Posted on 12/29/2004 8:57:36 AM PST by blam
BURIED WOMEN ‘WERE IN AMAZON FIGHTING TRIBE’
Published in News & Star on Wednesday, December 29th 2004
Fierce: Women may have fought in the Roman army By Pam McClounie
TWO bodies unearthed from an ancient cemetery at Brougham, near Penrith, have changed experts’ views on Roman Britain.
For the 1,750-year-old remains – found at the site in the 1960s – have been identified as women warriors who may have been from the fabled Amazon fighting tribe of Eastern Europe.
The discovery has astonished archaeologists and historians because women were not previously known to have fought in the Roman army, which occupied Britain between 55BC and AD410.
The remains were found at a burial ground just off the M6 at Brougham. At the time Brougham was a fort and civilian settlement known as Brocavum.
Some of the items found in and around Carlisle as part of the excavation of Brougham cemetery in 1966 and 1967 were on display in Tullie House museum. They included a murdered man’s skull and burial tombstones.
Experts believe the two women warriors died between AD220 and AD300. They had been burnt on pyres along with their horses and military equipment.
One of the women – believed to be aged between 20 and 40 – was discovered with the burnt remnants of animals. Possessions of bone veneer, a sword scabbard and red pottery buried with her suggest she was of high status.
The other woman, thought to have been between 21 and 45, was buried with a silver bowl, a sword scabbard, bone veneer and ivory. The pair are believed to have been part of the numerii, a Roman irregular unit.
Other finds at the site suggest the unit in which the women served was originally from the Danube region of central and eastern Europe, where the ancient Greeks said the fearsome Amazon warriors could be found.
The Amazons were considered very brave, daring, fearless and dignified fighters and reputed as skilled horsewomen. However, tales that they cut off one breast to make it easier to fire a bow and arrow are believed to be unfounded.
The bodies of the two Roman women warriors were among 180 from the third century AD.
Full-scale analysis and identification had to wait until the last few years, when the technology needed for a full assessment of the remains became available.
Recent scientific advances have finally allowed archaeologists to determine the ages and gender of the dead.
Hilary Cool, director of Barbican Research Associates, which specialises in post excavation archaeological analysis, said the find is changing our understanding of Roman burial sites.
“It seems highly probable that we have a unit raised in the Danubian lands and transferred to Britain,” she said.
“Though the numerii are generally referred to as irregular units, they are not thought of as having women among their ranks.
“However, the unit came from the area where the Ancient Greeks placed the origin of women warriors called Amazons.”
How can this be proved over them being celtic banshees?
Ancestors.
They may have been Celts who fought with Queen Bodecia against the Romans. She was held in high esteem by the Legions. They may have honored her contemporaries with a Roman pyre.
Here's a Global Warming question for ya'. Why don't they grow the wine that the Romans drank in Britian anymore?
"Reminds me a little of the movie King Arthur..."
Same thought I had. The movie still sucks, though.
Uh, temperature went down? Whadda win, whadda win?
There are other reasons that the women could be there. I am assuming they were buried identifiably as soldiers. It seems that large armies right up into the 19th century tended to include a few women passing as men. There are some famous owoman warriors from our own Revolution, a couple of whom had been along with their husbands and started helping with the cannons and such, and a couple who were not found out until killed or after the war was over. Amazons! is just the attention getter for the writer. There is NO confirmed set of women warriors from any time anywhere. Long ago such a culture could only include a tiny fraction of the women in a tribe because women's time was necessarily taken up with pregnancy and birth else the tribe would die out quickly. A woman had to have many children for 2 or 3 to attain adulthood. If you postulate a tribe with modern antibiotics then Amazons as a culture might be possible.
the song "When I Was A Fair Maid" comes to mind...
"when I was a fair maid, about seventeen,
I listed in the navy for to serve the Queen,
I listed in the navy, a sailor lad to stand,
for to hear the cannons rattlin' and the music so grand..."
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