The First Emperor exhibition

Or how to make a few warriors go a long way!

Last Saturday I travelled to London to see the exhibition on the First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi and the terracotta warriors that form part of his burial complex. The exhibition was interesting for a number of reasons, not least because I had seen the terracotta warriors in Berlin and I was viewing it with my former colleagues from the finds room of the CAU.

Gender and diet in the middle ages

Did gender have any appreciable effect on diet and the way food was prepared and consumed in the middle ages? This was the question posed by the ‘Diet Group’, which meets twice a year at Somerville College, Oxford and at which I was asked to give a paper yesterday.

Textile Conservation Centre under threat

The renowned Textile Conservation Centre at the Winchester School of Art is under threat of closure. Originally located at Hampton Court, the centre is important internationally as a leading body into research into historic textiles; it also provides training for potential conservators. This would be a huge loss were it to close. Please sign the petition to keep it open.

The School of Art is part of the University of Southampton. This university has found the money to rebuild the Mountbatten building, revise its logo and send the vice-chancellor on global temperature increasing flights on private jets across the Atlantic. Whereas the former is necessary to the continued success of the university, the other two certainly aren’t. The proposed closure of the centre seems to be one of many closures and job cuts happening in other academic areas of the university, which is potentially very worrying, especially for a university that prides itself on being part of the Russel Group and in the top 10 research universities in the country.

Yes, I am angry, very angry.

History and fiction

‘Why do you study the middle ages?’; ‘What’s so special about the Normans?’; ‘Why are you an historian?’. These are all questions I get asked on a regular basis, alongside enquiries like ‘History is so boring: what on earth got you into it?’. Questions like this are at the heart of an entry in the Guardian’s book blog.