iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Dr Kay Sunahara @kaysunahara.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Back to a bit of coin photography @romtoronto.bsky.social today's favourite is a Denarius of Nerva from 97 CE, mint of Rome. The reverse side has incredible detail of Concordia embodied as clasped hands, on a coin that measures but 27.9 mm! 🪙 #MuseumWork #numismatics #coins #handshake

Silver denarius coin with the wreathed head of Roman emperor Nerva, facing to the right.

Silver denarius coin, the reverse side of the same coin of Nerva, showing two hands clasped in a handshake.

052

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The main thing about these games is to have fun.

020

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I would have to say, if I had to be a Hobbit, I would want to be a magical Hobbit. The world is a scary place outside the Shire!

110

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yes, I, for one, have been complaining about them for years. Yet I have no sympathy for them at all! It would have been far more likely that a bunch of Fallohides, who like hills and woodlands, had not crossed the mountains and gone West! Stoors love the flat lands, riverbanks, and marshes.

100

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Tolkien was quite explicit that Hobbits have small feet. I don't know where they get it from. Hairy, yes, but small.

110

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

But Gollum's people should be related to the Stoors and be heavily built! It was the Fallohides who were taller and more slender, the ancestors of the Tooks.

100

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

More excitement in the second of my three part space-opera about archaeologists being abducted by Space Pirates! Published by The Kraken Lore on Medium!! #SciFi #ShortStory #TheKrakenLore #Medium 💙📚🪐 medium.com/the-kraken-l...

medium.com

Space Pirates on Overtime 2

The Pursuers

072

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That does seem to be a lot of work, but it is a lovely image. As I may have mentioned, I did have a go at playing a Hobbit in LOTRO but I did not like them being so stout. I have the same problem with EQ2, and wrote a piece on Medium about it. medium.com/@Robert_Barr...

medium.com

Playing a Hobbit

Me Tolkien Nonsense

110

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Ah! I wondered how you made your nice images from LOTRO, so you put them through AI? I tried LOTRO myself and didn't like the Hobbits! I can't say I have been as adverse to AI art as some others. In a way it enabled people to *write* an image, and created some amazing stuff.

100

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It is a horrifying thought, but soon AI will be able to completely recreate movies, but in some cases make them good.

100

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Hah! Yeah, don't worry, I'm joking. Besides, they probably wouldn't fit the theme!

010

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

How tall are they? I need passengers for my railway.

110

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Not a lot of Fall flowers in the garden at the moment! Just some strays photographed in the intense early morning light. The kale is going well, though! 🌱 #FlowerReport

030

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I'd just like to say "If they hunt, I gather" is pretty cool. I suppose mine would be "if they make pottery, I will cut it up and stick it under a microscope," which really does not sound as good.

220

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

38% of Americans approve of Donald Trump?

120

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Cover of "Mission to the Stars" (1953) A novel by Philip Kent (Kenneth Bulmer). Never read the book, but I do wish they still had covers like that! 📚

030

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Today is #HobbitDay because Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were both born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway it's a good day to come and boromir #Tolkien books. 📚

652299633

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Happy Hobbit Day! Recently I realised that as I get older & better remember being under 4' tall & going on adventures, I wanted to be a Hobbit. But one that did magic. Thinking about how & where that might occur led to a story. #HobbitDay 💙📚🪐 #Fantasy medium.com/@Robert_Barr...

medium.com

List: Tales of the Vale | Curated by Robert Barry | Medium

Tales of the Vale · The adventures of Blys & Bertie can be romantic and cozy, or at times dangerous and scary. Join them as they learn the ways of magic, and try to make a better world for their peopl...

0131

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Innocent archaeologists abducted by Space Pirates? High space adventure short story just published by The Kraken Lore on Medium!! #SciFi #ShortStory #TheKrakenLore #Medium 💙📚🪐 thekrakenlore.com/space-pirate...

thekrakenlore.com

Space Pirates on Overtime 1

The Abduction

071

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Some of my fondest memories are of taking the ferry from Bournemouth to Swanage and then the train up to Corfe.

121

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Once again my article "A Map of Middle Earth in the Third Age" is my most popular thing in Medium. I wish some of them would give it a few claps! medium.com/@Robert_Barr...

medium.com

A Map of Middle Earth in the Third Age

Me Tolkien nonsense

040

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This is why I publish pottery, although I study other things. You always know where you are with pottery. Things that are much rarer, which decay or get melted down more often than not, are always debateable.

030

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I thought "that sword doesn't look Roman" and spent the past hour googling about it. Who says social media is a waste of time?

160

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

25150263943

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Being a bit of a Tolkien geek, I find the discussions of his legendarium on Quora quite compelling. The latest question I have addressed is "What do you consider to be the most evil deed within Tolkien’s legendarium?" www.quora.com/What-do-you-...?

quora.com

What do you consider to be the most evil deed within Tolkien’s legendarium?

Robert's answer: People often think that corrupting elves to create the race of orcs was a bad thing, but when you dig deeper, it is even worse. Tolkien was deeply romantic. It may not be obvious, bu...

040

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

In the next part of the process to make the Serce Liman pottery thin-sections the "excess" sample in its resin casing is cut off from the slide using a high precision saw (more in ALT). #ArchaeologyofStuff #CeramicPetrography 🏺⛏️ #Ceramics #CeramicPetrology #Archaeology #Archaeometry

The "excess" pottery in its resin casing is cut off from the slide using a high precision saw

The slide is then numbered with the unique number of the object being sampled. "GW" stands for "Glass Wreck", the specific wreck found at Serce Liman (there were several others!)

The slides are now ready to have the sample ground down to three microns thickness. The "surplus" pottery will then be renumbered, if the number was lost in the processing, and stored in the numbered bag it arrived in. If something goes wrong in the final stage, or if it is otherwise desirable, the block will be used to make another thin-section.

050

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Found this and couldn't resist sharing it.

020

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

So this is the Douglas from Henry IV Part One (I took that one at school). I had to google him, said to be born c. 1369. So about 55 when he died? The sprightly Scot of Scots indeed!

010

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Found in 1856 during the cutting of a grave for Martha Brown (whose sad tale inspired Thomas Hardy to write Tess of the d’Urbervilles) this Roman mosaic belonged to a 4th century townhouse Lifted and set into Dorchester prison chapel the mosaic now resides in Dorset Museum 📷 Sep 2026 #MosaicMonday

The centre of a geometric polychrome Roman mosaic floor with two heart shaped leaves surrounded by intersecting black squares and red triangles

121953

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

You couldn't write this stuff as fiction. No-one would believe it.

040

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Busy week at the ROM! I took the impregnated Serce Liman samples out of the cups, cut off the excess resin, ground the sample flat, then glued glass slides to the sample! #ArchaeologyofStuff #CeramicPetrography 🏺⛏️ #Ceramics #CeramicPetrology #Archaeology #Archaeometry

060

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Andrew Spratt @dirleton.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Reconstruction mock-up over 'groovesvillewkd' image of Warkworth Castle, Northumberland (England). A Percy family stronghold. #WarkworthCastle #HistoryRebuilt #EnglishCastles

051

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I did enjoy that movie. What is his head doing sitting around like this? Was it part of a funerary sculpture?

000

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Andrew Spratt @dirleton.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The remains of St. Olaf’s Kirk - a 12th century Norse Church located at Lunda Wick on Unst in Shetland @kpw1453.bsky.social info/image post turned into a mock-up suggestion.

092

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

At the ROM this week I set the pottery samples from Serce Liman in epoxy resin before making them into thin-sections. (more in ALT). #ArchaeologyofStuff #CeramicPetrography 🏺⛏️ #Ceramics #CeramicPetrology #Archaeology #Archaeometry

Pottery samples from Serce Liman in epoxy resin in anticipation of turning them into thin-sections. They are put under vacuum for a few minutes to suck the air out, and then the vacuum is released to impregnate the ceramic with the resin as much as possible, This makes it less problematic in making a thin-section out of the friable ceramic. I was nervous about mixing up the samples with their numbers, so I gave each sample it's own cup!

090

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Also, Hennry VIII had an older brother called Arthur who should have been king. Perhaps a snide dig at the man who should have been king?

010

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Edward had made his son "Prince of Wales" and was keen to bring back memories of a king of all Britain. I must say, some really crappy things were done during the dissolution. The desecration of St. Thomas Becket's tomb in Canterbury was even more disgusting.

140

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

For significant amounts of time my train of thought circles around a Zen fairy garden. #GardenRailway #ModelTrain #Gscaletrains #Gscale #FairyGarden #FairyGardenRailway

071

Dr. Robert Barry Mason @robertmason.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Finished up recording the samples from Serce Liman this week. Next week I will start turning them into thin sections for petrographic analysis! #archaeology 🏺

040

Reposted by Dr. Robert Barry Mason

Dr Kay Sunahara @kaysunahara.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Pickled these jalapeños today. Fresh from our raised beds in the front yard! 🌱 #GrowingFood

Close up of a glass bottle of sliced pickled jalapeños, most are green and a few are red.

071