The Byzantine "monk" buried in chains near Jerusalem was a woman.Credit: Matan Chocron / Israel Antiquities Authority
Posted on 02/20/2025 5:57:32 PM PST by SunkenCiv
During excavations at the Khirbat el-Masani site, a Byzantine monastery dated between the 4th and 7th centuries, several tombs were uncovered. Among them, one stood out in particular: a burial where the individual had been wrapped in chains, an ascetic practice symbolizing the sacrifice of the body and detachment from the material world. Traditionally, this type of penance has been associated with male anchorites, leading archaeologists to assume that the remains belonged to a man. However, the poor preservation of the bones prevented a conclusive osteological determination of the individual's sex.
Faced with the inability to rely on traditional osteological methods, researchers turned to dental enamel proteomics, an innovative technique that allows for determining biological sex through the analysis of proteins in tooth enamel. In this case, scientists analyzed the presence of the amelogenin protein, which has specific variants in the X and Y chromosomes. The absence of the male variant (AmelY) in the sample conclusively indicated that the individual was a woman.
(Excerpt) Read more at labrujulaverde.com ...
The Byzantine "monk" buried in chains near Jerusalem was a woman.Credit: Matan Chocron / Israel Antiquities Authority
Something something MANGLED GENITALS
If detached, why the chains? Maybe they didn't want her to go to Heaven?
Dungeon poisons got ahold of her brain.
:^)
😎
Indeed.
Dug up by biologists who can make this sort of determination.
This could be a Law and Order episode. In life, she would be an altruist who helps women kill their babies. Selfless heroine!! 🙆
WERE there any monks who were women? Was that considered to be sacrilege?
No, it’s not possible to tell by chromosomes, enamel protein or pelvic bones if someone is male or female:
Misleading claim that pelvic bone ‘reveals binary sex’ shared in anti-LGBTQ posts
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.336G8HA
The “expert” fact checkers said so.
Maybe she did it secretly, but got caught, hence the chains.
Even if I was her brother I’d kiss her...
Was her name Alice?
“ We can offer a fairly educated guess…”
From bones.
Means yes, they can tell, obviously not always, though.
Basically fact check confirms it.
They play weird word games.
Maybe they thought she was a witch?
Is it just me, or is there something a little shady about desecrating graves? I don’t want somebody digging me up when I go. What if they steal my afterlife stuff?
There have been since early times female anchorites and hermits, some associated with monasteries and some not. “Nuns” (not to be confused with “Sisters”) are basically female monks. It would be interesting to know if there was a convent of female monastics at this location and if this particular woman was a nun who had been “mis-gendered” by earlier researchers. There’s a lot of details not included in this story that could shed light on that.
She’s the Woman in the Box
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