Jonathan Last

As Halloween approaches, and the spirits come closer, will anyone make contact with the "original architect of Stonehenge", last heard chatting to a Leicestershire tailor (as reported this weekend in 1924)? This is "not the present Stonehenge, you are to understand, but the one before—in 10400 BC"…

“1♣️ is quite sufficient, thank you”

The role of the bicycle in widening access to Stonehenge has long been forgotten but this early trip by penny-farthing from near Swindon was newsworthy 150 years ago, to the extent of reporting the full itinerary and the "exceedingly creditable" time, considering the rider "had no previous training"

“My main influences are rock and roll, and architecture, and blackbirds” - John Foxx talks about his life with pianos on Radio 3!

Thomas Browne was born #OTD in 1605: I'm lucky to have one of the 500 copies of 'Urn Burial' printed by the Chiswick Press in 1893, with an introduction by John Evans, who notes some of the archaeological interest in Browne's great meditation on death & burial, as prompted by urns found in Norfolk 🧵

Recumbent figure, Stanton Drew #StandingStoneSunday

"Landscape history involves history, archaeology & ecology. Few studies pay equal attention to all three. Too often historians try to write the history of a landscape without doing any fieldwork… Conversely, ecologists fail to understand or evaluate historical data…"—Oliver Rackham (b. 17 Oct 1939)

A shame that the Ordnance Survey, of all people, are uncritically promoting the idea that the Ridgeway was a coherent prehistoric routeway (on instagram)

A shame that the Ordnance Survey, of all people, are uncritically promoting the idea that the Ridgeway was a coherent prehistoric routeway (on instagram)

The excavation of Woodhenge in 1926 led to speculation that Stonehenge might have had a roof, as explained in the Wiltshire Gazette #OTD 100 years ago

Less heritage, more prisons if the Tories get back in

An appropriate turn of phrase considering the debunking of the Shanidar 'flower burial' a few years ago...

Glasgow Necropolis in black and white for #TombTuesday

Stanton Drew skyscape #StandingStoneSunday

Sandwiched between a 'fine trout' and the North Wraxall bus, perhaps the first press reference to the name of Stonehenge's timber neighbour #OTD 100 years ago: "where—as an aerial photograph has revealed—once stood a many-circled 'temple' of wood…to which the name 'Woodhenge' seems likely to cling"

Some #woodcut fun from ‘Dialogus Creaturarum’, an early printed book in Clare College library: “a wolf cajoles an ass into a feat of carpentry whose logical conclusion of bringing the ass to earth, an easy prey, was distressingly marred by the latter's crushing of the plotter in its asinine descent”

Another child's tombstone from Roman Antibes for #TombTuesday. The name of the 5-year-old isn't on the fragment but it records their mother (Frontina) and that the tomb is intended for the parents too. The axe symbol may allude to the tomb's construction while the ivy leaf is uncannily heart-shaped…

For #FlintFriday, an anonymous poem about an arrowhead , published in the Kirkintilloch Herald 100 years ago this week. I don't usually care for verse written in archaic language (even for 1926) but I like the conceit at the end that in some post-apocalyptic future these things might be used again…

More from the Antibes archaeological museum, this time a charming little Cupid from the wall of a Roman townhouse for #FrescoFriday

A rather fine panelled wooden door at the 17th-century Abbot's Hospital, Guildford #AdoorableThursday

Do oppida qualify for #HillfortsWednesday...?

For #TombTuesday here's the Roman gravestone of a 12-year-old boy named Septentrionis ('northerner'), presumably a slave, who had danced well for two days in the theatre at Antibes (biduo saltavit et placuit). The original is in the local museum and there's a reproduction on a wall in the town.

Amazing 17th-century Flemish windows, depicting the story of Jacob, in the chapel of Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford. Whoever made them was clearly a dog person as they have scattered several little pups through the scenes 🐕 #StainedGlassSunday

What exactly is the need or problem that all these data centres, in Scotland or elsewhere, are designed to address?

Amazing 17th-century Flemish windows, depicting the story of Jacob, in the chapel of Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford. Whoever made them was clearly a dog person as they have scattered several little pups through the scenes 🐕 #StainedGlassSunday