A marvellous work and a wonder - I actually get a good review in The Guardian! (And from the great Terry Eagleton, no less...) #Dominion theguardian.com/books/2019/nov…

Today is the vigil of St Cecilia, who is buried in Sta Cecilia in Trastevere. I love its c820s Parousia apse, c1290s Last Judgement by Cavallini, & Maderno’s c1500 marble sculpture of the martyr, bound for her burial- a quiet but haunting Baroque masterpiece #twitterstorians #otd

Oi oi!

Gladiator is a great film, but there needs to be a shout-out for HBO's Rome, which was a great #Roman screen-fest. I went through a phase of getting at least 1 screen-shot from the series into every presentation or lecture I gave. Has dropped to about 25% now, sadly.

Sam loves it. Do you?

Huzzzar for Trains!

This is wonderful. It always delights me that Herodotus cheerily reported tales of giant gold-digging ants, but couldn’t quite bring himself to believe in the existence of Britain.

Aristo and Lucy Grig provide a rousing opening to the conference.

Prof. Eberhard Sauer (Uni of Edinburgh) opens with 'From the High Caucasus to the steppes of Eurasia: Frontiers in the Late Antique and Early Medieval World'

.Tonicha Upham's (Aarhus University) "Dont all Rus' burn their women?" Meditating the Rus' conversion to Christianity in Arabic geographical accounts" is up next.

Kyle Brunner ( New York) "Get off My Lawn! Dispute and proposizione of Physical Boundaries in Syriac during Early Islam"

.@FraserReed (Uni of Edinburgh) Urban Continuity in the late antique Thracia : An Archaeological Perspective of the 6th and early Centuries in Southern Europe.

.@BlankeLouise opens the day's second panel with (Re) constructing Jerash: History, historiography and the making of the ancient city.#edilaibs19

Elodie Powell (Indy) Inertia of the lived experience: touch, wear and the physical of the Middle Byzantine faith.

Mathilde Sauquet (University of Oxford) Islamic Influences in Norman - Sicilian after Roger II: The decoration of a precious heritage or a Norman cultural evolution?

.@cmroughan (New York) An astronomical curriculum between Byzantine and Islamic worlds

.@aslishahqurbani closes the final panel with Continuity of Sunni Maliki knowledge transmission under the Shi I Fatimid caliphate in Ifriqiya (909-974). Includes some chemistry...

Our keynote speaker tonight is Dame Averil Cameron, who discusses the concept of a Byzantine commonwealth.

Todays morning panel was excellent. Led by Yannis Stouraitis, we heard a range of papers given by Ewan Short, Maggie Freeman and George Robert Luff .