iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

New album by two Aussies playing Poulenc- crisp, fun, funny even (as Poulenc can be) and thoughtful. A joy to listen to. Antony Gray & Rob Hao #Classicalmusic #piano #Poulenc

Poulenc music for two pianos, Gray & Hao

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Quiet Sunday morning drive to uni library to do some work, with this not-so-quiet album on. That was fun. Dynamic, exciting, lively and layered. Great album. #classicalmusic #applemusic #Dvorak

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Hey Ancient peeps, who's going to Manchester this weekend? Looking forward to the @classicalassociation annual conference! Hope to meet loads of you (and if not, just looking forward to cool talks and nice food 😂). #ancienthistory #classics #classicalassociation #ancientromans #AncientBluesky

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

OK, this is a bit long, but found this story online and it is truly inspirational, especially for all of us mature PhD-ers! Wonderful story: #academicchatter #academia #phdlife #maturestudent #university #study #lifeafter60

Screenshot of a story of a mature student and how she succeeded at a later age.

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Amazing but unsurprising stat….

Eu students before Brexit represented 27% of the student population but the intake in the 2026-2027 academic year is 5%

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I don't suppose anyone has some photos of this relief from the Museo Capitolini (hall)? Am studying it but could do with some better photos.... Thanks! #AncientBluesky #Classics #AncientRome www.museicapitolini.org/fr/opera/ril...

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Booked! Looking forward to my first @classicalassociation.org conference in my old hometown Manchester! Hoping to meet loads of fellow ancient history nerds 🙌❤️ #classics #ancienthistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Along this part of the canal every single house has a plaque. Around 80% of the Jewish population in Amsterdam was murdered during the war. Before the war there were nearly 80,000 Jewish people, after, around 5,000. Chilling. This is around the corner from the Holocaust memorial. 2/2 #holocaust

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Along a canal in Amsterdam there are plaques commemorating the families taken from their homes bij the Nazis and taken to concentration camps to be murdered. 1/2 #secondworldwar #holocaust #Amsterdam

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Gave ChatGPT a short list from my 'to be read' pile, my mood, and asked which I should read next. It suggested Middlemarch by George Eliot, which was not on my list at all. Giving it a go. #books #reading

title page of George Eliot's Middlemarch, 1871.

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Our Persian Ironwood looking gloriously autumnal

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Enjoyed the conference The Ideal and The Ugly at Warwick uni. My talk went well (I think 🤔). Great variety of speakers! #phdlife #universityofWarwick #conference #ancientBlueSky

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Ready for @classicsacademy.bsky.social ‘s #bookclub with these two coming up. Zuchtriegel’s book is a joy with a mix of historical info and musings on the craft of being an historian/archaeologist. Also practice for my rusty German. #zuchtriegel #Goldsworthy #ancientBluesky #ancientRome

Books: Zuchtriegel, Vom Zauber des Untergangs. Goldsworthy, Augustus

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

That feeling after A-level results are in….

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Makes a change 😬, having to cut the pages in this dissertation from 1941. Makes it feel more special 😝

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Finally visited Chedworth Villa in Gloucestershire. Small but fabulous. #AncientBluesky #ChedworthVilla

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Sainte Chapelle, Paris. Stunning stained glass originally from the 13th century. Used for grain storage during the French Revolution, restored in 19th century. Most glass is original still. #paris #sainteChapelle

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Is this art or craft or just 'material history'. #AncientBluesky #Romanhistory

Roman funerary portrait of Gratidia Chrite (Vatican Museum). c. 10bce-10ce.

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

I am sure we’ve got a Roman villa in the back garden! 😜🤣 crop marks prove it!

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Nearly finished this tour de force that is Jeffrey Tatum’s biography of Mark Antony #ancientbluesky #MarkAntony

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Extensive remains shows pigment remains found on the side panels suggesting possibly all (at least side panels) was brightly painted. All at the wonderful small archaeological museum at Palais Rohan in Strasbourg. 4/4 #Strasbourg #AncientBluesky #Romanhistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

A close up of the figures. Toga pulled over the head as a sign of pietas. 3/4 #Strasbourg #AncientBluesky #Romanhistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

A small reconstruction at the museum shows its likely original form. 2/4 #Strasbourg #AncientBluesky #Romanhistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Amazing Roman tomb from Argentoratum (Strasbourg), family of Valerius Rufus, first half 1st century ce. Almost life-size figures: two figures in military dress, a third wearing a toga (so perhaps a veteran). 1/4 #AncientBluesky #Romanhistory #ancientRoman #Strasbourg

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Gorgeous Strasbourg Cathedral

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Plan of attack 😇 reread dry history book and if all fails good-old murder mystery

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Today’s haul 😬😁 already started the Mark Antony biography- fascinating and very well written. #AncientBluesky #ancientRome

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

@rhigarthjones.bsky.social you're top of the pile in the photo from Blackwell's email newsletter....

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Picked a couple from the garden

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

My guilty pleasure to just unwind and change the subject has been @stephmerritt.bsky.social Tudor Giordano Bruno series of murder mysteries. Trying to read them in order but so far read part 7, 1, 2. They are great fun!

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

The portrait relief from the Rabirii tomb, probably from the tomb on the Via Appia with a much later intruder portrait of a priestess of Isis but it’s unclear what her relation is to the two Rabirii (freed) people to her right. Prob early Augustan (she’s Claudian tho). #AncientBluesky #AncientRome

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I am over the moon to be joining the University of Warwick for a PhD on Roman portrait art. Can't wait. #AncientBluesky #Romanart #academicchatter #phd

Funerary relief, Rome, 1st century ce, Vatican Museum.

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

The amazing Golden Helmet of Coțofenești, (5th century bce) which I saw at an exhibition while visiting Rome last year, since then sadly stolen from a museum in The Netherlands and still not found. #AncientBluesky

Golden Helmet of Coțofenești, 5th century bce. Romania

exhibition text about the Golden Helmet of Coțofenești, 5th century bce. Romania

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Lovely view over the Severn on my delayed flight back home to the UK

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Wonderful exhibition at @rmoudheden.bsky.social in #Leiden ‘Boven het Maaiveld’ with the most amazing archaeological finds from The Netherlands. Roman military face mask, Rheden, 20bce - 100 ce; Barry: wooden bust from 17th century ship; Roman oil lamp in the shape of a foot, Limburg, 0 -100ce

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

I wrote down some thoughts on my blog on the exciting new discoveries in Pompeii, the life-size full-figure funerary portrait relief of a man and woman, probably a priestess: musings.sophieploeg.com/a-couple-fro... #AncientBluesky #Pompeii #RomanPortraiture #ancients

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Probably stupid question but what does ‘cos’ mean when used with dates? #academicchatter

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Great write up on British Roman funerary monuments for children on Warwick Classics’ blog: (Shame no preview in this post) warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/cla...

Tombstone of Flavia Augustina and Family (RIB 685), York, mid-3rd century CE, now in the Yorkshire Museum (YORYM: 1998.18). Image from York Museums Trust (Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0). (Warwick Classics blog)

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Back to the #Ancients! I am taking this wonderful course at the @classicsacademy.bsky.social on the ins and outs of translating ancient texts. Super interesting to compare different translations and consider the choices translators made. #ancienthistory #classics #Iliad

Eirene Allen’s new book on Women in Homer, Wilson’s Iliad, verity’s Iliad and Odyssey, and a Dutch version of the Iliad

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

2 of my favourite Jacobean portraits (1618) by William Larkin, the twin sisters Diana & Anne Cecil, aged just 12-13, in identical fashionable slashed dresses, but the lace ruff & cuffs are different: drawn thread work (r) and bobbin/needle lace (l). #earlymodern #kenwoodhouse #fashionhistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Prepping for my talk for the West of England Costume Society on Saturday on how lace was depicted in English Tudor and Jacobean portraiture. Always a joy to dive into the lushness of (painted) lace! #earlymodern #fashionhistory #arthistory

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Close up which allows us to see how beauty was made: Mummy portrait of a young woman, Antinoöpolis, Middle Egypt, 2nd century, Louvre, Paris.

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Sophie Ploeg @sploeg.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

I need to learn more about Roman portraits and numismatics. Where do I start? This is one of the Bunnik Hoard, Claudius, 46/7 ce (Leiden) #AncientBluesky

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