Was She Or Wasn’t She?
If you’ve been hanging out in the on-line places where history and science–and, occasionally, the history of science–intersect over the last week or so,* you’ve read articles with tiles that are variations on “a female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics”–the title of the scholarly article that first appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology on September 8.
Illustration by Evald Hansen based on the original plan of the grave by excavator Hjalmar Stolpe, published in 1889
Here’s the short version: Ever since the discovery of the so-called “Birka warrior” in Sweden in the late 1880s, scholars have believed that it was the grave of a male Viking warrior, based on the fact that the body was buried with all the accoutrements of a Viking warrior.** It turns out that the bones told a different story. Earlier this year, Swedish bioarcheaologist Anna Kjellström examined the skeletal remains and found that the pelvic bones and jaw indicated that the body was that of a woman. Traditional archaeologists pushed back hard, suggesting among other things that some bones from another body had gotten jumbled up with those of the warrior who was laid to rest in such splendor. (Apparently this is not unknown in ancient graves.) No such luck. DNA tests proved that the bones all belong to one warrior and she was a woman.
Like much of the history world, I’ve been fascinated with the story since it first appeared on my Google alerts.*** But I had no intention of writing a blog post about this until last night when a new report showed up in my in-basket. The Birka burial has been considered a model example of a Viking warrior burial for more than a hundred years. Some researchers are now taking the position that since the Birka warrior doesn’t show signs of battle injuries she probably wasn’t a warrior at all.# Maybe, for instance, she was the wife of a Viking warrior, buried with all his stuff because he died overseas.## I am not an archaeologist, but this sounds to me like someone stretching really, really far to keep the girls out of the Viking clubhouse.
This is exactly the kind of stuff that has been making me nuts over the last year, reading scholars twist themselves into knots trying to prove that individual women warriors 1) didn’t exist, 2)weren’t really warriors, 3)were metaphors for [fill in the blank] resistance against [fill in the blank] or 4)the creation of male homoerotic fantasies because obviously a women with a sword (especially one wearing pants) is a penis symbol. (Hey, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.)
Archaeologist Marianne Moen from the University of Oslo brings a note of reason to the discussion, saying that is important not to hold women to a different standard than men when assessing comparable weapons placed in their grave.### In short, the Birka find “was a warrior grave until it was sexed as female. Now a lot of people would like to call it something else. That is where the danger lies here.”
I have not read either the original report or the rebuttals in detail, though you can bet I will when I get to chapter eight, which will deal with Viking sword maidens, female samurais, etc.–in November, knock wood.
In the meantime, here are links to the original report and a good article on the debates surrounding it for anyone who wants to get a headstart:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23308/full
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/skeleton-ignites-debate-over-whether-women-were-viking-warriors
*And I know some of you do because many of you have sent me links to articles related to the topic of this blog post. I’ve tried to thank you individually, but in case I missed anyone, let me thank all of you here. I LOVE getting leads to blog topics or info about women warriors from y’all.
**But no horned helmet. The horned helmet made its first known appearance in 1876 in the debut performance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. How many costume designers can claim to have created an image with such an impact?
***Alongside news about the latest exploits of many women’s sports teams. Go Warriors!
# Apparently the Birka warrior is not unique in this, but all the other remains without battle injuries have historically been deemed warriors.
##That sound you hear is my teeth grinding.
###Different standard–just another way of saying double standard.
The Blackbird Sings
Several weeks ago My Own True Love and I had the pleasure of hearing a musician* play the oud and talk about its role in the multi-cultural mixing pot that was Islamic Spain. I sat and nodded my head in agreement as he talked about the spread of the oud through the Islamic world, and the transformation of oud first to lute then to guitar.** When he mentioned Ziryab, one of my favorite figures from the golden age of Islam, my head nodded even faster. This is the way blog posts are born.
Ziryab, nicknamed “the Blackbird” because of his sweet voice and dark complexion, was a trendsetter and fashion arbiter in the ninth century–the medieval Islamic equivalent of Beau Brummel.***
He was a freed slave who began his career as the talented student of a prominent Baghdad musician and composer, Ishaq al-Mawsili. Ziryab was so successful that many preferred the student to the teacher. Al-Mawsili appears to have been unaware of his student’s popularity until the caliph, Harun al-Rashid,**** asked if him if he had any particularly promising students. The teacher proudly introduced Ziryab, saying he might be a famous musician one day. The caliph was so taken with Ziryab’s music that al-Mawsili decided Baghdad wasn’t big enough for the two of them. He gave Ziryab two choices: leave town immediately (at al-Mawsili’s expense) or suffer his teacher’s enmity.
Ziryab chose the all-expenses paid tour of the Islamic world.
In 822 CE, he arrived at the Islamic court of Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Spain. He brought with him the latest styles from Baghdad, which was the political and cultural center of the civilized world.
The ruler of Cordoba, ‘Abd al-Rahman III, was determined to bring Muslim Spain into the ninth century. He welcomed Ziryab to his court, and gave him an official position as court musician, unofficial influence, a handsome salary, and furnished mansion.
In his role as court musician, Ziryab introduced the oud, turned it into the lute, founded a music conservatory and wrote songs that were performed in Andalusia for generations. He introduced new instruments and new forms of musical composition.
In his role as cultural ambassador from Baghdad, he changed the way Spain lived. He introduced the idea of wearing different fabrics in different seasons. He transformed personal hygiene, introducing soap, toothpaste, and better ways to clean clothes. (All already familiar in Baghdad.) He introduced new dishes, including asparagus, the idea of serving meals in courses, and the concept of the tablecloth. He is even given credit for bringing the game of chess to Spain.
Ziryab died in 857 CE, after 35 years of helping Cordoba (and ultimately Europe as a whole) clean up its act.
*His name is Ronnie Malley. If you’re in the Chicago area and interested in world music, he’s worth keeping an eye on. I’ll make it easy: http://www.ronniemalley.com
**In all fairness, not all musicologists agree that the guitar had its roots in Muslim Spain. I find their arguments unconvincing. But then, I would.
***For those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time, in Regency England, Beau Brummell was for a brief time the undisputed ruler of high society as a result of his impeccable taste in clothing, his biting wit, and his friendship with the Prince of Wales, the actual ruler.
****I first encountered Harun al-Raschid while reading the Arabian Nights as a nerdy child. In many of the stories, he disguised himself and wandered about his city at night, and then trapped his subjects with the information he learned while incognito. As a child I was indignant at the unfairness of his justice, even while acknowledging that it was, in fact, just. (Children understand abuse of power even when they don’t know the term.) Imagine my surprise when I learned that he was a real, much-admired, historical figure.
In which I get a sneak peak at Ken Burn’s The Vietnam War
Last night I accompanied my friend Scottie Kersta-Wilson–writer and artist-extraordinaire–to hear Ken Burns talk about his new series The Vietnam War, which will air on September 17 on your local PBS station.*
Burns is an appealing speaker. It was fascinating to hear how his team works to tell a story. The depth of the research. The care with language–long debates over whether to describe the American experience in Vietnam as a failure or a defeat, for instance. The fact that research continues alongside writing and filming. It was equally fascinating to hear how he organized this particular story around the concept that there isn’t just one truth about the Vietnam war. (I loved the fact that he described the events surrounding the Chicago Democratic convention in 1968 as an important battle in the war.) He and his crew talked to soldiers and civilians from both sides of the war. Perhaps more importantly, the people they interviewed were not the big names of the war. This is a man-in-the-street look at the war, set within a rigorously researched framework
The heart of the evening was a set of nine clips from the coming series–a little less than a hour of what will be eighteen hours of television. In the course of fifty-some minutes, I laughed** and cried. I was horrified.*** I felt ill and angry and sad and, occasionally, proud. I covered my eyes more than once. I learned stuff.
I’m not sure I’ll make it through all eighteen hours of The Vietnam War. It is a beautiful piece of cinematography and intelligent story telling, but the depiction of death and violence is graphic and gruesome. Despite the fact that I write about war more than I write about anything else,**** I am kind of a wimp about images of dead and broken people. But what I saw on the screen last night makes me determined to try.
I’ll be interested to know what you think.
(A quick reminder to those of you who get this by email: If you want to watch the trailer, you need to go to the browser. Just click the header.)
* Or at least that’s true if you’re in the United States–I know not all of you are. At some point the episodes will also be available online.
**Lyndon Johnson saying “the press lies like a bunch of drunken sailors.”
***Lyndon Johnson saying “the press lies like a bunch of drunken sailors.”
****Not something I could ever have predicted.