Warrior buried in women's clothes, DMA test

You haven’t seen the histrionics that some had had around the fake beard and penis worn by mummies (male and female I believe) - part of the funeral ceremony. Just a ‘divine symbol’. Nothing more.

Queen Elizabeth referred to herself as a Prince - I saw a programme about her and yes it just had include the theory that she was was actually male or DSD. Sigh. Because a boring old womanly woman couldn’t possibly have ruled, on no...

My favourite ‘Egyptian’ fun fact. There was much pants wetting when Remi Malik played the ancient equation in Night at the Museum, and so was photographer in full Pharaoh garb. The twitterati got very upset because... ‘cultural appropriation! How dare he!’. Until it was pointed out the Remi is... Egyptian (with a wee bit of Greek). This still amuses me.

'There's these statues of a ruler who looks like a woman. Can't be a woman, though, as they were a) a ruler, b) had a wife and c) had children. Ergo, they simply have to be a medically malfunctioning male in all ways but reproductively, QED. No women here, nothing to see that could imply that homosexuality was OK we'll go to Ancient Greece and Rome for that as the idea of women being solely brood mares and true love was between an older and younger man because that suits us better

I'm not a linguist or historian (which is obvious, as there's no way I would have been able to make my way through academia with independent thoughts), but interpreting job titles as intrinsically meaning Male could easily be an artefact of the lens they were looking though. Perhaps the translation of certain words led them to choose 'King' and 'Queen' (and thereby Ruler with a Penis and their sidebird) when the word meant Ruler and we've therefore been led to believe that Pharaoh meant Man because the translators originally couldn't conceive of it meaning anything else?

From a dynasty who had siblings marry siblings (and procreate) and thought they were gods... what’s a bit of lesbianism?

Seeing as 'he' had breasts and hips going by the statues, seems more likely to me that 'he' was a she and the children were fathered by a suitable male. Can't be having lesbians in positions of power, though. Must have been a man. A man with any number of DSDs or a need to present as female. But never, ever, a gay woman.

Bah. Not Anita, Angela Saini.

The Radio 4 programme
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ykpf was very interesting.

Having read this thread I was amused to listen to the cautions in the programme about results from ancient DNA being used for ideological reasons and how this was a characteristic of the far Right.

This was about right: "we have to be so careful we don't allow ideas of culture to bleed into biology" although (IIRC) it was from Anita Saini who is one of the science communicators who's a fan of pushing "sex isn't binary because intersex".

Has Tutenkhamun been non-binaried yet?

It's Year Zero (a)history in action, misanalysed by identitarians who think their beliefs are the ultimate pan-ideology that every society which ever existed subscribed to 100%. No one could ever have thought differently, except for some t*rfs now and anyone at all who behaved in a way they personally perceive as transgressive were obviously trans or non-binary. Eternal pink jewels for girls and blue swords for boys.

Although the label "non-binary" can be imposed on gender non-conformity that occurred in the past, this is a bad idea because it's a brand new concept filled with modern day thinking and being so far from having a commonly agreed meaning as to create uncertainty. They would have known to have been extremely wary of applying any other modern day cultural concept in this way.

I sometimes feel like these people are arguing with the voices in their heads. On the one hand they have to insist "societies have always had a very rigid gender binary", and then they flip around to "all sorts of societies had genders outside the traditional binary".

Which is it, guys?

Is the problem that you're struggling to identify the way these societies behaved? I don't think so. I think it's that this concept of "gender" is too nebulous.

I suspect you could say that in medieval Finland "there may have been individuals who did not fit into a binary floofnargle model" too...

I guess it would keep the people in Floofnargle Studies departments in work, at least.

I think it's misguided for the paper authors to use the descriptor "non-binary" for this person, as while you could argue that in the literal sense of the word that does appear to be the case, the way we use the word generally is in reference to a culturally-specific phenomenon.

If you read the whole paper, filled as it is with qualifications, talking about uncertainties raised by the excavation site, and cautioning against making assumptions, to have put "The overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary." in the abstract looks more like politics than academic rigour. It's a shame, especially since they resisted such headline grabbing in the conclusion:

"The Suontaka burial has previously been interpreted as a woman buried with two swords. The grave is exceptionally equipped, with several signs of wealth and care, including prestigious furs and rare feather bedding. However, only one sword, hiltless and silver-inlaid, can be conclusively associated with the burial assemblage. The bronze-hilted sword was possibly placed in the grave some time after the burial. Our aDNA analysis suggests that the individual may have had an aneuploid male karyotype XXY (Klinefelter syndrome). These new research results indicate that even in early medieval Finland, which is often considered a masculine and warlike society, there may have been individuals who did not fit into a binary gender model. These individuals could also have been respected and considered important, and their gendered identities could be elaborately represented and remembered in the content of their burials."

Following, interesting thread!

(not sure what this person's preferred pronouns were, so will go by his sex): what makes them go for non-binary rather than transwoman?

First they came for the butch lesbians of history… then they came for the exhumed Finnish warriors…

And this:

If historians are learning from the science of DNA analysis, what can scientists learn from historians when making assumptions about nations, race and the colonial past? What will the DNA of the historical future look like?

A relevant programme on Radio 4 this morning:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ykpf

In this programme, the historian Jerry Brotton asks how far this science is changing the study of history, and where it might take us. He asks if genetics is providing us with the ultimate tools to understand our historical origins - and perhaps our future - or if we're walking into a new era of bio-colonialism. Today, scientists are subject to accusations that they are harvesting our DNA and making genetic assumptions about people who have already suffered under European scientific racism and colonisation. These groups now debate the ethics of the bones of their ancestors being analysed to play their part in the evolution of modern western science.

NB is being confused here with GNC.

To say that the warrior was nonbinary would imply that they identified as neither a man nor a woman.

Whereas all we actually have evidence for is that the person was gender-nonconformant (or rather, gender-stereotype-nonconforming). Whether we even have evidence for that would depend on whether we have enough evidence to say confidently how the "genders" typically behaved in that place and time.

But as the person had a DSD (diffeence of sexual development) this raises a second issue. Such people are nowadays said to be "intersex" (in between the sexes). (This is not really true, as Klinefelter's is clearly a male DSD, but...) If this is the case then if this person was NB then they were also non-trans, since clearly their gender identity would have mirrored their physical sex. Nowadays NB and intersex are completely different things - I haven't seen evidence that intersex people are more likely to be NB, yet in this article IS & NB come close to being conflated.

IF it's the one I'm thinking of.

When assumed to be male no digging into DNA, no mystery.

Omg female? Can't be right. Need to keep looking till we find something to explain.

Bias-

Two swords, weapons traditionally associated with masculinity,

And when someone said hold on its s woman there was extensive and ongoing speculation around how in that case they either weren't actually a warrior?

Or.. anything to explain the impossibility of high profile and weapons can be female?

This is the person assumed to be male for years because of the things with them- weapons and other things that indicated they were important,?

The exception being Harald Horridlocks, who notably made a vow neither to wash nor to comb his hair until he'd done something or other: killed someone or seized a throne or some such. The day he did it, he washed and combed his hair and became Harald Fairhair overnight.

I wish I could remember who he actually was! He was a legend in our family, always invoked if one of us children came to a meal with unkempt barnet.

What new ignorance of history is this among academics? It's been known for years that Nordic peoples took great pride in their appearance. Hair was very well groomed. There's always been rumours of women warriors and certainly women were not passive belongings. It's the heritage they passed on to us.