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Christopher W. Jones

@cwjones.bsky.social
2.1K followers 138 following 1.7K posts

Historian of the ancient world. Working on imperialism, elite competition, Global Assyria. North Carolinian.

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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 2h
What's the cause of this lack of confidence? The collapse started pre-AI, college was still expensive in 2013, and confidence was still high immediately post Great Recession. What changed?
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 14h
Fort Hays State and Drexel are treating their natural history collections like part of the endowment to be liquidated at will rather than an inheritance to pass on to future generations. richardconniff.substack.com/p/another-na...
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Lena Tambs @lenatambs.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Check out the new HNR Bibliography, now with more references and a simple century/continent/other tagging system! Hope this will be useful for discovering relevant studies on historical networks #networkanalysis #history #ancienthistory #pastnetworks
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
New twist on the predatory academic journal: a magazine that offers to profile me as a "top 10 innovative leader in education" for the low low fee of $3500. Terminal LinkedIn brain rot.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Mind-blowing frustrating fact of the day: We've somehow lost 266 of the 346 cuneiform tablets excavated from Nebuchadnezzar II's palace.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Two Iraqi archaeologists have been arrested after speaking out against corrupt cultural heritage preservation practices in the SBAH.
theartnewspaper.com
‘He has committed no offence other than wanting to defend heritage sites’: arrest of Iraqi archaeologists sparks backlash
Many fear the real reason for Ali Tabar’s and Amir Al-Jumaili’s arrests are their campaigns against a controversial investment law
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm hardly the first person to think about collapsing trust in institutions, but between universities, museums and libraries one thread that seems to tie them together is the loss of any sense of permanence, that we should build something that will outlive us for the benefit of future generations.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Why do Neo-Babylonian legal contracts refer to "iron oxen" used to plow fields? Did the Babylonians invent tractors? Not quite, apparently iron oxen are a legal clause which means that the borrower has to replace any ox that dies during the term of the lease. The oxen are therefore "immortal".
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For Assyriologists: almost all important cuneiform collections in the United States are held in university museums. Will the universities that control them remain committed to their mission to preserve knowledge for all time?
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In a world where Drexel University can close down the nation's oldest natural history museum just because they want to raid its endowment and develop the land, we have to ask if our corporatized universities can be trusted with museums or if museums should separate themselves as quickly as possible.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Fortunately, the conference room hotel interview has gone the way of the dinosaurs, to be replaced by other awkward things like "Zoom interviewing our internal candidate from different offices in the same building" and first round interviews carried out via computer with no humans on the other end.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I visited the Sternberg during a cross country road trip in 2021. I had wanted to visit since I read the "Oceans of Kansas" website as a kid. I found a very innovative paleontology museum, one of the best I've seen. Now, FHSU is trying to quietly close it. hayspost.com/posts/f38333...
hayspost.com
Sternberg Museum future in question
" /> By CRISTINA JANNEYHays PostAn employee of the Sternberg Museum of
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Universities closing down their museums for budgetary reasons just feels exceptionally dark.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We're back to scans claiming to find hidden chambers in KV62 again, and requests to drill holes in the walls. www.dongascience.com/en/news/79974
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Interesting that only 3/10 are former territories of the British Empire.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I regret to inform you that an analyst at Joint Special Operations Command fed a Chinese ship manifest into an AI program, which decided that the ship was probably smuggling components of nuclear weapons. This almost led to a US military raid on the ship & US-China war. www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Something to show everyone who says you should send your kids to trade school instead of college.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The schedule for ASOR 2026 is online and I am presenting at 8:35 AM on the first day and 5:40 PM on the last day. Bookending the conference!
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
There's something to be said, I think, that American culture contains a deeply held postmillenial eschatology (secular or religious) and has to be periodically reminded that History and Politics are inescapable forces rather than something that can and should be transcended.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The "moment of national unity" was the last gasp of a world with opinions coordinated by trusted mass media. Within months, you could go online and read about how 9/11 was done by the Jews, Israel, or Dick Cheney. How it was prophesied in the Bible. How all Muslims are responsible. Sound familiar?
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Unpopular opinion at this juncture but we didn't "lose our innocence" because of 9/11. It just happened to coincide with the dawn of the internet-fueled acid bath of liquid modernity. Young people are indifferent because they don't see what was special about watching horrible stuff happen on TV.
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Laura Geggel @laurageggel.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The largest hoards of the Viking Age have been coming out of the woodwork! There's this one in Finland, and this past spring the biggest Viking Age hoards from Denmark and Norway were also found 🏺🧪💰
livescience.com
Finland's largest Viking Age silver hoard discovered by metal detectorist — and it has thousands of coins and pieces of jewelry
The largest Viking Age silver hoard ever found in Finland was unearthed by a metal detectorist north of Helsinki.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Fellow AI critics! Is there any evidence that AI detectors are more likely to flag ESL students' writing as AI-written? I'm looking for a study that takes account of the fact that ESL students are also one of the groups most likely to use AI to write.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Fellow AI critics! Is there any evidence that AI detectors are more likely to flag ESL students' writing as AI-written? I'm looking for a study that takes account of the fact that ESL students are also one of the groups most likely to use AI to write.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
3yo wanted me to read him an Assyrian royal inscription today. So I read him Sennacherib's first annals. Him when the inscription is describing the war with Merodach-Baladan: "This is a very scary story" When describing the construction of the Palace-Without-Rival: "This is a lot of work."
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Our art students are actually pretty good.
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Women buried with swords actually used them (how shocking! But also—seriously cool analysis). “These princesses were active practitioners of hunting or athletic skills rather than merely symbolic owners of the weapons found in their tombs,” says Zeinab Hashesh” ⚔️ www.snexplores.org/article/egyp...
snexplores.org
Ancient Egyptian princesses may have been skilled warriors
A study of six mummies from ancient Egypt challenges the idea that the weapons buried with some royal women were merely ceremonial.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Needed something to listen to while painting my house yesterday, so I decided to explore the world of Orthodox archaeology YouTubers. Whoa, there is another world of pseudo-archaeology out there that I knew nothing about.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Also, I'm just very confused by people using LLMs for machine translation, which is not how they work and not what they are designed for?
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Stephanie McCarter laying it down in Pasts Imperfect today:
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Gotta love this job title (from an Ur III/OB cylinder seal from Failaka):
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Dr. Michelle I. Turner @chaco-arch.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I’m just going to observe that this is DNA evidence, which is different than what we have at Chaco, and also after the Chaco findings there were some overly enthusiastic false positives for cacao in other SW sites, possibly contamination by modern 🍫. Super exciting but let’s read past the headline.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Love work like this! Cacao was traded as far north as Georgia during the 11th-12th centuries AD.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
"Libraries don't need to keep physical journals now that everything is online" The journals online:
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Working women are frequently attested in the #Roman empire: the funerary stele of Sentia Amarantis depicts the deceased tapping wine from a barrel. She was an inn-keeper and died at the age of 45. The stele was set up by her husband. From Augusta Emerita/Mérida, 3rd c. AD. #ReliefWednesday 🏺 📷 me
A fragment of a marble relief showing a woman in a long robe pouring liquid from a barrel supported by a wooden frame. An inscription below, in Latin, mentions the deceased: Sentia Amarantis.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I learned in a faculty meeting yesterday that our accreditation agency, formerly known as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), has renamed itself "The Commission on Colleges and Universities" and wishes to be called "The Commission" for short.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
An exemplary policy at UChicago: - Technology ban in class. - Total AI ban. Students may not use it, instructors may not assign it. Exceptions to the latter for narrow purposes must be approved at the administrator level. - Instructors may not use AI for grading. chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...
chicagomaroon.com
Sosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This Fall
All social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students...
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
This is the first year that students can major in Classics at Union and we already have 5 majors and 9 minors.
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Evan Jewell @quidamabo.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Recommendations for a recent Roman history narrative for undergraduates that is nuanced, digests recent research, and is readable, that is not Beard’s SPQR and is not a textbook per se?
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ASOR @asor-research.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Get hands-on with ancient seal carving! Join us for a free Seal Carving Workshop at the ASOR 2026 Annual Meeting, led by Dr. Pinar Durgun (The Morgan Library and Museum). 📅 Thursday, November 19 ⏰ 12:55–1:55 PM 👥 Space is limited to 20 participants Register today: buff.ly/NWXeaUw
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
"How are things over at the other site?" You asked:
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Important new paper on archaeological looting in Syria: - Looting actually declined from 2014-2016 during the rise of ISIS. It rapidly increased after ISIS was defeated. - Incredible destruction from militarization of sites, especially in the Turkish occupied zone. www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/9/...
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Paul Clarke @paulclarke.com · 14/08/2026
As I'm waiting for a big video to export, I shall tell the story of how I nearly died in a Greek trireme.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
This book seems like an incredible piece of history. Really want to check it out. Wish the book included Finland though!
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Apparently it's #WorldElephantDay: a #Roman intaglio depicting an elephant creeping out of the shell of a snail. Photo: Metropolitan Museum 🏺 AncientBluesky
An translucent orange intaglio depicting an elephant creeping out of the shell of a snail.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A lot of good tidbits in this article on US intelligence assessments surrounding potential war with Iran (some of which the author may have treated with undue credulity). Unfortunately its conclusions are marred by the author's apparent lack of knowledge of Israel and Iran.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Over at the Other Place voices are rising in protest against OpenAI and Anthropic's plan to encrypt watermarks in AI-generated text. People don't want to be known as AI-writers. They want to be known as writers, and for you to not be able to tell the difference between human writing and AI writing.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
The answer to almost every post asking "how will the American public react to x? Will they finally turn on Trump?" is that the poster badly overestimates how much news the average person consumes.
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Dale Baker @dalbak.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Not everyone who doesn't exercise is lazy, but most of the world's lazy people don't exercise. AI is a lazy trap, pure and simple. That's a huge part of the commercial appeal. Its sophisticated specialized uses run parallel to that.
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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Not everyone who loves AI is stupid, but most of the world's stupid people sure do love AI.
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