iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Donna Yates

Petra Seitz @pooskipie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

How well do objects of design fare in secondary markets built for fine art and antiquities? This is the question I tackle in my newest article for transfer, out now (in open access!): ahnp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/tra...

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

We do have a legally mandated marking deadline but that's a Dutch thing.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If you want to check out older lists, I post them on my blog (they are almost the only thing on there these days). I'm often a bit late at posting them, the best thing to do is sign up: www.anonymousswisscollector.com

anonymousswisscollector.com

Anonymous Swiss Collector

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What's in the weekly Opportunities List? Here's a recent example.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Do you want to hear about events, jobs, and opportunities related to provenance, art & heritage crime research, and the liked? I send out an Opportunities List email every week. Sign up here: www.unescochairculturecrime.org/mailing-list...

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Layered assumptions, but sure!You can trust that stolen data is at the front of my mind though.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Are not ate. The photo made me hungry.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

As a fellow potato ambivalent, I blame living in the high Andes in the past. Potatoes there ate diverse and divine. Potatoes here seem bland and boring...not worth the time they take.

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Reposted by Donna Yates

Jake Broe @realjakebroe.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This was a two act play by the Russians. It’s both a tragedy and a comedy.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The Metadata I've been using is spot on and almost certainly human produced. If it wasn't so perfect, so human, I would not be able to use the LLM to read the parts I need. Ultimately what I found will be professionally human translated, but the human metadata was key.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Another observation, the 3 generations before my great grandfather are listed illiterate "peasant" in the records. His daughter went to high-school; his grandson got a master's degree and was a military officer; his great granddaughter is nerdy professor me. I'm generation 3 in the other direction.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Art provenance research used to rest on the languages the researcher could read and how they could parse handwriting. Doing art provenance research in Poland would have been impossible for me. Not now. Now I'm thinking what shelved projects I should dust off now that language is not a barrier.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

So I now have official records for my family going back to the early 19th century: generations of people recorded as illiterate "peasants" translated for me, accuratly enough for my purposes, in seconds. And from that, it looks like I have EU citizenship coming to me.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

But the real treat has been discovering that the record books for my ancestors' tiny village were digitised and online. And in this I say, AI is AMAZING. Claude read and translated pages of 19th C. Polish and Russian handwriting in seconds. These are languages I don't read at all.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The Warsaw lawyers I finally contacted about this think I'll be confirmed, but, for example, if my grandmother was born 4 years later, or my father 2 years earlier, this would not happen. This cuts off some of my father's cousins from citizenship.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

With growing intensity in past weeks, I've been working to confirm my Polish citizenship via ancestry. The research process is so delightful intricate with years, laws, and loopholes al influencing the outcome. I realised earlier this week why I'm enjoying it: I'm doing provenance research on me.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A gold "substance" is poured on Avebury and the term "Heritage Crime" is used by the police and press. National Trust’s ancient stones ‘painted’ in 'criminal act' www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/2659949...

gazetteandherald.co.uk

Criminal investigation as National Trust’s ancient monument is ‘painted’

An incident which saw a substance painted on ancient standing stones at a National Trust site is being treated as a “heritage crime”.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Well that feels like something I can still do 🙂

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Maybe this means I never actually had anything to say, but I was just saying.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Coming back to social media after years away is an odd feeling. I feel like I have totally lost an ability that I once had. I can't seem to think of what to post. I can't seem to think of what to say to what everyone else posts. I have thoughts but they don't crystallise into anything pithy.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Indeed, I keep thinking "but all the journal editors see who you are...and are on the hiring committees" and "but if I saw this on your CV I wouldn't hire you". It feels like burning bridges irrecoverably.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Louvre boss vows to instil ‘culture of security’ after heist www.ft.com/content/8be6...

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Reposted by Donna Yates

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

My husband and I have both found meg teeth on our own fossil hunts along the coast of the Chesapeake *and* bought them from dealers, so I find this deeply fascinating and weird (albeit not remotely surprising)

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

CALL FOR JOURNAL PAPERS: "Natural Heritage as Cultural Property: legal and social dimensions to the collection, display, and sale of natural history specimens", a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property edited by @p-stewens.bsky.social & me. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Reposted by Donna Yates

Paul Stewens @p-stewens.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Natural history specimens are #culturalproperty. If you have an idea for a paper that drives this point home, @profdonnayates.bsky.social and I want to hear from you for our special issue in the International Journal of Cultural Property. Find the #cfp here: paul-stewens.com/news/cfp-nat...

Old postcard showing the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Vienna, facing each other in parallel

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Why would anyone pay $38,000 for a Megalodon shark tooth that they could buy now for less than $1,000? I explore answer that question in my latest publication: **Illusions of Rarity and Value in Competing Megalodon Tooth Markets** Available free and open access. doi.org/10.1007/978-...

A hand next to a two black megalodon sharks teeth. The larger toot is as long as the index finger of the hand.

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Donna Yates @profdonnayates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I guarantee this will be the weirdest story you hear today. And you know what? It's even weirder than what is published. Take it from me...a T. rex will bite you. They make people do weird things. www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

bloomberg.com

Billionaires’ T. Rex Obsession Has Turned Fossils Into Red-Hot Drama

As the battle for dinosaur bones heightens, paleontologists, collectors and auction houses navigate a Wild West market.

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