Ignoring Women in Classical Archaeology (As Per)

Classical Archaeology became its own area of study in the middle of the 18th century due to the popularity of archaeologists such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann, James Stuart, and Nicholas Revett. And now I’ll ask you to guess what these 3 archaeologists have in common - and of course… they’re men! How shocking that an academic field was dominated by men, however, despite this being an undoubtedly common phenomenon it does mean that a lot of classical archaeological sites have been reviewed from a male-dominated perspective.

Moreover, within classical archaeology, the role of gender has been frequently overlooked due to the lack of written sources centered around women (really how dare a woman pick up a pen or gain literacy). Therefore, when gender is explored, it is through the context of death and burial as osteologically sexed bodies (bones) found with burial goods are essentially the only contexts that can be explored as definitively male or female. Yet by analyzing burial goods that female skeletons are found with & seeing the same objects within gendered sculptures it is possible to find objects in other contexts and suggest socio-spatial relationships (the use of space) between men and women.

Within a gendered context, written works of Ancient Rome usually represented official voices - the voices belonging to those at the top of the social hierarchy so as usual men or very very (!!!) rich upper-class women. This meant that classical archaeology of the 1990s (when it was decided women were interesting enough to investigate) focused on elite women as they were more prominent in literary sources. This in turn meant often ignoring information found in material culture (I’m basically defining material culture here as just people’s stuff and the way they used said stuff). For example, the presence of women was missing from written evidence about military bases, so they were perceived as hyper-masculine sites. However, Van Driel-Murray (my idol and feminist icon) researched the size range of leather shoes found in Early Imperial Military Bases to argue the presence of women and children. This clearly highlights the importance of material culture in contexts where there is a complete vacuum of women in literary sources (which tends to be a lot of the time…).

In addition to literary written sources, it is important to consider non-literary written sources such as graffiti or letters. Vindolanda Tablet 291 - found in 1985 - is iconic evidence as it is almost certainly the first example of a woman’s handwriting in Latin. The tablet is a letter from Claudia Severa inviting her friend Sulpician Lepidina to her birthday. The majority of the letter is written by a scribe, but Severa added a postscript message herself; ‘I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail.’ Severa’s letter shares thematic and structural features found in other surviving writings by women in Latin from Greek and Roman antiquity, meaning Severa’s words are likely to be a reflection of the language used by common women. This is archaeology’s main draw for me - the discovery of Claudia Severa’s letter has provided a deeper understanding of female friendship and relationships which arguably proves the commonality of girlhood across centuries.

It is possible to also use both non-literary written sources and material culture in tandem to gain a deeper understanding of gendered artifacts and their uses. For example, small ceramic and glass bottles are widely considered to be containers for cosmetics and perfumed oils, and at Lake Maggiore when excavating 68 female and 75 male burials, ceramic and glass bottles were found in 60% of female burials but only 30% of male burials. They are therefore associated with female grave goods. This knowledge of material culture and gender can be used simultaneously with non-literary written sources such as the graffiti found in shop I.10.2-3 of Pompeii. The graffiti on the shop walls describes Coponia as the owner and Iris as her maid (two women!!! With one of them actually owning something!!!), the bottles found in the shop combined with graffiti suggests that prostitution either took place as an extension of the shop or beauty products (as associated with sex) were sold from the shop. Thus, symbolically gendered artefacts from contexts with sexed bodies (graves) can provide a basis for holistic investigations into gendered practices in lived spaces, yet it is still doubtful that Roman artefacts can be definitively gendered given that the bottles were still found in 30% of the male graves.

Outside of burial goods, there are other artefacts that are perceived to be gendered in Ancient Rome such as bone and copper needles (50-135mm), as cloth work was a predominantly female task. I just love learning about the past and all the crap tasks allocated to women because we’re the “physically inferior sex” because physically “superiority” comes with an inability to sew. Anyway, eight bronze and bone needles of this style were found in the Lucanian Villa (460-545 CE) along with loom weights in corridor 43. This collection of needles and loom weights has led to the interpretation that women congregated in the light and open corridor for cloth works. However, not all needles are perceived to be for feminine tasks, as four bronze needles (78-95mm) were found in the portico of Casa del Fabbro amongst a collection of measuring and woodworking equipment, which connotes masculine occupational activities. The sample of domestic contexts of needles is minimal, yet there is still strong female gendering of bone needles as they remain associated with sewing and hair arrangement - female activities. Of course, it is impossible to be certain when gendering objects beyond burial contexts or objects that aren’t depicted in gendered sculptures, yet gender-based associations when needles found with other artefacts - like loom weights - allow for hypothesises about socio-spatial relationships in ancient societies.

That was all just a complicated way of saying that even though women weren’t buried with the needles archaeologists are pretty certain they were owned and used by women rather than men. And because archaeologists think women used them, whenyou find a bunch of them along with loom weights it essentially marks out where women all hung out together to go about their sewing. Despite sounding very obvious and arguably a bit dull, I’d argue that it’s critical to understanding the culture surrounding femininity and womanhood within the classical time period due to the insight into women’s activities and the fact that they gathered together in the sun to go about individual tasks together.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that by looking at non-literary written sources like graffiti and letters (where women were actually allowed to write because how dare we want to write a literary source like a history, our pea brains couldn't fathom all those chronological events.) and material items such as bottles or needles it is possible to begin to understand the ties between women and their daily experience. The issue with this when looking through a modern feminist lens is of course the enforcement of modern ideas about gender onto a long-dead population, and it would be somewhat hypocritical to gender artefacts and extrapolate gender-based activities. Therefore when exploring ancient attitudes to gender the search is not for certainty, but indentify multiple plausible scenarios which bring us closer to the truth.

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Bibliography

Allison, P., M., (2015). Characterizing Roman Artifacts to Investigate Gendered Practices in Contexts Without Sexed Bodies. American Journal of Archaeology, 119(1), 103–123. Available at <https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.119.1.0103> [Accessed 15 Nov. 2022]

Hallett, J., (2002) The Vindolanda Letters from Claudia Severa. Women writing Latin. London: Routledge

romaninscriptionsofbritain.org. (2022). Tab.Vindol. 291. Birthday Invitation of Sulpicia Lepidina | Roman Inscriptions of Britain. [online] Available at: <https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/TabVindol291> [Accessed 15 Nov. 2022].

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