An Introduction: Letters from the History Nook

Hello, and welcome, dear reader, to my quiet and cosy corner of the internet.

I’m Signa: historian, museum goblin, volunteer archivist, D&D enthusiast, and curator of a digital museum called The History Nook. This newsletter is a companion to that space—a little more personal, and a lot more chaotic.

In this letter series, you can expect:

• Behind-the-scenes thoughts from my blog posts

• Research musings from my work and studies in Classics

• Tiny discoveries, curiosities, and historical chaos

• Occasional dispatches from Index the purely fictional, Interdimensional Cat, who naps on the job but insists on being paid in admiration

• And an exploration into how I am using AI in my work

Think of this as a weekly letter from my desk to yours. Some weeks it’ll be soft and reflective, other times I may be excited about a suspicious Roman cure for headaches or an object I found buried in museum storage. Sometimes I’ll ramble about obscure Latin translations. Sometimes I’ll just tell you what I’ve been reading.

If the blog is my grand gallery, this is the candlelit side room with tea, a window seat and an archive cat. You are so welcome here.

This week in the History Nook

I’ve been filling in the shelves of my digital cabinet of curiosities. This project has been a long while in the making, and I’m so excited to working on it finally. Here you’ll find images of the curiosities I have in my personal collection. From bones to shiny crystals, fossils, to delightful antiques, there is likely something to intrigue everyone. This weeks additions were my selection of taxidermied beetle specimens. I am visually impaired, and sometimes identifying objects can be difficult, especially when those objects are tiny insects. I took photos of them and asked Leo (ChatGPT) to help me identify them. Being able to use AI in this way has made doing things like this a lot more accessible. You can view my Cabinet of Curiosities by clicking the link below.

Cabinet of Curiosities

This Week in my Commonplace Book

I started a new commonplace book this week. My first addition? Some of my favourite epigrams by Martial. I adore classical Latin satire, and you can look forward to a blog post featuring some of my favourite epigrams in the future. My copy has parallel Latin text which makes me a very happy little Latin nerd, so maybe I’ll try to write my own translations one day.

This Week in my Life

This past week has been a bit of a tired one, two long D&D sessions took up a large portion of my weekend. I’ve also been doing a lot of mundane tasks. Rearranging my bedroom furniture, setting up my printer, and setting up a projector for movie nights with my housemate.

Until next time—

— Signa