Sarah E. Bond

@sarahebond.bsky.social

1980

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798

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Enjoyer of reality tv, mayo, Rome

Assoc. Prof. of History at Iowa & contributor at Hyperallergic. Next Book: Strike: Labor, Unions & Resistance in the Roman Empire (YUP 2025)

Our newsletter, Pasts Imperfect, is here: https://pastsimperfect.substack.com

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Every few yrs, the alleged story of the "One Ring" & its possible relationship to a Roman ring is brought up Ca. 1786, a farmer near Silchester (England) found a 4thC CE gold ring reading "Seniciane, vivas iin (!) de." (Senicianus, may you live in God) romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...

Epigrapher Peter Kruschwitz has a great blog at _Petrified Muse_ (thepetrifiedmuse.blog/2017/11/29/o...) , but essentially, this ring was thought to link with a curse tablet found later: RIB 306: "Silvianus has lost his ring..." that curses Senicianus. romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...

Tolkien was brought in 1928-1929 to work on a Roman temple at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire and the mention of the Celtic God Nodens. But in fact, media releases and Wikipedia entries recount this with no actual evidence. Tolkien biographer John Garth refutes it. books.google.com/books?id=OJa...

Anyways, there is no real evidence that this 4thC Roman ring inspired the "One Ring" but it is a very romantic notion and well sorry to be a hater, but I don't believe it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring

There is a new article on “A new approach to locate, characterise and restore in 3D polychromy of Apollo’s temple at Delphi (4th century B. C.),” which is pretty stunning. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🌈 🎨 They used machine learning to analyze photos to isolate pigment remains then analyze.

On August 2nd, UVA classicist Sara Myers has a new book coming out with OUP on the ancient Roman literary garden 🪴 🌺 🌳. global.oup.com/academic/pro... this book looks brilliant and also she is a great human. So 10/10 would suggest.

I took this photo of the Caracalla bust in the Vatican Museums and he honestly looks like he is giving side eye to the new film version of Caracalla (in Gladiator 2)—that looks nothing like him. 👀

Network analysis in the study of the ancient world is very useful. An article that never got enough engagement was Diane Cline's splendid viz. of Athenian political agents in the mid-5thC BCE (lots of Pericles, but also women as connectors!) cc. @digkabri.bsky.social jhnr.uni.lu/index.php/jh...

July 10, 138 CE: Hadrian dies, likely of heart failure, at Baiae pleiades.stoa.org/places/432716. As @followinghadrian.bsky.social has written on, his earlobes (in sculpture) show creases that may be indicative of a coronary artery disease. S·T·T·L, Hadrian. followinghadrian.com/2013/07/10/a...

For those teaching, researching, or interested in visualizing Greek myth, there is an invaluable new interactive map & database of Greek mythic persons, objects, & places called MANTO. The raw linked open data alone is stunning but the maps are also fantastic [1/4] manto.unh.edu/viewer.p/60/...

Let us just take the example of Odysseus. I plug him into the search and I get a stunned file card of all the places he is mentioned in terms of objects, texts, and even the people he killed! manto.unh.edu/viewer.p/60/.... 60 researchers and 2 PIs gathered this data, and it is quite peer reviewed.

You can even see a map of all the places tied to Odysseus and what is even more fantastic are the network tabs that should relationships to others. Like, this is off the charts (with the Apollo node lit up) for anyone doing network analysis. manto.unh.edu/viewer.p/60/...

There is a famous fresco of a seated Socrates from a house atrium near Ephesus (1stC CE), but the chair he sits on is the most intriguing part: Lysippos is said to have made this commemorative chair & a seated bronze statue for Athens after S’s death in 399 BCE—as a kind of mea culpa by the city.

I love a true quotation.

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They found a 6.8 ft tall Hermes statue in a Roman sewer at Heraclea Sintica in Bulgaria likely placed there gingerly w/care after the earthquake of 388 CE—and, hey, I’d like Theodosius to know making Christianity “official” didn’t mean people just abandoned the old gods. www.msn.com/en-ph/news/w...

Please stop 🛑 using ancient “AI generated” reconstructions of emperors as “real.” Prof. @nyashajunior.bsky.social and I wrote about the BS and uninformed human choices behind these types of reconstructions here. hyperallergic.com/593074/how-r... via @hyperallergic.com

And yes, other news outlets are using them as if they are accurate. 5 days ago: “Lost bronze bust of Roman emperor Caligula rediscovered: The bust was originally unearthed in the mid-18th century at Herculaneum & gifted to the British writer and politician Horace…” www.ynetnews.com/magazine/art...

I see your museum bum and raise you one of Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγος (‘Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks’) now at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples (MANN). This statue is also mentioned in Ulysses’ Laestrygonians episode (Book 8), namely when Bloom wonders if statues have anuses.

When you all bring large amphorae to the pre-drinks, and never make it out of the house 🥳👍🏛️🍑🏺 #MuseumBums "The Three Graces", on a gilded bronze mirror, c200CE, from @metmuseumbot.bsky.social Thanks @met_greekroman for sharing 😁

I don’t really miss Twitter as it is today, but I do think about that one time I asked Taika Waititi about Thucydides and his Thor script a lot.

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Sarah E. Bond

Finally, I am obsessed with this Moche fighting duck 🦆 and everyone needs to know. pastsimperfect.substack.com/p/pasts-impe...

Finishing reading _The Slaves of the Churches: A History_ by Mary E. Sommar and it is simply staggering how many enslaved persons were owned by early churches well into the medieval period. I just, seeing it all laid out is a lot. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Inscribed rules of the Library of Pantaenus, Athens: βυβλίον οὐκ ἐξε- νεχθήσεται, ἐπεὶ ὠμόσαμεν· ἀνυγή- σεται ἀπὸ ὥρας πρώ- της μέχρι ἕκτης. “No book shall be taken out, since we've sworn it. It will be open from the 1st hr until the sixth [=dawn to midday]” sarahemilybond.com/2016/02/26/c... 📑

We don’t even actually have a VHS player, but I saw this videotape out for free in the department office and just decided to it was time for a Natalie Zemon Davis shrine in my office. ❤️

“I need to get beach body ready” That beach body 🦀 🐬:

Watching academics get into public writing like 🥹🥹🥹

Steve Bannon goes to jail tomorrow 👏 but let’s not forget his bananas scheme to create a gladiator school called “Academy for the Judeo-Christian West” (Despite the fact the Christian emperor Honorius banned them in 404 CE!) is still happening in a … former monastery. www.politico.eu/article/stev...

A few of the ancient Egyptian paintbrushes 🖌️ made of palm fibers now at the British Museum (no date given). www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o... Others were made of sea rushes (Juncus maritimus).

Reply to

Meira Kensky

Oceanus shall be our king.

I may now be obsessed with the fact that freshwater crabs 🦀 (Potamon fluviatile) proliferated in late Roman sewers & now archaeologists & conservationists are fighting to save these little guys as an indigenous species, who live in places like Trajan’s Forum. www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/riv...

I love this painted model of a woman baking bread 🥖 from Ancient Egypt (Giza, 2420-2323 BCE, Limestone & pigment) because I too daydream about eating carbs when I am making them (pics are mine, Boston MFA).