Thread by @TullieHouse

We are about to start live tweeting with @ElsaKPrice taking over our account for the @MuseumLiverpool twitter conference #ArchMoL22 as part of the #FestivalofArchaeology. Thank you for having us Liverpool! ❤️

1/15 Hi! I’m Elsa @ElsaKPrice, Curator of Human History at Tullie in Carlisle where I look after Archaeology & Social History Collections. My paper is about how gender identification in inhumations can affect our overall understanding of a site or period of history. #ArchMoL22

As a disclaimer there will be an illustration and a photograph of Human Remains later in the thread.

2/15 I’ll be using our Viking Revealed gallery @TullieHouse as a case study because both the gallery and the published report organises the burials from this Viking cemetery by 2 genders – male and female only. But first … a word on the site itself …
#ArchMoL22

3/15 Cumwhitton was excavated following the discovery of 2 Scandinavian oval brooches by a very responsible metal detectorist who reported it. Great thanks go to @findsorguk recognized its significance & prompted an excavation revealing a cemetery of 6 graves!!
#ArchMoL22

4/15 So where does gender feature? Well not at all in any of the primary research objectives of the excavators. But it did feature in the secondary research aims – within a wider umbrella of 4 objectives. So why did gender come to dominate so heavily?
#ArchMoL22

5/15 There were virtually no human remains from this site, only grave goods. So the gender of the graves has been based on whether the objects are “male” or “female”. And how do you know? By looking back to see if they have typically turned up in male or female graves. #ArchMoL22

6/15 But how can we trust the sexing of grave goods from past excavations, especially when we follow the footsteps of Antiquarians? What % of the human remains have been scientifically tested? Are we just in a revolving door of stereotypes? Let’s look at swords ….
#ArchMoL22

7/15 Swords have been so confidently ascribed to male graves (specifically warrior graves) that it seems impossible for a woman could be buried with one. So much so that a sword in the plough soil of the female grave 1 with the oval brooches was completely dismissed:
#ArchMoL22

8/15 When we see how far away her grave was from the others, does it seem right to completely dismiss this object from being associated with her because it’s a “male” object and the symbol of a warrior? Are all swords only found in male warrior Viking graves? #ArchMoL22

9/15 Well this one wasn’t. The famous Birka Warrior – an antiquarian find – had a tooth analysed and the results came back as female. Though this is still seems to be a topic of debate.
#ArchMoL22

10/15 And this male yet prepubescent child grave - a kid warrior? Does this change our view of what the sword symbolises?
If the sword is male & a symbol of warrior culture, I think the Birka Warrior and Scotland grave both disrupt this – and that’s only 2 examples!
#ArchMoL22

11/15 The scholarship – both Viking and Gender studies – has come so far from simple binaries. And yet this site has become dominated by them – both the gallery and the report organising itself around 2 genders, based on grave goods.
#ArchMoL22

12/15 Has this affected our audience? Well here is a snapshot of the portraits visitors leave behind – I love the one that says they knew they didn’t wear horns on their helmets but thought they looked cool anyway.
#ArchMoL22

13/15 Most of our portraits are of male warriors – or male violence – which seems contradict what we now know of the Viking world. Has the structure of gender around so-called “gendered objects” (weapons for men, domestic for women) compounded our visitors view?
#ArchMoL22

14/15 I also wonder if gender is really the most exciting thing about this cemetery – the only one in the North of England! Perhaps themes of migration, cultural background or burial practices are equally worthy themes to frame interpretation onto.
#ArchMoL22

15/15 We should always be self-reflective especially as museums create long lasting impressions. I do wonder if the focus on gender without the ability to scientifically sex the inhumations – is challenging audiences on what they thought they knew about the Vikings! #ArchMoL22