sebastienne linked it and the first person I thought of was you. I'd really like to contribute, actually, if only I could think of anything interesting enough. You would think I would know SOMETHING. *frowns*
I'm drawing a blank at the moment but that's probably just work making me brainless. Gimme a couple of days and I might come up with something. Maybe we could do this together?
The stuff I can think of offhand really doesn't have a personality attached to it which would make it interesting to write about. There is that thing about the crossdressing Anglo Saxon and Viking skeletons but uh, yeah. Yes.
(We really are syncing something awful, by the way. TODAY I HAVE CRAMPS. I am very glad and yet rather horrified that I have a batch of brownies in a box in the kitchen. They are Needed and yet... and yet...)
Basically in the early Anglo Saxon period (pre-Christianity) and at some points in time in Scandinavia it is not THAT uncommon to find quite markedly male skeletons (as in biologically male) buried with artefacts and remains of clothing traditionally considered female (as in culturally female), or vice versa. There are also mixed graves, with trappings of both sexes. Of course there's about a million interpretation problems -- with the identification of biological sex, and with the assignment of culturally constructed gender both -- but it's an interesting consideration that gender roles presumably had a degree of fluidity back then. For a long time skeletons were almost entirely marked up as male or female depending on whether their grave contained a sewing box or a spear, but the picture is totally not that simple, whichever way you want to spin it. I think there are graves with this sort of thing going from from... ehh... certainly England and the Netherlands, and then there a few more confused ones from Norway which are harder to deal with because of intercutting burials and multiple individuals in a single grave and that sort of thing, and Denmark has some which are easier to work with as well I think. The significance is hard to pin down of course and there's a lot of danger of making assumptions based on modern cultural norms BUT ALL THE SAME. It's pretty cool.
Yup. I'm poking around on the internet for what the general public might get to see about this and some of it's sort of idiotic. ZOMG DO YOU THINK IT WAS DONE TO HUMILIATE CRIMINALS!!!?11!!???/!!!1! COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE THAT THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN GENDERS LAY SOMEWHERE A BIT DIFFERENT OR THAT BIOLOGICAL SEX WAS NOT THE SOLE DETERMINANT OF GENDER OR. I mean we are talking about burials in normal cemeteries with all the signs of respectful burial here. Not criminal cemeteries, not bound burials, no signs of execution, nothing. Admittedly I can't really speak for burial traditions in Denmark but the English burials in question sure didn't have any of the signs of humiliated outcasts! There are an awful lot of possible interpretations, some of which have more to do with religious beliefs and symbolism which is always a tricky beast to deal with especially in a time period where bugger all got written down, but you know... uh... that one fails. Hard.
*laughs* I've left a comment about it. I don't know how well it'd fit into the proposed format of the thing, to be honest! But it's a pretty neat topic.
Honestly, deathbyshinies is looking for 1000-1500 words that a GCSE student could understand. No expertness required! Please do go over there and make yourself known to her, at least provisionally.
(Sorry, giving_ground, for hijacking your thread and bullying your friends into writing..)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 07:43 am (UTC)You could throw me ideas and I could research them like a maniac because THAT IS FUN.no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:01 am (UTC)(We really are syncing something awful, by the way. TODAY I HAVE CRAMPS. I am very glad and yet rather horrified that I have a batch of brownies in a box in the kitchen. They are Needed and yet... and yet...)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 09:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:02 am (UTC)(Sorry,
no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-26 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 02:35 am (UTC)