After two decades, the Grand Egyptian Museum will open this summer near the Giza’s pyramids. The museum will span over 120 acres and showcase over 100,000 artifacts, including Tutankhamun’s treasures. It will dwarf the Louvre, the MET, and British Museum in size.
Mass Grave of 150 Roman Soldiers Found Under Vienna Sports Field
https://gizmodo.com/mass-grave-of-150-roman-soldiers-found-under-vienna-sports-field-2000584946
I visited Robert Haus, a national neon treasure two days ago in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
I have known him online for years, and he moved from Alaska so now he is slightly easier to visit.
Robert has probably the best collection of historic neon artifacts, especially when it comes to old bending equipment, transformers, catalogs, and other difficult to find oddities. "Neon Archaeology" is his thing and his blog catalogs his journeys,
https://www.novioljourneys.com/
His setups were impressive- he has very comprehensive radio and electrical knowledge around neon bombarding systems. FOCI is lucky to have him around. I gave him some hand pulled tubing to play with in exchange for some coffee beans he roasted and some really old rare electrodes. It was so nice to meet him and his wife.
Tuesday May 20
18:30 London time
ZOOM only with #VivekVenkataraman
'The Meaning and Dividends of Man the Hunter'
Vivek writes: 'The phrase Man the Hunter is associated with sexist theories of human evolution, but wildly disparate use of the phrase has led to unnecessary scientific disagreement and popular misunderstanding. In this talk, which follows a recently posted collaborative paper with other hunter-gatherer scholars, I ask: what does Man the Hunter mean? I distinguish three historical meanings of Man the Hunter; first, the 1966 conference; second, popularized sexist theories of human origins; and third, the human behavioral ecology of hunter-gatherers. I then trace the historical development of these three meanings of Man the Hunter, situating their origins in evolutionary biology, ethnology, feminist studies, ethology, genetics, and other disciplines. This allows us to ask: how are these meanings connected intellectually? After presenting a surprising answer to this question, I conclude by offering suggestions for improving scientific and popular discourse regarding Man the Hunter.'
Vivek is a biological anthropologist who employs evolutionary approaches to the study of foraging behavior, energetics, and health. He earned his PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College and conducted postdoctoral work at Harvard University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Calgary. His present research focuses in Malaysia, where he is one of the Principal Investigators of the Orang Asli Health and Lifeways Project (OA HeLP), which studies the rise of chronic non-infectious diseases over time due to rapidly changing environments. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Hunter Gatherer Research.
Please join on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
A walk down memory lane: My mum found a box with all sorts of things from my childhood, including a #Roman fort I built with toothpicks when I was ca 7 years old - clearly inspired by Asterix. It now resembles a fort that has been overrun by Gauls.... Fond memories of the beginning of my career 
Stone tools found in East Asia challenge long-held beliefs about ancient humans’ technology. A discovery in China reveals that people were innovating 60,000 years ago, much like in Europe and the Middle East.
#archaeology https://theconversation.com/stone-tool-discovery-in-china-shows-people-in-east-asia-were-innovating-during-the-middle-paleolithic-like-in-europe-and-middle-east-252868
We all need a timeline cleanse right now: A charming #Greek terracotta aryballos - a vessel used to hold oil - in the shape of a hedgehog 
.
6th century BC.
On display at Antikensammlung München.
me
The Kiel Conference #KielScales25 at @kieluni ended last Friday with an appeal #fordemocracy and #academicfreedom: https://www.uni-kiel.de/en/cluster-roots/details/news/2025-04-04-kiel-conference Afterwards, many participants took the opportunity to go on excursions, for example to the CAU's Medical History Collection or the Albersdorf Archaeological-Ecological Centre
#Archaeology #paleoecology #pastsocieties
The unique Trichtingen torc consists of an iron core with a silver mantel. It’s too large and too heavy for human use (6.7kg), it was rather worn by a wooden cult image.
Dating 2nd/1st c. BC.
On display at Landesmuseum Württemberg
me
3-year-old discovers 3,800-year-old treasure during a family outing in Israel.
From NBC News: "Experts identified the find as a Canaanite seal or scarab."
Mastodon! I'm delivering a talk to a couple of grade 9 classes in a month on the use of space (mainly satellites, but probes to other planets, comets, etc., will be included).
How does your work benefit from satellites?
I'm thinking of a direct use of the data, as opposed to stuff like “internet access” or “my bank relies on satellites to transfer my grant money from one account to another”
Anecdotes, rants, personal stories are all fair game 
(To the inevitable suggestion that I just Google this, yes, I can, and have, but I want the human element - I want to be able to say "someone I ‘know’ uses satellites for their job, and this is what they like about the tech”)
Hashtag suggestions are welcome.
(Also - question: Does Mastodon discriminate hashtags with different capitalization? Are #Astronomy and #astronomy functionally different? We *really* need some kind of ISO standard 
)
#Archaeology #Physics #SolarActivity #Geology #SevereWeather #Climate #ClimateChange
#Satellite #Satellites #Agriculture #oceanography
I've never been much of a Stone Age scholar, so a few years back I gave away all the books I had that dealt with the time before 2400 cal BC. This does not make me a narrowly specialised archaeologist. On the contrary, I have jumped wildly around the period 1700 BC to AD 1900. But my strongest period is the one from the arrival of the Huns in Europe to the arrival of monks in Sweden.
Organised my archaeology library. Two shelf cases are Iron Age and periodical suites, one case is Bronze Age, historical archaeology and multiperiod / methodology.
Fascinating world of ancient #glass: A #Roman glass model of a #boat, dating 2nd c. AD. It was found in St. Aldegund in a 4th-century woman's grave. Six of such boats are known. We don't know their function: Were they used as women's urinals, as components of water clocks and sundials, as drinking cups?
Further information on glass boats:
https://web.archive.org/web/20221013071226/https://www.cmog.org/article/roman-glass-boats?s=09
Photo: GDKE Rheinland-Pfalz
Two near lifesize sculptures found during excavations of Pompeii tomb - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/01/two-near-lifesize-sculptures-found-during-excavations-of-pompeii-tomb amazing what is still being found #archaeology
No live European Association of Archaeologists conference in #Belgrade this year. Only online.
"The reason for this hard decision is the uncertainty surrounding the development of the current political situation in Serbia. The authorities' recent response to peaceful student and citizen protests compromised the autonomy of universities and increased the pressure upon both teachers and students."
I bring you the most important paper ever contributed to the especially crackpot-prone field of Minoan studies. A paper that will defeat Reviewer 2 once and for all. A paper that I definitely didn't write based on ideas I had while direly ill with a flu.
academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/128559713/The_Utterly_Unhinged_Elamo_Minoan_Hypothesis_April_Fools_
clean direct pdf: https://0xabad1dea.github.io/bin/Utterly-Unhinged-Elamo-Minoan-Hypothesis.pdf
3,000-year-old necklace made of sea snail shells, found in Thun, Switzerland.. The snail beads, which are from the Mediterranean region, are one of the many pieces of evidence of long-distance Bronze Age networks.
Dating 1,800 BC.
me
Ukrainian Soldiers Unearth Ancient Greek Burial
https://archaeology.org/news/2025/03/31/ukrainian-soldiers-unearth-ancient-greek-burial/
Michael Porter 
