Matt Bunker
medicusmatt.bsky.social
Matt Bunker
@medicusmatt.bsky.social
A gentleman antiquarian much in need of a patron.
The best thing about having an artefact in your hands is being able to turn it around & look at it from all angles.
This view of the base of the Cricklade pommel cap allows us to see that the gold filigree decoration was applied to a thin gold outer sheath that covered the copper alloy cap beneath.
October 12, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Gig night last night at the Jam Jar in Bristol with the mighty @joquailcello.bsky.social
As beautiful and powerful in this tiny space as she is in huge concert halls.

Support from local act "Dead Space Chamber Music".
September 18, 2025 at 10:19 AM
There's been a lot of coverage of the Bromeswell bucket over the last couple of days but this is THE best headline by a country mile (from The Sun.. obviously)

"Infamous ‘Bucket of Death’ artefact was stuffed with remains of ‘dead VIP’ in bombshell Anglo Saxon Sutton Hoo discovery"!

😂
May 21, 2025 at 6:30 PM
March 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
An open access paper on the "Scremby Chalice", an intact Roman enameled copper alloy cup dating to the 3rd century found in a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon grave at Scremby, Lincolnshire.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
From Roman Table to Anglo-Saxon Grave: An Archaeological Biography of the Scremby Cup | European Journal of Archaeology | Cambridge Core
From Roman Table to Anglo-Saxon Grave: An Archaeological Biography of the Scremby Cup - Volume 27 Issue 4
www.cambridge.org
December 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM
Lovely buckle from Grave 115, Gieising, Southern Munich. Iron buckle with silver inlay and a silver buckle plate with niello inlay. 7th century.
December 2, 2024 at 5:14 PM
Seems appropriate.
Congratulations to Cory Doctorow...who will never sign up for Bluesky because he fears (quite rightly) the potential for enshittification that is inherent in all Social Media platforms.

www.thesenior.com.au/story/883076...
'Enshittification' selected as word of the year
The Macquarie Dictionary has chosen "enshittification" - a slang term referring to the deterioration of products and services...
www.thesenior.com.au
November 26, 2024 at 6:27 PM
People are just bloody awful.
Ghastly, miserable, entitled meat-sacks.

world.time.com/2013/10/02/t...
The World’s Most Expensive Coffee Is a Cruel Cynical Scam | TIME.com
For the most part, civet coffee is not harvested in the wild in limited quantities but mass produced by animals kept in appalling conditions — it's high time we stopped drinking it
world.time.com
November 23, 2024 at 7:00 PM
Garter strap ends, silver, from a female tomb (#49) at the Basilica of St Denis. Late 6th century (one is genuine, the other a repro). They seemingly depict Heiðrún, the goat that eats the foliage of the tree Lædaðr & produces mead for the einherjar & Veðrfölnir the hawk that sits in the tree.
November 18, 2024 at 1:36 PM
A late 6th century buckle of silver with a runic inscription, found in a male weapon burial at Pforzen, Bavaria.
Simmons translates the inscription as "Aigil and Alrun fought the entire war-band" which reflects the scene on the Franks casket in which we see Ægil and his wife under siege.
November 17, 2024 at 5:33 PM