My private email was hacked on new year's eve. "They" sent out emails in my name to everyone I had had contact with from there, asking them for a "favor" and directing them to a different email address that they had set up on a different provider. Quite clever really - as I said to one of my students, "half as clever as a virus," and that's high praise these days!

But really it was just another version of the old scam that has been around for decades, and, as far as I know, nobody fell for it. So, not really so clever after all.

For a while it was inconvenient, and it took me a few hours on new year's day to regain control of all my email functions. But the nice side effect was that I've been getting concerned emails from old friends, some of whom I haven't talked to for ages - lots of fond memories for a new year.

Anyway, I'm certain that none of this had anything to do with BCN. I don't use that email for this site, and I think I know the moment I opened the door to the hack. It was while I was leaving some feedback for an internet purchase. By accident, I opened the wrong link; I sensed there was something wrong with it and closed it again, but by then it was too late.

But hey, this is BCN, so I'm going to leave a photo of a small amulet I've been reacquainting myself with today. It's a small amulet/bell that was found twenty years or so ago near the Bronze Age site of Ban Chiang in Northeastern Thailand. It could be from there, but I think it may be from the Dong Son culture in northern Vietnam. It's bronze, very fragile, 23 mm high, with a loop at the back, in the form of a head that is half human and half fish or insect. It has hands or feelers or tendrils joined beneath the chin, and it expresses - for me - a truly intense feeling of vulnerability and anxiety. It's unique; nothing even slightly similar has ever been found. And maybe it resonates with what a lot of us are feeling right now.

Best wishes to all for a safe year.

Will

PS I'm a cultural historian, not an archaeologist, though I sometimes work with friends who are.