Ancient vendettas.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Labienus, as he subdued the Treveri alone, while Caesar was struggling with the crisis after the loss of one legion at Aduatuca by Ambiorix and the Eburones. He saved also the day against the Nervii at Sabis River.

[B. W.]

Labienus, as he subdued the Treveri alone, while Caesar was struggling with the crisis after the loss of one legion at Aduatuca by Ambiorix and the Eburones. He saved also the day against the Nervii at Sabis River.

Hmmm, nope, it wasn't Labienus. He was a good general, but he had his failings.

I'll give you a hint: this general fought the Parthians.

[Cyclops]

Note that you had to go straight to historical evidence in order to have something to say on the topic. I'm pretty sure your familiarity with the history is greater than your familiarity with the archaeology, but even if that were reversed, it would have still been the logical starting point. Between c. 550-1150, it wasn't unusual for women to be buried with weapons. Although, swords were less common than simpler weapons, it was common enough that there is no reason to assume that these were transgressions of social norms during the timeframe they occurred. Neither does this imply that these women were warriors. A lifetime of weapon use and battle scars are something that can be observed in human skeletal remains.

Of course I go to the bloody history I'm not some STEM person, numbers scare me.

I quite agree, just pointing out the interpretation sits within the elastic bounds of our understanding.

Also a really good sword-wielder might not have any scars .

In MENA countries, almost every Jewish woman who could manage it, owned a sword or a dagger, despite the fact that it was illegal for Jews to own weapons. There was nothing considered unfeminine about it. The reason women had them, was primarily to defend their unborn children from Lilith, who according to folk belief causes miscarriages and stillbirths. Of course in an emergency, these weapons could be used for self-defense but that wasn't the primary reason for them. There was a certain magical aspect to it. Ideally, the weapon would have been forged by a Christian smith, used by a Muslim warrior to kill in battle, and blessed by a rabbi. Though the rabbis generally considered this belief ridiculous.

I love those details and the complexity of people's beliefs. In this case the prohibition against women using weapons would not be prompted by the women of one cultural group wanting charms, and I agree its an admonition against my position.

In the US, it's not uncommon for socially conservative women to own handguns for self-defense or even to shoot for fun. While it is less common than for men, there is nothing considered unfeminine about it. These are the same people who generally oppose the idea of women serving in combat units. Guns aren't necessarily gendered masculine.

Really? In my country guns of all sorts are very much gendered male not by any law but by overwhelming use. Im locked down rn so no access to me research resources, but I think its a 90/10 split for owners and most men have multiple weapons. Our pretty heavy handed laws (to reassure nervous Nellies after a massacre) evaporated a lot of "back of the shed" guns (a .22 or a shottie for occasional holiday use), so owners are now either enthusiasts or farmers.

Now I've probably made my point about the limits of material culture in absence of text, but I doubt any of this is relevant to the individual in question. XXY men can vary from looking typically male to looking somewhat intersex, but they certainly can't be mistaken for female. If this individual looked typically male, then the only issue (if it's even worth calling that) is that brooches were much less common in male graves than female graves. If this individual looked somewhat intersex, like a feminized male, then I don't believe we really have any data regarding how he would have been treated or thought of. Jumping to the conclusion that he probably had a non-binary identity is quite an attention seeking stretch in my opinion.

I read recently about a "female" XXY https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...762-2/fulltext but maybe that's a very low statistical anomaly? When I wandered into women's studies years ago I was surprised at the sheer diversity of what people have in their chromosomes and what they look like. I seem to recall XXY could be fertile as males but not as females, but it was ages ago I don't have access to that material anymore.

Be good to have a squizz at the hide of the corpse to see if there's a mass of scars etc.

Lilith sword:



Although in this case more of a dagger.

Mate there may be a market for Liltih AR15's get on it!

They are both archaeological based replica.

And my second picture is obviously a reconstruction in a museum.

But pointless.

@Cyclops: If you are interested in this theme, pm me.

Look you've presented some good stuff and its a worthwhile discussion, getting some acid poured on the thesis cleans away rust. I mean this one would be useful to recall if some idiot wails about how ancient Nords/Wends/Finns were "real men", I don't think many xxy individuals qualify as patriarchs.

[sumskilz]

I love those details and the complexity of people's beliefs. In this case the prohibition against women using weapons would not be prompted by the women of one cultural group wanting charms, and I agree its an admonition against my position.

The examples I gave may or may not have any parallels in Finnish society of this period, but do serve as illustrations of the limits of archaeology in the absence of historical evidence. Jews aren't buried with grave goods, but if a Jewish woman was found in an archaeological context with her Lilith sword, there would be no way to ascertain the social/symbolic meaning and/or function of the sword without the historical record. At best, any number of guesses can be made based on ethnographic data that may or may not be relevant. Although, proximity of this data in terms of both time and space allows for some relative sense of plausibility of any given proposition.

When it comes to habitual premodern weapon use, the effects are visible on moderately well-preserved skeletal remains due to chronic stress. It can even be determined what class of weapon was regularly used.

Really? In my country guns of all sorts are very much gendered male not by any law but by overwhelming use. Im locked down rn so no access to me research resources, but I think its a 90/10 split for owners and most men have multiple weapons.

90/10 sounds about right for the US as well. What I mean is that by owning/using a gun, a woman in socially conservative American culture does not at all compromise her perceived femininity. Her gun use isn't considered a violation of social norms. Contrast that with a woman who dresses "butch" who will be seen as unfeminine and assumed to be a lesbian. Guns are seen more as a tools that more men than women are interested in, like cars or woodworking tools, but not strictly gendered, like dresses for example. If anything, women who are perceived as feminine who are interested in guns are fetishized:

Orin Julie may look like just another “gun bunny,” as such models are sometimes called, but she is the industry’s secret weapon. She is a former Israeli combat soldier who is trained to discharge the weapons she poses with.

“I don’t stand around in swimwear,” she said in an interview at the office of her Tel Aviv modeling agency. “I know how to hold guns, how to shoot, how to do combat stuff — and Americans appreciate that.”

Julie’s military background has helped her stand out as a weapons model and win a following of legions of American gun enthusiasts. But the reception to her modeling also demonstrates the vast differences between the the gun cultures of the United States and her native Israel.

At home many see her as a woman who served in a combat unit, as an embodiment of female empowerment. To her fans in the United States, she is a symbol of the very American mixture of constitutional rights, gun ownership and a culture in which “sexy” can refer both to a beautiful young woman and the assault weapon she cradles.

Two years into her career, Julie, 23, has modeled for a half dozen Israeli and American companies that sell firearms and related products. Last year, she represented Israel’s Gilboa Rifles at the world’s biggest gun show in Las Vegas.

A video about her by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster has been viewed by more than 800,000 people since it was posted on Facebook earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Julie’s Instagram account has racked up 145,000 followers, many who gush over photos of her in lipstick and crop tops bearing the latest arms, from petite handguns to massive assault rifles.

Julie said her love of guns and her career modeling them emerged from her Zionist upbringing. Growing up in the central Israeli town of Kiryat Ono, she recalled being a “very spoiled girl.” But in high school, as she began thinking ahead to her mandatory military service, Julie quietly resolved to become a combat solider.

“No one thought I could do it,” she said. “But I really love Israel, and I wanted to show I could do more and be more.”

The army initially turned Julie down for combat, citing her asthma, but with the backing of a powerful female commander, she managed to start her second year of service in the Israel Defense Forces’ new mixed-gender search and rescue brigade. She said she was the first woman to serve as the communications sergeant for a brigade commander.

I think the author is slightly mischaracterizing perceptions in Israel. Light infantry who act as border guards or search and rescue units are seen as appropriate jobs for women who want to be combat soldiers, as a sort of a compromise. For example, a woman who served in Caracal Battalion will be praised whereas its seen as a somewhat low status placement for men.

I read recently about a "female" XXY https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...762-2/fulltext but maybe that's a very low statistical anomaly? When I wandered into women's studies years ago I was surprised at the sheer diversity of what people have in their chromosomes and what they look like. I seem to recall XXY could be fertile as males but not as females, but it was ages ago I don't have access to that material anymore.

Yeah, that's right about fertility, unless there are additional factors like mosaicism and/or a non-functioning SRY gene. This case looks very unusual, hence the reason for its publication. I'm guessing it involves some unidentified mutations or a lot of phthalate exposure.

While extremely unlikely, it adds a third possible scenario for interpreting this individual:

Phenotypic Male - These brooches are uncommon in male graves, but not unprecedented.

Phenotypic Intersex - We really don't know how such an individual would have been thought of in his society, and there is no data set for comparison.

Phenotypic Female - Swords are uncommon in female graves, but not unprecedented. Weapons are common enough in female graves to assume that their presence was not a violation of social norms.

[Cyclops]

I wonder about swords as weapons vs swords as markers. My feeling is a lot of ancient warriors used swords as social markers well beyond their tactical utility. Its so fricking obviously a phallic symbol, but also would have a role in certain kinds of ceremonial fighting (esp. ritualised dueling) and I wonder too about sacrifices. Nothing like a spurt of blood to make the Gods happy.

As such possession of a sword as surely as much about rank as work. I'm guessing its about the right to command, which is tied directly to public social status in many societies.

Just to make things even more fuzzy, my own guess is their were a bunch of social agendas, tied to competing traditions within cultures rather than blanket rules. I think people with "leader" personalities transgress norms by dint of force of personality, and some norms are more rigid and impenetrable than others.

An infertile male would have a bit more trouble in a classic patriarchal context where literally being a father was an almost absolute requirement (Henry VIII's extraordinary political and religious contortions as an extreme example). A "man" with a "woman"'s features, or a person with a lack of "men's" features (social, reproductive or physical) could overcome these though I think, as we have seen women in very very patriarchal cultures do so before.

I dunno if the report reaches too far, the brooch stuff may need more clarity. It'd be very understandable they are reacting to the relentless chorus of the incel mob, Norse culture is besieged by absolutely trash tier wannabes trying to beat the world over the head with Viking memes as "proof" of some weird simplistic hierarchic nonsense.

[sumskilz]

God damned foreigners have only themselves to blame:



“No foreigner shall enter within the forecourt and the balustrade around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his subsequent death.”

Or so I am told. It's all Greek to me.

For those who'd like to try their hand at translating it themselves:

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

80 years after the sinking of HMAS Sydney II by the german merchant raider HSK Kormoran the only found body has been identified as the australian sailor Thomas Welsby Clark from New Farm in Brisbane.

https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/...after-80-years

As short information to the battle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...attle_and_loss

[Cyclops]

80 years after the sinking of HMAS Sydney II by the german merchant raider HSK Kormoran the only found body has been identified as the australian sailor Thomas Welsby Clark from New Farm in Brisbane.

https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/...after-80-years

As short information to the battle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...attle_and_loss

When a world war starts typically an Australian vessel called "Sydney" runs into a German cruiser.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cocos

If I had a nickel for every time it happened...

Another weird repetition is the old "First shot fired in a World War in the British Empire" which I'm told was in my home state. Twice. In both 1914 and 1939 news was radioed in that war had been declared and both times German merchantmen tried to bolt out of Port Phillip Bay, and were halted at the heads by having a shot fired across their bows.

Of course this smacks of small country irrelevance.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

At Cocos Island the Emden was not so lucky, this time the luck and the surprise moment was with Kormoran.

The whole story has a little bit of a pirate story/movie (in many pirate movies the pirates are disguised as merchant ships). ^^

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

OK, I'll play. Who do you think was Caesar's greatest general? I have my own idea and it certainly wasn't Anthony.

Bit of a random topic. But it probably was Marcus Antonius. A good second was Titus Labienus. While Gaius Trebonius should probably be considered as well. Though we know quite a bit about Pharsalus, we lack a lot of detailed information about Thapsus and Munda.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

A face reconstruction of a female skull from Stone Age found in the Lagmansoren grave in Sweden:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Found in Nationalgeographic :

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/h...ved-a-new-face

More face reconstructions from Oscar Nielson:

These facial reconstructions reveal 40,000 years of English ancestry

[MCM]

Fascinating- not so different from us at all.

I went to Pompeii two years ago, just before Covid, and what struck me there was that, apart from electricity, life really was not so different from us now.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

The Beaker bell culture seems als to spread by marriage:

But clearly, in the Bronze Age, Orkney gained new blood – even though, the team clarifies, no material evidence was found in the form of exotic wares they might have brought. Didn’t the women bring anything with them? They did.

These ladies were coming to a long-lived community with roots in the Neolithic, continuously settled since at least the mid-fourth millennium B.C.E. The land was studded with Neolithic monuments. No such monuments were erected during the Bronze Age. The indigenous Neolithic male lineages were actively being maintained and one might expect conservatism – that the incomers would bow down before the wonder. Yet their arrival coincided with profound changes in the Noltland way of life: In farming and mortuary practices, to name but two. The women brought new customs and probably new language and culture as well.



https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/...ney-1.10706670

The importance of this study is, that in contrary to previous knowledge the Orkneys were not cut off from bronze age cultural changes in Britain and the European continent.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Here a graphical reconstruction of the Westgate of the celtic oppidum Menosgada at the Staffelberg in Bavaria.

The reconstruction is based on findings of a excavation in 2018/2019:




The walls were five meter high, the gate building was 10 meter high. The gate is a so called Zangentor. At the gate parts of 30 human skulls were found, votives for the gods and to deter enemies. Also two child graves were found.

The complete city:



The oppidum was left und burnt down in 40 BC after the celtic trade network broke down after the conquest of Gaul.

Kelten in Bayern: Zwischen Rechtsverkehr und Schädelkult | National Geographic

[Cyclops]

Nice, a straight up typical settlement recognisable as a Castro or an Acropolis with surrounding buildings. Is this one of the broader common themes of Mediterranean and European cultures among the regional variations? I think the Near East has its Tels as well, and i have a vague memory of Ethiopian hillforts too : maybe the pattern is broken in Egypt and the steppe cultures (for obvious reasons).

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

The celtic oppida certainly had greek polis with acropolis as muster for their cities, as there was a long lasting trade connection via Massalia.

Although the walls and gates are gallic/celtic inventions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murus_Gallicus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfostenschlitzmauer

[sumskilz]

The fake neighborhood covering the roof of the Boeing airplane factory in Seattle during WWII:



It must have worked, the Japanese never managed to bomb it.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

First complete sentence in canaanite script on a ivory comb in the site of Lachish/Israel discovered:

ytš ḥṭ ḏ lqml śʿ[r w]zqt

“May this tusk root out the lice of the hai[r and the] beard”

jjar2_art4_lachish_p76-119_2022-10-12_01.pdf (huji.ac.il)

[Lord Thesaurian]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TW5b07T5VNM

Fascinating series by Bart D. Ehrman

[sumskilz]

First complete sentence in canaanite script on a ivory comb in the site of Lachish/Israel discovered:

ytš ḥṭ ḏ lqml śʿ[r w]zqt

“May this tusk root out the lice of the hai[r and the] beard”

jjar2_art4_lachish_p76-119_2022-10-12_01.pdf (huji.ac.il)

Based on the details of the language and the text, there isn’t really any doubt that they have correctly dated it to the Middle Bronze Age. The interesting (and probably unanswerable question) is how it ended up in a garbage pit roughly a thousand years later. The pit cuts into earlier layers, but not deep enough that it could have just fallen out of the side. More likely, it was actually thrown in there at the time the pit was in use. Meaning it was either found by someone somewhere or kept as an heirloom for a millennium.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TW5b07T5VNM

Fascinating series by Bart D. Ehrman

He made a mistake. Ecclesiastes doesn’t claim to be written by Solomon. It claims to be written by Qōheleṯ, which Ecclesiastes is a translation of. As far as I know, the idea that it was written by Solomon is simply a tradition. Although, maybe he knows of a Greek variant of the text that makes that claim. He is mostly a New Testament scholar, and while I’ve seen him address Greek versions of Hebrew texts, I don’t know if he reads Hebrew.