Sign in

Excavating Horror

@excavatinghorror.com
216 followers 342 following 52 posts

Archaeology, Mummies & Museums in Horror Fiction & Media excavatinghorror.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Steph Halmhofer @cultarchaeo.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
This is a good article about how pseudoarchaeological & pseudohistorical content can soften & spread extremist viewpoints. Extremists know how to weaponize & exploit this point: "Even if a viewer doesn’t understand the underlying ideology, the memes can lead to more, and more overt, neo-Nazi dreck."
06020
Reposted by Excavating Horror
The Ozymandias Project @theozymandiasp1.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
TOP is thrilled to announce 2026’s Hitpoints & History, a virtual conference all about archaeogaming! Join us Jan 31st to hear from scholars & industry insiders about the connection between developer intent, player agency & historical authenticity. Tickets and info can be found at hitpointscon.com
hitpointscon.com
Home
Play your way through the ancient world.
033
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 15/01/2026
Few things have been as influential on the emergence of the racist “just asking questions” pseudoscience that proliferated in the wake of this Nazi-helmed (see thread) publication.
083
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Steph Halmhofer @cultarchaeo.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
"Calling the discovery the 'clearest proof yet' of how the U.S. government was originally designed to function, archaeologists published new evidence Thursday that suggests the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., may have once been used for legislating." 🏺
14813
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 14/01/2026
Here’s the publisher’s announcement.
020
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 14/01/2026
🖤 I’m so excited about this I remembered to log into this account. 🤣
0113
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 16/10/2025
This is a terrific online conference
021
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 15/10/2025
The early Gothic has so much to show us about the social conditions which inspired tremendous numbers of women to read & write about moldering ruins, cursed heirlooms, predatory men manipulating & stealing inheritances & property rights & autonomy. This talk was inspiring.
220
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Dr Icy Sedgwick @icysedgwick.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
This month on Fabulous Folklore Presents, I'm chatting to @odavies9.bsky.social & @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social about their new book Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present. There's even a mention of ice cream van folklore! youtu.be/xuX87Hcp53U?...
22411
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 15/10/2025
Marvelous new @helleborezine.bsky.social! Looking forward to digging in to this article to find out what’s going on here & if there’s any chance I’m ever going to get my lipstick just right ever again
An ornate mirror with only the room behind it in the reflection
243
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Undertow Publications 🇨🇦 @undertow.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
It's October! Hurrah! I've specially curated 5 of our spookier titles, and discounted the eBooks to just $2. Grab a couple, or all 5 for $10. It's your choice. @seanbirnie.bsky.social @acwise.bsky.social @stevetoase.bsky.social undertowpublications.com/ebooks
5 book covers: Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8 (Michael Kelly, ed.) - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Shirley Jackson; and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Kay Chronister, Krisit DeMeester; Brian Evenson, M. Rickert, and more.


Aickman's Heirs (Simon Strantzas, ed.) - Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Finalist for the World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards. Reprints in 5 'Best Ofs'. Featuring Nadia Bulkin, Brian Evenson, John Langan, Lynda E. Rucker, and more.


The Ghost Sequences, by A.C. Wise - Finalist for the World Fantasy; Locus; Bram Stoker; and British Fantasy Awards.


To Drown in Dark Water, by Steve Toase - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from Booklist, and Rue Morgue.


I Would Haunt You if I Could, by Seán Padraic Birnie - Reprints in 2 'Best Ofs'. Praise from The Toronto Star, and Library Journal.
16745
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Daniel Williams @dbenjw.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
My periodic call for pitches to the 19th-Century Networks section of ✨Literature Compass✨: Do you have a state-of-the-field essay to propose on #Romantic or #Victorian topics? a little-known or understudied author to spotlight? Please get in touch! compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1741...
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Literature Compass
Click on the title to browse this journal
256
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Dr. Holly Walters @manigarm.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Breaking News (over a picture of Indiana Jones): Archaeologist blunders his way through yet another discovery without any actual archaeology. Dozens dead. "He really is quite bad at this" says every other archaeologist.
410730
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 06/09/2025
I probably should have just included this in the original post. Captain America: the First Avenger includes the obligatory “Nazis hunting for occult artifacts” trope. The Winter Soldier has something cooler: this glass elevator fight scene.
youtu.be
Elevator Fight Scene | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | Official Clip
YouTube video by Marvel Entertainment
171
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Evan Torner @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
D&D actually received an early 1980s sales bump thanks to the Satanic Panic. The free advertising from Christian organizations allowed teenagers to feel like total, edgy rebels for buying D&D.
3505
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 06/09/2025
Who’s going to sort out the issues with all the edited collections of non-fiction essays? Sigh.
020
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 06/09/2025
In which I expand on my obsession with the idea that Greendale Community College sits on top of a secret military installation, which is not strange at all no matter what @fishinnards.bsky.social says.
excavatinghorror.com
Looking below the surface of Community (2009-2015)
I love the NBC sitcom Community (2009-2015). I try not to suck out the joy by overthinking, but the copious references to Indiana Jones and an Anthropology course that quickly goes off the rails ar…
321
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Dr Kate Thagrinus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @katelaity.eurosky.social · 27/08/2025
'This archaeology is often a dramatic, action-packed endeavor in which the fate of the world rests in the hands of a plucky group of scholars who can’t remember where they parked their car but can translate a dead language and navigate a series of complex traps and devious puzzles.' 🤣
132
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 27/08/2025
Haven’t give this a listen yet but I’m a big @baladria.bsky.social fan & you better believe I snapped up a deck of her ancient Egyptian-inspired OFMD tarot cards!
262
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Andrew Reinhard, PhD, RPA @adreinhard.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
#PunkArchaeology
031
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 27/08/2025
I did a thing
021
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Steve Toase @stevetoase.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Thanks to @meanlouise.bsky.social from @excavatinghorror.com for the shout out for Dirt Upon My Skin in this great article on archaeological horror at @nightmare-magazine.com www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/p...
nightmare-magazine.com
Plumbing the Depths: Archaeology in Horror Fiction - Nightmare Magazine
Archaeology is a method and practice which resurfaces the past. It can help us reconstruct the history and culture of ancient (or not so ancient) people, and give us insight into what it means to be h...
184
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 25/08/2025
Just informed the phrase “hold on to your butts” isn’t scholarly. Which is delightful! Not bc I’m gonna change my blogging style, but bc it’s always nice to know someone read the footnotes. Anyway, here’s a bit of chatter about the Gothic mode & a book recommendation, if you like that sort of thing.
excavatinghorror.com
Gothic America
Keeping up with The Scholarly Literature is a wild academic fantasy, even for those with a neatly bounded subject area. When I was a kid I thought the expression “trying to shovel a waterfall…
041
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 24/08/2025
So good I was able to resist a joke about how this is a chilling tale about the consequences of digging without a permit. Almost.
110
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
The end of day 1 of the #WarningToTheCurious conference and what a day! A great keynote from Darryl Jones! 13 fascinating papers! A workshop on haunted objects that has me writing a VERY weird little story and, of course, the cocktail/mocktail hour! Love that for us!
0173
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 22/08/2025
As you may have guessed, I’m looking forward to this conference!
120
Reposted by Excavating Horror
B. Rae “Rusty” Grosz @braegrosz.com · 22/08/2025
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! And Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
134
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 22/08/2025
I feel I should clarify that what made this all super-creepy was that I opened @stevetoase.bsky.social ‘s book to that page THE SAME DAY I got the field school question. Does it matter? No, not really, except to me & maybe the ghost in the Total station.
021
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 21/08/2025
In case you’re here for actual archaeology & not worried about the thing that’s definitely probably not slithering around in your storage closet, Dr. Daniel Sayers published The Archaeology of the Homed & the Unhomed w UP of Florida in 2023 & also Justin Uehlein recently defended his dissertation 👇
010
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 21/08/2025
Here’s a silly story to start your Wednesday. Or end your Wednesday. Which I meant because of time zones, not to suggest it’s the last thing you might read because you’ve been tamping down that sense of vague dread that something terrible lurks in your lab 1/
131
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Lauren (LJ) McMenemy @laurenwrites.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Join us at Writing the Occult: Belief on 6 Sept when we ask: What’s it like to live in a cult? Why do we get swept away by charismatic leaders? Why might someone *not* believe? Where do conspiracy theories come from? Let’s ask if the truth really is out there. Details: writingtheoccult.carrd.co 🧵⬇️
Against a blue sky, a shadowed human is pictured jumping from a high place. Overlaid is the text:
Writing the Occult: Belief
6 September 2025
Jump into...
Surviving cults
Conspiracy theories
Demonology
Spiritual warfare
Bible horror
Skepticism
Voodoo
Early modern pagans
The cult of Mithras
And writing authentic SFFH about real-world beliefs.

In a red band along the bottom is the text:
Writing the Occult: Belief is a virtual event for writers & readers. It happens 6 Sept 2025. Tickets & details via writingtheoccult.carrd.co
187
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Frank Cogliano @frankcogliano.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Job opportunity for an historian at Monticello. This is the 4th time they've tried to fill the role this year (they seem to have given up trying to find a senior person and have dropped the PhD requirement). DM me if you want to know what it's like to work there. www.monticello.org/thomas-jeffe...
monticello.org
Paycor Job Openings
at Monticello
85029
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Sacrifice! At the Harvest Festival @theharvestmaid.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Calling all American folklorists, pop culture critics, historians, and artists! Please take a look at the call for proposals for Crossroads, a magazine dedicated exclusively to folk horror in the United States. Our first issue will be dedicated to the 1970s.
714972
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 15/08/2025
I knew I couldn’t do Modern Mummies: A Horror Anthology justice with a proper review right now, so instead here’s a short post about my enthusiasm for this excellent new collection from @cateyepress.bsky.social excavatinghorror.com/2025/08/15/m...
excavatinghorror.com
Modern Mummies (2025)
At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Cat Eye Press was soliciting stories for a new collection. The theme was “modern mummies” and I have to admit that I was skeptical until I r…
120
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Have you ever wanted to study the Gothic with me? At a British university but online so it's accessible to you anywhere? For a fraction of a usual university course cost? With delicious delicious library access? Come join me Liverpool uni starting October! www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
liverpool.ac.uk
The Rise of the Gothic: 1764-1831 - Continuing Education - University of Liverpool
69354
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 10/08/2025
Spectacular publicly accessible resource run by a brilliant organizer. I talked about Gothic tourism & local history as it relates the Exorcist, Mothman, & Blair Witch earlier this year for the annual Goths for Breakfast fundraiser to fun free meals for kids & it was a great time all-around.
095
Reposted by Excavating Horror
Rebecca Stone Gordon @meanlouise.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Speaking of, safe travels to everyone headed to Cusco, Peru for the Mummy Congress. I’m absolutely not jealous! (I’m absolutely jealous).
261
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 12/11/2024
Enjoying, as always, the Antiquity in Media Studies 2024 conference. Is AIMS here yet? Search is defying me, but that doesn't mean I'm not missing them! antiquityinmediastudies.wordpress.com
antiquityinmediastudies.wordpress.com
Antiquity in Media Studies
A not-for-profit educational society advocating for interdisciplinary reception studies within Classics and analogous disciplines focused on the the ancient world.
010
Excavating Horror @excavatinghorror.com · 21/10/2024
Hi! Hello! Actual account here. This username wasn't available last year & I don't know why I didn't doublecheck before falling back on I Dig Horror. As funny as that name is to me as a horror fan & scholar/bio-archaeologist, I thought I'd give this thing called consistency a try, so here we are.
130