iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Inspired by inanities emanating from Washington and a classic 19th-century depiction of the Vandals marching on Rome....

Left: news headline in which Trump blames the reflecting pool debacle on Vandals. Right: 19th-c engraving of Vandals with a speech bubble

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Exciting new arrivals from @livunipress.bsky.social in the Translated Texts for Historians/Byzantinists series.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Last class with a fantastic group of finalists taking my 'Pagans, Christians, and the "Falls" of Rome' module. We finished by reading Cavafy's "Waiting for the barbarians". Wishing these marvellous humans a fantastic future: I'll miss them ❤️

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I spent a large chunk of today at a really interesting (and inspiring) symposium on Rethinking Assessment in Classical Studies organised by the Open University. I had the opportunity to present on a creative assessment I have introduced to my final year module on late antiquity.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I had such a great time this afternoon presenting online to a seminar at UCD. My ramblings were followed by some excellent questions, not least from @croeuan.bsky.social

120

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

The monk Auxentius, based on a miniature from the Menologion of Basil II, for a forthcoming volume of lives of Monastic Saints centred on Constantinople. (This is my 47th cover drawing for TTH/TTB) Forthcoming from @livunipress.bsky.social

240

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

I am rubbish at keeping BlueSky updated, and getting a new phone didn't help. So to get restarted, here are three vegetarian meals from the past few days: proof I'm home alone at the moment.

Rukmini Iyer's chickpea, cavolo nero, and harissa gratin.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

6 January is Epiphany, marking the visit of the Magi from the East to the infant Christ (Matthew 2.1-12). It always prompts me to reflect on how late antique Christians imagined this episode, repurposing iconographic tropes from secular art to visualise this key moment in the Nativity story.

061

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

After nearly 19 and a half years, I must be beginning to look somewhat native to these parts. A woman just approached me in Greggs in Pontardawe and said: "I thought you were Michael Sheen for a moment." Luckily for her, there is an optician just across the road....

140

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Happy New Year! Ianuarius from a calendar mosaic, c.200, from El Djem, Tunisia. Image: Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons.l

110

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

More defaced images of Constantius II and Eudoxia from Friday's Being Human event in Cardiff.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Really busy week, part two. I was invited by colleagues in Cardiff to participate in a Being Human Festival event on satire for high school pupils. I got them to deface images of Constantius II and Eudoxia in line with how those figures had been lampooned. The results were fabulous.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Really busy week, part one: on Wednesday I participated in an online discussion of Hendrik Dey and Fabrizio Oppedisano's new book in Justinian's Legacy. Thanks to colleagues at Perugia for honouring me with the invitation.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Pedagogical highlight of the week: (1) discussing Ammianus Marcellinus' account of the death of Valentinian I, in which the emperor, in his fatal seizure, attempts to communicate by flailing his arms like a boxer; and (2) having one of the students voluntarily acting out what this looked like.

063

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

And now for something completely different: more proofs! This time featuring: how I became a historian of the ancient world thanks to the combined effects of a trip to Egypt and growing up in Belfast and Dublin.

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

This is a terrific novel. The cadences of the language brought me back to a Belfast I left more than forty years ago.

020

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

All set for an orchestral concert for the first time in goodness knows how long. I used to go quite frequently to such events. I couldn't pass up a chance to listen to the mighty Seventh: it must be twenty years since last I heard it performed live.

120

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

#readingcharitably Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, from the Swansea Oxfam Bookshop. A lyrical exploration of the meanings of humanity and existence. The looming presences of the Earth and the space station impressiveness not as much as the astronauts carrying all humankind's dreams and anxieties.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

In my lunch today, I found a happy chickpea with a very unconvincing comb over.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

More proofs. This time for a review of a gem of a book.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Exciting new series from @livunipress.bsky.social , Translated Texts from Antiquity (TTA to join TTH and TTB) , launches with two excellent volumes on #pomponiusmela and #suetonius I'm very honoured to be involved in this new venture.

020

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

#readingcharitably I just finished Bernardine Evaristo's _Girl, Woman, Other_. (Purchased for a quid in the Swansea British Heart Foundation shop.) What a revelation of a book: a life affirming, celebration of a Britain enriched by multiculturalism and intersectionalities.

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Summer reading 2025, eclectic as ever. (Not shown: articles, typescripts, student drafts.)

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Hunting the (bitter and belligerent) legacy of antiquity in Place Vendôme, Paris.

010

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Not only have I made the TTH book cover drawings into t-shirts, but today I wore one (Conference of Carthage 411) to visit its inspiration, Van Loos' Augustine disputing with the Donatists, Note Dame des Victoires, Paris @livunipress.bsky.social

150

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Further adventures in wearable book covers: tie-dye Hormizd II #TTH @livunipress.bsky.social

052

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

#readingcharitably A surprise purchase (from Oxfam Books in Swansea, naturally). I think Mario Vargas Llosa was the first "grown up" author I read for fun, with his "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter". This one gripped me from beginning to end.

000

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Wearable book covers! I turned a few of my Translated Texts for Historians cover drawings for @livunipress.bsky.social into summer attire.

2245

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Celebrating 40 years of Translated Texts for Historians with @livunipress.bsky.social

263

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Thanks to the amazing team @livunipress.bsky.social for putting this together in honour of the 40th anniversary of Translated Texts for Historians. More details at www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

041

Mark Humphries @profmarkhumphries.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

My drawing of Gaza depicted in the eighth-century mosaic pavement from the church of St Stephen at Umm er-Rasas, Jordan. For the cover of Childers, Rapp, and Whitby (intro., trans., and comm.), Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyry of Gaza.

040