pantomimes and farce:costumes and competence

[sniper]

the whole issue of grave goods and sex and gender in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries spring to mind, wonder if the sword=male, jewellery=female thing is a British idea? Tis rubbish, whoever thought of it. Have visions of archs in 1000 years time categorising tie pin and cufflinks=professional...

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++

[troll]

Absolutely Snipey. Wondering if the standard historical account of pecking orders was`nt written to maintain the status quo....
I suppose one could argue that the need to belong is one driver. Another of course would be that sexual display is paramount to survival.What fascinates me....tiz not just the appearence itself that people attempt to read but, they seem to apply all sorts of tags.Thick, ugly,lazy, lower/upper"class", inferior/superior...
Even babies a few months old seem to understand and indeed mimic the facial expressions of those in their world. This I can grasp with no problem. As a species, if we can "read" people through facial expression-what the hell does it matter if the target is wearing a bin-liner/nappie/Savill-Row suit or has dreadlocks intertwined with their pubic folicles? It goes without saying that someone with a degree in marketing/communication would argue that appearence is everything.But then again-they have an agenda-selling products and ideologies to an unsuspecting audience through slight of hand and the manipulation of painfully simple behavioural concepts. Transparently contrived.Before you horrible lot assume that I wear bin liners, have facial tattoos and have platted my pubic hair, I don`t.But if I chose to express myself in those ways.I would.We all wear uniforms of one sort of another in the same way that we adopt certain musical tastes that provide us with "theme tunes" we feel confident that reflect who we are/wish to be seen. Barristers and senior judges seem to feel the need to wear the folicles of long dead horses on their heads.Heads of state feel the need to wear strange metal rings on their heads.People around the world wear what and/or whom they believe themselves to be.It`s called freedom of choice."Culture" if you like. It does seem to be us Brits that have the monopoly upon an apparent ability to judge by appearence in further terms.....

[sniper]

appearance matters when you can get refused a job because of your appearance, or when you get spat at, and worse, because the way you dress does not fit in with the "norm"...and I have been, and still do, last time was about 2 weeks ago I think...

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++

[troll]

Not sure what would be worse-being pidgeon holed during life or being hideously misinterpreted in death by some sadly misinformed archaeologist of the future! Might be time to reintroduce lead coffin plates! archaeologists clearly don`t have the slightest idea how people work and in the UK, are riddled by the perceptory disease of "class"-as such, they can`t be trusted to write histories!Would love to read a report on my grave goods...action man 1.
favourite trainers 1 pair. copy of Halo2 1. Skateboard (slightly knackered)1. Rizla 10 packets. curly wirly bars 10 packets.
As a final broadside before bed- nowadays, racism and colour issues are largely (with some obvious muppet exceptions black or white) a thing of the shameful past.So they should be. What then, is it about clothing that seems to provide some with the right to judge others? I have tattoos.So what?So did the Iceman.Surely your not going to judge me by the colours of my skin now are you?

[eggbasket]

Troll - It seems to me that you are way off base on a couple of points here. It is not just the British that judge on appearances. All societies do so, probably always have done so and probably always will do so. It is how you recognise and judge those that belong to your culture (or sub-culture), and it is how you recognise outsiders. So, when you state that it is the British that have a monopoly on judging by appearances you are talking rubbish.

Sniper - What is the evidence to support your assertion? I would be interested to know of any examples of women buried with swords, so if you can point me to any suitable reports that discuss it and put it into context, I would be grateful. As far as grave goods are concerned, surely they are intended in part to show, [u]by appearance</u>, who and what the person in the grave was? And surely this applies to cultures other than those in Britain too?

Cheers,
Eggbasket
Gentleman Adventurer and Antique

"All human endeavour is futile"

[kevin wooldridge]

quote:Originally posted by eggbasket

As far as grave goods are concerned, surely they are intended in part to show, [u]by appearance</u>, who and what the person in the grave was?

If you think about it that is most obviously not the case. Grave goods are always selected by a third party, so represent somebody elses opinion and not that of the deceased.

Heard an interesting paper at the SHA conference in York about grave goods buried with pre-1860 and post-1860 African Americans. Nearly always the grave goods appeared to represent the economic and social aspirations of the surviving partner or family member rather than the deceased. Men had little high value but relatively frequent nostalgia goods (representative of the good sense of their surviving womenfolk*), whereas women had the more gaudy high value goods (their menfolks 'gratitude' gifts*). *Comments in brackets are mine.

[Cautionary Tale]

Just to follow the middle way for the moment, history is littered by individuals who have had a morbid preoccupation with death and directed precisely what they want buried with them and how, whereas others (i'm dealing with a particular example of a 14th century knight at the moment) didn't have any influence on the location of their burial let alone any of the furnishings which were entirely down to relatives who chose the most high status place at the time even though the person in question had next to no links. Aren't the exceptions what make archaeology fun

(I really have worked in the field)

[Hugh]

quote:Originally posted by sniper

the whole issue of grave goods and sex and gender in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries spring to mind, wonder if the sword=male, jewellery=female thing is a British idea?

Probably was at one point (probably still is in most peoples minds). I was told a couple of years back by PG students, and lecturers at uni, that if you re-analyse the cemeteries excavated in the early/mid C20th on an osteological basis you get a different gender mix than originally published. Basically a lot of people seemed to have gone "ooh look a sword, that must be a man" and left it at that.
I don't think any of this is a British thing, but then I haven't lived in other countries long enough to see if it is the same elsewhere.

[sniper]

eggy, I cannot find any specific examples at this moment of females buried with swords, though I have certainly seen published examples and will endeavour to find references for you. However, there is the osteologically male skeleton buried at Catterick with the jet jewellery (published in the Cataractonium monograph), and just to pull one site out of the back of my brain, the report on the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Norton, Cleveland contains info on a number of burials where the skeleton is male but the grave goods imply female.

The osteological/grave goods sexing problem is certainly there, but the issue is much deeper than that. As others have pointed out, the dead do not bury themselves, and any interpretation of the grave goods has to bear in mind that the objects may have carried a specific meaning for those who buried the individual rather than just marking their sex (or gender: a totally different thing) in life. For example, a wedding ring is a piece of jewellery, and therefore on the most basic level would imply that a skeleton was female, however a wedding ring does not have that meaning. It is worn by both males and females, and actually signifies a period in the life course of the individual rather than their sex. Other items may have had similar purposes.For example, a certain piece of jewellery may have acted as a talisman, maybe protecting an individual during a certain period in life. Weaponry is also an interesting one. I have certainly seen females buried with weapons but also very small children. On the basic level a weapon may imply that someone is a warrior, and in this interpretation, there is no need to exclude females from that social category. However, very small children could not have been warriors in life, so what is the weapon implying in death?

and I could go on, this happens to be one of my research interests, and the subject of my masters dissertation...

++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++

[mercenary]

quote:I don't think any of this is a British thing, but then I haven't lived in other countries long enough to see if it is the same elsewhere.

No it's not, but we have some real class based hang-ups that some other countries don't.

Clothes are about identity, and as archaeologists we may feel that we are somehow escaping such mental frameworks, but most site staff end up looking much the same regardless. Our reference group is just a bit different from the norm. I don't know many archs who try to differ from their colleagues in dress. (MM who wears suit jackets to dig in springs to mind) In that respect we're not much different to office workers with their uniform. In fact we are sadder because we conform without having an enforced dress code. If I'm being honest, I want to project an image of experienced and competent practicality, which is why I dress as I do. I could just as easily do my job in a different outfit, but the message might be very different.

I suspect when you got your tat Troll you were consciously/sub-consciously trying to identify with a group to which you belonged or aspired to belong. No?