Oliver Clarke
@astroclassicist.bsky.social
Curatorial Assistant, Greek Coins, Ashmolean Museum. Previously, DPhil at New College, Oxford on Hellenistic Cities and Kings in Asia Minor. Quizzer, rower, lapsed Brummie.
The journal article argues that there is actually a reference to it in a monastic source: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
The Cerne Giant in Its Early Medieval Context | Speculum: Vol 99, No 1
Abstract The recent dating of the Cerne Abbas Giant came as a surprise. This huge, naked figure was cut into a Dorset hillside not, as many have supposed, in prehistory, nor in the early modern period...
www.journals.uchicago.edu
December 3, 2025 at 6:10 PM
The journal article argues that there is actually a reference to it in a monastic source: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
This is why the Cerne Abbqs giant is so weird - it seems to be Anglo-Saxon! www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/cern...
www.history.ox.ac.uk
December 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM
This is why the Cerne Abbqs giant is so weird - it seems to be Anglo-Saxon! www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/cern...
Must tell you in more detail at some point about the multiple cases I know of where Oxford classicists regularly pour libations for the dead
December 3, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Must tell you in more detail at some point about the multiple cases I know of where Oxford classicists regularly pour libations for the dead
"da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo" - British budgets, 2010 - ???
December 1, 2025 at 12:16 PM
"da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo" - British budgets, 2010 - ???
Lousy Soctobermber Weather
November 30, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Lousy Soctobermber Weather
November 30, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Yeah, the first years I've taught so far have been incredibly engaged, and getting through much more reading than the cohorts who got wrecked by lockdowns when they were to 16-18
November 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Yeah, the first years I've taught so far have been incredibly engaged, and getting through much more reading than the cohorts who got wrecked by lockdowns when they were to 16-18
Literally do not understand why, if you had that kind of money, you don't just buy something like this and live happily ever after, www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1... (the Effective Altruists' great white elephant)
Check out this 27 bedroom detached house for sale on Rightmove
27 bedroom detached house for sale in Wytham, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX2 for £5,950,000. Marketed by Savills, Summertown
www.rightmove.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Literally do not understand why, if you had that kind of money, you don't just buy something like this and live happily ever after, www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1... (the Effective Altruists' great white elephant)
Some very lovely places in Park Town with enormous price tags (and also some lovely but tiny places in Jericho with price tags which would make their inhabitants 50 years ago faint)
November 27, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Some very lovely places in Park Town with enormous price tags (and also some lovely but tiny places in Jericho with price tags which would make their inhabitants 50 years ago faint)
My current game is looking at the places in Oxford I definitely cannot afford and working out which senior academics they belong to from the decor and/or books that are visible.
November 27, 2025 at 7:25 PM
My current game is looking at the places in Oxford I definitely cannot afford and working out which senior academics they belong to from the decor and/or books that are visible.
RotS is an utterly flawed mess of a film, but I will one day sit down to watch it again in a moment of weakness.
I will rewatch AotC in the same spirit that I watch the Holiday Special.
I intend to never think of RoS, except for the phrases "Jar of Snokes" and "vital plot revealed in Fortnite"
I will rewatch AotC in the same spirit that I watch the Holiday Special.
I intend to never think of RoS, except for the phrases "Jar of Snokes" and "vital plot revealed in Fortnite"
November 24, 2025 at 8:16 PM
RotS is an utterly flawed mess of a film, but I will one day sit down to watch it again in a moment of weakness.
I will rewatch AotC in the same spirit that I watch the Holiday Special.
I intend to never think of RoS, except for the phrases "Jar of Snokes" and "vital plot revealed in Fortnite"
I will rewatch AotC in the same spirit that I watch the Holiday Special.
I intend to never think of RoS, except for the phrases "Jar of Snokes" and "vital plot revealed in Fortnite"
Have wondered at what point in the process he and others realised 'if we can just get everyone to Scarif in a vaguely plausible way in the first half, we know we can knit the heist and battle together well enough that people will forget the "vaguely"'
November 22, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Have wondered at what point in the process he and others realised 'if we can just get everyone to Scarif in a vaguely plausible way in the first half, we know we can knit the heist and battle together well enough that people will forget the "vaguely"'
It's also, in my experience, an online phenomenon - everyone of a certain age I talk about what it has been like for my generation in person has enormous sympathy/can barely believe what it's like now
November 13, 2025 at 4:26 PM
It's also, in my experience, an online phenomenon - everyone of a certain age I talk about what it has been like for my generation in person has enormous sympathy/can barely believe what it's like now
I had gone several months without thinking about the Holiday Special, damn you
November 8, 2025 at 5:18 PM
I had gone several months without thinking about the Holiday Special, damn you
It doesn't matter! Write a good story and people will enjoy and remember it! Write a bad one and no one will! (Funnily enough, this process is happening with Tolkien's works where the books and the original trilogy are fully embedded, while neither the Hobbit trilogy nor Amazon's show are sticking)
October 21, 2025 at 12:38 PM
It doesn't matter! Write a good story and people will enjoy and remember it! Write a bad one and no one will! (Funnily enough, this process is happening with Tolkien's works where the books and the original trilogy are fully embedded, while neither the Hobbit trilogy nor Amazon's show are sticking)
I want these people to imagine that they're saying "But your story doesn't align perfectly with the canon of Arthurian legend" to any of the last c.800 years of writing in that world
October 21, 2025 at 12:35 PM
I want these people to imagine that they're saying "But your story doesn't align perfectly with the canon of Arthurian legend" to any of the last c.800 years of writing in that world
And hence why it is no.1 on my recommendations for anyone going to the Peloponnese with a car
October 19, 2025 at 12:46 PM
And hence why it is no.1 on my recommendations for anyone going to the Peloponnese with a car
It has everything, really - enough uncovered to give you a sense of the whole city, but still fading into farmland where you catch glimpses of the odd carved stone, the magnificent wall circuit, the landscape with Ithome high above, and all from the period which often gets ignored in Greece.
October 19, 2025 at 12:45 PM
It has everything, really - enough uncovered to give you a sense of the whole city, but still fading into farmland where you catch glimpses of the odd carved stone, the magnificent wall circuit, the landscape with Ithome high above, and all from the period which often gets ignored in Greece.
Messene is such a wonderful site, and inevitably (and happily) you share it with about 2 other people
October 19, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Messene is such a wonderful site, and inevitably (and happily) you share it with about 2 other people
Imagining an Anchorman-esque fight between the different groups
October 19, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Imagining an Anchorman-esque fight between the different groups
"And you will hear extracts of all them this evening at the event people are calling the dawn of a new cultural moment, indeed a new movement"
(These readings end after 4 events held at 5 locations, leaving a trace only in a faintly depressing instagram profile with under 200 followers and 6 posts)
(These readings end after 4 events held at 5 locations, leaving a trace only in a faintly depressing instagram profile with under 200 followers and 6 posts)
October 18, 2025 at 6:46 PM
"And you will hear extracts of all them this evening at the event people are calling the dawn of a new cultural moment, indeed a new movement"
(These readings end after 4 events held at 5 locations, leaving a trace only in a faintly depressing instagram profile with under 200 followers and 6 posts)
(These readings end after 4 events held at 5 locations, leaving a trace only in a faintly depressing instagram profile with under 200 followers and 6 posts)