Once, a little boy in Novogrod doodled on birch bark. Over 700 years later we can see his artwork miraculously preserved -- and if you're a parent, you might have something similar up on your fridge!

The boy's name was Onfim, and he dreamed of being a knight (and a monster too). Here's some more of Onfim's drawings, including knights on horseback and someone yelling (?) at Onfim (top left).

In another of Onfim's drawings of a knight, he captioned it with his own name. Could these knights be Onfim and his friends having adventures?

Here's another highlight from our 50-year history: building the first authentic Roman villa in Britain for 1600 years!*

Since, we've added two mosaics, tested the hypocaust, applied frescoes, and introduced Romano-British living to over half a million visitors and schoolkids! *At least, that's what the Discovery Channel said in their documentary following the build 😉 That was back when making our own documentaries on Butser experiments wasn't even a twinkle in our eyes!

Celebrating our 50th anniversary and looking back at where it all began...

Here's our first director, Peter Reynolds -- he's the one on the right. He helped create Butser, develop experimental archaeology as a discipline, and shape our understanding of the past! If you see an illustration of an Iron Age settlement, odds are it's based on the experiments Peter did at Butser. Before his work, it was assumed roundhouses had a hole in the roof to ventilate smoke -- Peter proved that smoke can ventilate straight through the thatch instead!

Our Saxon garden is coming into bloom! All these plants were used for cooking and healing in the early Medieval period. Some of the best-named include Black Mustard, Cow Parsley, Lady's Bedstraw, Motherwort, Feverfew, & Toadflax 🍃 This one is Borage! The Saxons, like the Romans, understood that this plant gives you courage -- so they'd drink ale or tea infused with Borage before battle.

The leaves have anti-inflammatory properties, and taste fresh like a cucumber. The flowers are sweet and sugary!

We're officially opening our new Saxon hall! And it's gorgeous! Gosh this was such an enormous project, and it's so lovely to be able to celebrate everyone involved -- we're especially grateful to Darren our treewright and Lyle the master thatcher, but this building has had so many people's love and work poured into it.

So, how did our structures fare against #StormEunice? And what can we learn from that?

Starting in the Stone Age... 🧵 The big Horton house looks almost untouched, apart from a few stray bits of thatch. A Stone Age community living in a house like this may actually have been less disrupted by a big storm than many modern families dealing with power cuts were yesterday! #StormEunice