Simon Bralee
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simonbralee.com
Simon Bralee
@simonbralee.com
Advocate for arts and humanities. I believe in the importance of sharing the stories of research to create impact outside of universities. Comms professional and history postgrad researching Anubis in the Roman World. 🏛️🐍
He/him
12 powerful, challenging, painful and joyous artworks responding to UCL’s history of eugenics at the university’s Stratford site, including Dog Whistle, a video installation by Veronica McKenzie partly inspired by Galton’s trip to Egypt. I recommend a visit
#Egyptology www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/pub...
November 25, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Bronze figurine of the goddess Venus from St Albans, holding an apple to entice Paris. Likely from a Roman period domestic shrine in the town. Verulamium Museum 🏺 #AncientBluesky
November 18, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Two jackals on a stele, dedicated to the cult of the Emperor Nero, showing a combination of Egyptian iconography and a Greek inscription. From Asyut (Greek - Lycopolis, Wolf city), home to a major temple dedicated to Wepwawet, a canine god. 🏺 #Egyptology #AncientBluesky
November 15, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Osiris Ptah Sokar statuette giving Monday morning vibes (Made in Ancient Egypt, Fitzwilliam)
🏺 #Egyptology #AncientBluesky
November 10, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Pilgrim badge of St Leonard, looking like a medieval yoda

🏛️ Kings Chapel Museum, Cambridge
November 5, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Londoners have always been grumpy as can been proved by this fossil of brychaetus muelleri found in London Clay (Island of Sheppey, so technically not London). They were large fish with armour-covered bodies and sharp teeth, 50-55 million years ago.
🏛️Sedgwick Museum.
November 4, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Classical bust (of Antoninus Pius?) covered in shells in the window of Sinai & Sons, Kensington Church Street 🏺 #AncientBluesky
November 3, 2025 at 9:25 PM
So we enter November, aka Anubis month. This image from a calendar mosaic from Thysdrus (El-Jem, Tunisia) depicts a festival commemorating the death of Osiris, which was celebrated all over the Roman Empire (Sousse Archaeological Museum, © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons) 🏺 #AncientBluesky
November 1, 2025 at 8:39 AM
A replica of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica in his London home, now a museum. He said this musical instrument was the invention that gave him the most joy. It was quite the hit in Europe: Mozart composed for it, and Beethoven, Donizetti and Saint-Saëns all used it in pieces.
October 31, 2025 at 4:05 PM
A friend sent me this: NYT Connections trying to build bridges after Victoria Coren-Mitchell insulted it last week. #OnlyConnect
October 27, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Enjoying a long train journey with the wonderfully erudite Silence of the Gods. For me, it has a general interest covering a topic that has long intrigued me (the unchristian/pre-Christian bits of Europe) but also provides reflections that can be applied to other periods (Late Antiquity). Recommend.
October 24, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Hodakova’s Spoon Dress in the Barbican’s fantastic Dirty Looks exhibition, recalling the far-famed Diana of Ephesus, here, I think, we see once again the shadow of the goddess Isis, she who would ladle out benefices and blessings.
October 18, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Pithos fragments restored again from ruin. Ashmolean, Crete (no provenance), 700-600 BCE. 🏺 #AncientBluesky
October 16, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Stepping out into the weekend

Terracotta figurine of a goddess riding on a lion from Roman Cologne #AncientBluesky
October 10, 2025 at 6:26 PM
A statue of a god with a much more famous wife, once owned by a man with a much more famous wife.

Marble bust of Serapis, 1st - 2nd century CE, formerly in the collection of William Hamilton, husband of Emma.

📷 Visions of Ancient Egypt exhibition, Sainsbury Centre, 2022 #AncientBluesky #Egyptology
October 5, 2025 at 2:58 PM
A very excited friend sent me this photo of the ‘From Toga to Robe’ catalogue. Last year’s exhibition in Slovenia featured the official dress of supreme court judges from 14 courts in the EU. An intriguing piece of classical reception. Has anyone else read it yet? #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky
October 1, 2025 at 3:27 PM
A temptress in the desert, but be careful. Check out those feet! The Temptation of St Antony by Master Girard (c.1470-1500) on display in Sam Fogg Gallery, London. #LateAntiquityBluesky
September 30, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Perfect little Roman period silver statuette of the Egyptian god Harpocrates with a tiny dog (or pard), hawk and tortoise, important animals possibly representing his powers over death. Found near London Bridge. 🏺 #AncientBluesky #Egyptology
September 29, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Relief from Corinium Museum depicting a horned god holding two friendly snakes in each hand, identified as the Celtic god Cernunnos. Possibly related to fertility or just Iron Age / Roman British rock n roll
🏺 #AncientBluesky
September 28, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Japanese figurine (Japan House, London) and ancient Egyptian figurine (Louvre).
September 23, 2025 at 7:22 PM
No one makes a milk jug look quite as muddy and teeming with squirmy, slimy creatures as the Martin Brothers. (Currently on display in the Gallery of Everything.)
September 21, 2025 at 12:03 PM
One of the two lions of Pharaoh Nectanebo I (360-343 BCE), taken from the Nile delta to Rome in antiquity. They became an important inspiration for church art in medieval Rome. #Egyptology
September 16, 2025 at 7:51 PM
A bronze figurine of Sobek-Kronos from Roman period Egypt, now held in the Louvre. The mighty crocodile god has been reimagined as a bearded man with a tiny crocodile on his arm.
🏺 #Egyptology #AncientBluesky
September 12, 2025 at 8:00 PM
A terracotta from Roman Syria showing two goddesses on a camel. Held by the Louvre (AO6619) 🏺 #AncientBluesky
September 4, 2025 at 8:40 PM
The Egyptian House in Strasbourg, an art nouveau masterpiece designed by Franz Scheyder with painted decorations by Adolf Zilly. The balconies are designed in a bat shape. Gorgeous. #Egyptology
August 25, 2025 at 1:15 PM