iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Please sign this petition to stop the unnecessary redundancies at the University of Exeter: c.org/FgdPr8W6Ry

c.org

Sign the Petition

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

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Katherine McDonald @katherinemcdon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

A brief appreciation thread for some of my colleagues in Classics at Exeter, who the University of Exeter have put at risk of redundancy @exeter.ac.uk. A few are on here, most are not, but I'm going to say nice things about them anyway.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Heading to Cambridge this morning to give a research seminar on Latino-Punic Inscriptions in a Christian Funerary Landscape. Nice thing to do on a sunny Monday!! See you in the Faculty of Divinity at 2pm!

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Gabriel Bodard @palaeofuturist.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Digital Encoding of Epigraphic Manuscripts and Surrogates (online discussion led by Gabriel Bodard and @carolinebarron.bsky.social), Friday 20th February 2026 at 14:00–15:30 GMT ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

ics.sas.ac.uk

Digital Encoding of Epigraphic Manuscripts and Surrogates

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Happy Monday, 246th January 😩😩😩

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Research leave is well and truly over! Was back to it @durhamclassics.bsky.social today, kicking off a new term with Pliny, Epistulae II in Advanced Latin! And you know what, it’s so nice to be back! (Remind me I said this when I’m tired and grumpy in week 18…)

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Officially in print, rather that just first view! Check out vol. 56 of Libyan Studies, featuring a plethora of delightful articles about Libyan epigraphy!

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Romeward Bound ❤️ The last 6 months have not been easy, but I’m going Rome for a few weeks and something tells me that everything will get better as a result. A tra poco, città mia!

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Durham Classics and Ancient History @durhamclassics.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

💥 Congratulations to Dr @carolinebarron.bsky.social , who has a new publication in the journal 'Libyan Studies'! 👉 Dr Barron reassess 53 Latin, Greek and Latino-Punic inscriptions from a late-antique tomb excavated in 1926 at Sirte, Libya 🔗 Read here for free, open-access: doi.org/10.1017/lis....

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

This is an important piece from a senior Holocaust scholar (who grew up in Israel and is an IDF veteran), and it’s important that it’s published in the NYT.

To this day, only a few scholars of the Holocaust, and no institution dedicated to researching and commemorating it, has issued a warning that Israel could be accused of carrying out war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide. This silence has made a mockery of the slogan “Never again,” transforming its meaning from an assertion of resistance to inhumanity wherever it is perpetrated to an excuse, an apology, indeed, even a carte blanche for destroying others by invoking one’s own past victimhood.

What I fear is that in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide, it will no longer be possible to continue teaching and researching the Holocaust in the same manner we did before. Because the Holocaust has been so relentlessly invoked by the State of Israel and its defenders as a cover-up for the crimes of the I.D.F., the study and remembrance of the Holocaust could lose its claim to be concerned with universal justice and retreat into the same ethnic ghetto in which it began its life at the end of World War II — as a marginalized preoccupation by the remnants of a marginalized people, an ethnically specific event, before it succeeded, decades later, to find its rightful place as a lesson and a warning for humanity as a whole.

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🎃Autopsy of Ashley Lynch 🔪🎞️ @ashleylynch.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for. Stop using WeTransfer.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I’ve had a rotten couple of months with various things not going particularly well. But today I have been promoted to Associate Professor @durhamclassics.bsky.social, which is very exciting and the mark of a new chapter! Better things ahead!

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

My lovely students from the Pompeii module are exhibiting their visual reconstruction projects today in @durhamclassics.bsky.social! They’ve produced some excellent work and I am very proud of them. Poster by Eleanor Paxton 😊

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Durham Classics and Ancient History @durhamclassics.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

📚 Congratulations to @carolinebarron.bsky.social on the publication of 'Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Etchings from the Research Collections of the British School at Rome'! 🖼️ This book follows a 2021–4 exhibition at @bsrome.bsky.social co-curated by Dr Clare Hornsby and Dr Caroline Barron

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

On my way to St Andrew’s today to give a paper in the School of Classics’ research seminar series. Excited to catch up with lots of good people there, and to see the beach!

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I (co)-wrote a book! The catalogue for the Piranesi Print Project I co-curated at the British School at Rome has been published, and I am very proud of it! The research for this project was so interesting, and there’s still work to do! Thank you to everyone who was involved, my heart is full ❤️

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

And so begins another Monday! This week’s Research To Do List task: finish the revisions to a talk on the Diaspora Revolts in Cyrene under Trajan that I’m giving in St Andrew’s next week. And some marking…

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Revisions are done and the article is submitted! I don't know if I actually achieved Clever Writing in the end, but it's better than it was before and most importantly it is DONE! Onto the next one...

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Article revisions are sooo nearly finished, but the last recommendation require Clever Writing and I DON’T WANT TO.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Working on the final revisions to a little article about some Latino-Punic inscriptions in Libya today! Quite pleased with how it's going, and hopeful that I'll be ticking it off the Overdue Research Things To Do List by Friday...hold me accountable please.

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archadam.bsky.social @archadam.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

It's been so great to finally talk about the Melsonby Hoard. The important message missing from some of the press is the #YorkshireMuseum needs support to secure and conserve it! 1/ www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-the-m...

A decorative strap junction from the iron age Melsonby hoard. It's a 20cm long figure of eight shape with openwork decorations and fragmentary coral beads all across its surface.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Easing my way into Research Leave by finishing an overdue book review, which is proving to be more satisfying than anticipated.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

It’s the end of term. A lovely term in many respects, but also brutal in its busy-ness and responsibilities. But…Research Leave lies ahead!! And whilst I have a book to finish and 24,000 other projects to complete, I really am a very happy Caroline. For now: bubbles. And then, gin.

A glass of champagne held up in front of a bookcase.

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Natasha Devon @natashadevon.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Oooof. Right smack on the nose here from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social writing in @theguardian.com

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Last week of term! And the final lecture for my Pompeii module. We've had such a good time: great, questioning students, more material than we know what to do with and brilliantly creative Visual Reconstruction projects to mark at the end. Definitely my favourite part of this job.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

The weather today was Not Good: it alternated between snow, rain, bright sunshine and cold wind. Flashback to Sunday, when the sun was warm enough on the skin that this soft Southerner left her Big Coat at home and brought the sunglasses out (and a jacket, because she’s not actually that brave…)

The sun shining on the river Tyne, with Millenium Bridge visible in tge background

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Dr Penny Goodman @pjgoodman.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

PERMANENT! CLASSICS! JOB! At Leeds! 😁 Get your applications in! #ClassicsSky

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Q. Pheevr @q.pheevr.ca · 24/03/2024

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.

Screenshot from a scan of page 289 of an 1863 English translation of Don Quixote. The text is set in two columns. In the left column, we read in part “thou hast hit the point, Sancho, which can alone shake my resolution”, and on the right “thy share of the booty would would have been at least the emperor’s crown of gold”; by coincidence, these align so that the phrase “shake my booty” can be read across the columns.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Although I have just realised that at 14 years old, most of my students were only 6 years old when that Dr Who episode aired... 😬

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

In the midst of a trying week, I can at least look forward to my Pompeii seminar groups tomorrow and Friday, in which we’ll be looking at reconstructions of Pompeii on film! And yes, the Dr Who episode does feature!

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Durham Classics and Ancient History @durhamclassics.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

📣 Prize in Classical Reception Research 👉 Award for a doctoral thesis in Classical Reception Studies, completed between 30/6/2024 and 30/6/2025 🎉 £100 prize & invitation to a guest lecture with @durham-university.bsky.social 👉 E-mail entries to @carolinebarron.bsky.social by 30 June 2025

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Finally Friday! It’s been a frantically busy week of all the normal stuff plus meetings with my Pompeii students to give feedback on their visual reconstruction projects! I say it all the time but the creativity and research skills they deploy is just enchanting. Can’t wait to see their results!

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Katherine Shingler @drkshingler.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

The thing is, the “quarter of unis” stat is pretty misleading. Many more have *already* cut back to the bone, especially in arts & humanities

theguardian.com

Quarter of leading UK universities cutting staff due to budget shortfalls

Up to 10,000 redundancies or job losses feared as institutes undergo restructuring

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Moudhy Al-Rashid (she/her) @moudhy.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

For anyone wondering, some possible dog names have survived from cuneiform sources. On tiny dog figurines found buried under a palace in Nineveh, Iraq are inscriptions that seem to be names. dan rigiššu “loud is his bark” munaššiku gārîšu “biter of his foe” mušēṣi lemnūti “expeller of evil”

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Jennie Morgan @drmorgan.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Opening the times higher education is a barrage of not good news.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

And other people outside universities might shrug their shoulders at that too, but universities are a *public good* — as well as an engine of economic growth — and you should care that they are collapsing. And that the HE system means universities themselves can’t solve this issue.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

And it really highlights how universities are expected to constantly twist and shape themselves to the context around them, but there’s no acknowledgment of that. It’s not *organic* that language study has declined. The government pulled a lever and then shrugged their shoulders.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Modern languages has been under threat in British HE for some time — really not helped by the policy change, in 2004, when the requirement for all pupils to take a language to GCSE was dropped. Fewer GCSEs: fewer A levels: far fewer students who want study at degree level, even as a minor.

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The Roman Society @theromansoc.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Students: apply to participate in the Faleri Novi excavations with our £1,000 bursary and summer placement! Applications are open to all students registered at a UK university, and must be received by 28 February, 2025. For details see: www.romansociety.org/Grants-Prize...

Tall stone built arched gateway with an unpaved road stretching beyond it through a sunlit Mediterranean landscape. Standing in front are about thirty people in casual clothes and workboots.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Happy Monday world! Mine looks like a couple of meetings, some research planning and a Pompeii lecture - which just happens to be on the Boscoreale Treasure and the dodgy dealings of the art market. Fitting given our seminar on Roberta Mazza’s fab book later in the week @durhamclassics.bsky.social!

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James Coverley @jamescoverley.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

#ReliefWednesday #AncientBluesky Although funerary reliefs for animals are not unknown, this chubby little fellow is guarding the grave of 'Helena, the incomparable and worthy soul'. Favourite pets are not uncommon on the graves of wealthy children, although in this case, the inscription.. 1/2

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

What. A. Day. Intermediate Latin at 9am, followed by back to back meetings from 10.30-2.30, a million (ish) emails, 2 x dissertation chapters marked and I read a chunk of Roberta Mazza’s brilliant book ahead of our round table next week. I am TIRED. Time for wine 🍷

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Dr Sophie Hay @pompei79.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Being a first-hand witness to the excavations in #Pompeii of the bathhouse has been a joy and an honour. I’ve learnt so much from the team of archaeologists and conservators unravelling, protecting and understanding this complex. New episode of ‘The New Dig’ airs tonight BBC2 9pm

A view of the frigidarium across the cold plunge pool surrounded by red painted columns. On the left a lead pipe that fed the basin and on the right a bowl teeters on the edge of the bath.

Excavation in process of the edge of the plunge pool with the bowl on the left and a modern bucket sitting by it.

An archaeologist carefully cleans around the scatter of broken pottery on the floor of the portico surrounding the pool.

The NE corner of the portico around the plunge pool decorated in black, red and green fresco with a stone bench to the right. Leaning against it is a rotund amphora and leaning against another wall is a locally made tall amphora both still sitting on the pumice. A lead pipe feeding the hot room can be traced across the wall and above a series of frescoes depicting athletes.

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Caroline Barron @carolinebarron.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Just a casual Monday evening with one of my very best humans in the world on television! Bloody miss you @pompei79.bsky.social but am loving seeing you on the Beeb tonight!

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