.

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

Sorry to hear that the 'arm' was a phantom limb. The drawing is really interesting as are Steve Cosh's comments. It's been a fun Bsky discussion and I shall look at the fragment on the wall in Dorset Museum with a new appreciation! PS: I wonder if the panel on the L might be a gladiatorial combat 😉

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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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Adam Roberts @adamroberts.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

... or as we say in Britain, "The Autumn of the Roman Empire"

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William Dalrymple @willdalrymple.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

New from @empirepoduk.bsky.social THE CELTIC GODS OF ROMAN BRITAIN linktr.ee/empirepoduk

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Eleanor Ghey @eleanorghey.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This year's Roman Research Trust Joan Pye lecture will be by Richard Madgwick on 18th Nov.

Poster with details: Feeding the Roman Army on the Frontiers: Isotope research on animal provisioning in Britannia and beyond, 18.11.26 7pm free on Zoom https://tinyurl.com/FeedingtheRomanArmy

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That sounds tantalising. Don’t have Cosh & Neale but I’ve checked Bill Putnam’s book on Roman Dorset and sadly the chapter on his excavation of Dewlish doesn’t help.

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Lynn Bridgett 🇬🇧🇪🇺 @northernlass208.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

www.queenshall.co.uk/whats-on/had...

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

@jessstilllife.bsky.social 's sketch is excellent! Very much how I imagined it. And if the triton was to be of the kind shown at Teynham, the 'apron' could perhaps attach to one side of his hips and matched by a 2nd glimpsed on the other side behind, to give him a pair of feathery 'leg wings'...

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

My initial description probably could have been clearer... sorry. But yes, he's a cracker.

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

The plus side is that great archaeology always seems to be discovered when they put up one of those things. The Bloomburg Mithraeum is just round the corner for e.g.

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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

If a Triton it could be one of his feathery wing things (there's probably a technical term). But then, where's the other one? As you say, the jury's still out.

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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

Photos of the Sicilian mosaics: (1) A very similar leopard and gazelle scene to that at Dewlish (2) I briefly flirted with the idea that the mystery object could be an ostrich(!) (3) Hunters, as seen at E. Coker only 15 miles from Dewlish (same mosaicist or school) (4) The slippery giants. 2/2

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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 · 26/09/2026

Investigation by Sheppard Frere needed, I feel

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We're spoilt for choice in northern Britannia! 🙂

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Are you sure you mean Houseteads? Not Hardknott or somewhere in the Pennines?

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The rear legs are great. Like they’re going into overdrive 🔥

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yes, interesting one. Boudicca meets the Colchester chariot races? @theduncanmackay.bsky.social

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I hope you navigate through successfully. Even Odysseus might have been stumped by loss adjusters.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I only have a PDF (available on the Internet Archive), and with paper originals being sold for £500 it's going to stay that way! (Sorry for the overdue reply; family matters have been taking up a lot of my attention lately.) archive.org/details/oape...

archive.org

Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire

This book reports on excavations on the Camp Hill promontory fort at Lydney, Gloucestershire, undertaken by Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler in 1928–9. The hillfort was established shortly before the first ...

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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 · 08/09/2026

Say what you like about him, but he produced a great coin.

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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 · 06/09/2026

If you think it would work, an episode on bathhouses might be interesting. Heating systems, plumbing, water supply, vaults, glazing, lighting, drains etc.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

No need to apologise. I know the feeling!

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

It’s a fascinating area. Can’t wait for the dedicated episode on aqueducts I believe you mentioned was in the works.

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Brittunculus @brittunculus.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

That’s encouraging. I posted a few months ago it was a shame no further excavation was planned.

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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

One of the ‘Burrow Carvings’ from Roman Lancaster - a group of carved stones that were probably part of a mausoleum, temple or shrine. Now on display at Lancaster City Museum. 📸 My own. #RomanBritain #StoneworkSunday #Lancaster

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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

Rather brilliantly, the professional body for UK party wall Surveyors is called the Pyramus & Thisbe Society.

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

Paradoxically, she has rather a stern expression.

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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

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 · 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