Things going on in the Blogosphere.

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer have put together an issue of the New Statesman, and there were, let's say, "slight difficulties" concerning the cover. If you are at all interested, go read the piece on Neil's blog, it's worth it for the comic alone.

If you read German, Rainer Schreg has posted a very good reply to the concern that archaeologists (and the feuilleton press) are talking about the loss of monuments and cultural history that is going on in Syria and the Iraq. If you do not read German, here's the TG;CR (Too German, Cannot Read) short version:

If we are writing about the loss of monuments, it does not mean we consider stones as more important than people. We are concerned about the cruelty to people, but destroying their cultural heritage is part of destroying people and their identity. The effects of this will be felt long after the civil war, when new generations will ask questions about their own history - those questions will not be answered anymore with the lack of cultural heritage.
Loss of cultural heritage has been going on for many decades, all over the world, but it's only with the war and terror in Iraq and Syria that it has hit the press in force. However, if not in connection with these transgressions, when should we discuss this loss of our history? When the world is a beautiful, perfect place that has forgotten what war is like? If we wait until then, it could be too late. Let us stop discussing the merit of stones versus the merit of people and rather start asking why the rest of the world is just sitting there, doing nothing.

Over at archaeosoup, there's a video of Gary Bankhead (who recently stayed here to chat textiles and do some research) explaining about his work in Durham and the cloth seals he is researching.

And on a final note, going on in the Blogosphere in the near future: Gillian and I are planning a blog tour to celebrate the launch of the Beast (soon! very soon!) so if you happen to know of any blog who would be interested... let us know. (Gillian is especially looking for someone who wants to know how she knows so much about Old French insults, and I agree with her that it would be fun to tell about the issues of working together when you are ten thousand miles apart.)