DNA Evidence Reveals Skeleton From 100 Year Old Viking Tomb Was Female Warrior

Unbelievable that we are just getting around now to cleaning up some 19th century GARBAGE conclusions about who was buried in important tombs and why.  We may catch up with it in, oh - say, 100 or so years.  By that time, the conclusions we've reached on some will STILL be proven to have been wrong, because women have always been a force to be reckoned with in the REAL world, whether you want to recognize that or not.  If you think I'm joking about not being recognized as such, please key in on some of the "experts'" comments made in the article! U N B E L I E V A B L E !

From The Washington Post:

Wonder Woman lived: Viking warrior skeleton identified as female, 128 years after its discovery

September 14, 2017, by Amy Ellis Nutt

An 1889 drawing of the Viking warrior grave discovered in Birka, Sweden. For more than 120 years, it was assumed to be the skeleton of a man. (Hjalmar Stolpe)

For more than a century after it was found, a skeleton ensconced in a Viking grave, surrounded by military weapons, was assumed to be that of a battle-hardened man. No more.

The warrior was, in fact, female. And not just any female, but a Viking warrior woman, a shieldmaiden, like the ancient Brienne of Tarth from “Game of Thrones."

The artifacts entombed with the 1,000-year-old bones and unearthed in 1889 in Birka, Sweden, included two shields, a sword, an ax, a spear, armor-piercing arrows and a battle knife — not to mention the remnants of two horses. Such weapons of war among grave goods, archaeologists long assumed, meant the Viking had been male.

Yet modern-day genetics testing on the DNA extracted from a tooth and an arm bone has confirmed otherwise. The skeleton, known as Bj 581, belonged to someone with two X chromosomes.

"We were blinded by the warrior equipment,” one of the researchers, Anders Gotherstrom, said in an email to The Washington Post this week. “The grave-goods shout 'warrior' at you, and nothing else.

A modern drawing of the same Viking grave, this time depicting the female warrior. (Neil Price)

Gotherstrom, along with nine other scientists from Stockholm and Uppsala universities, announced their results in a paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Theirs is the first genetic proof that at least some Viking women were warriors.

A short video on Aizu warrior women:

Women Were Some of the Fiercest Samurai Warriors Ever

In ancient Japan, battle was typically reserved for male samurai. That all changed when Takeko Nakano and her sister, Yuko, decided to fight for their clan's independence after a deadly village invasion (3:22)

Source: Smithsonian Channel: Samurai Warrior Queens

Warrior Women - A Review

A new book on warrior women.  There have been others written - I have two excellent tomes wholly devoted to the subject:

Women Warriors: A History, by Davie E. Jones
Warior Women: An Archaeologist's SSearch for History's Hidden Heroines, by Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Ph.D. with Mona Behan

There are also chapters in other books in my library devoted to warrior women.

So - what does this new book, by Robin Cross and Rosalind Miles, have to offfer that prior books on the subject have not?  A lot of new female characters!

By Pam Norfolk
Published on Wednesday 2 March 2011 01:00

Whoever claimed that war was men’s work had never come across the likes of vengeful Caterina Sforza, the terrifying Jinga Mbandi or ace spy Pearl Witherington.

These are just a few of the feisty, fearsome and formidable fighting women whose acts of courage, daring and self-sacrifice have set alight theatres of war across the world for thousands of years.

While 21st century society wrings its hands over the rights and wrongs of women fighting on the front line, history tells us that they have always been there in some form or other, whether taking part in military campaigns or leading their countries into war.

As the world prepares to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, Warrior Women, a magnificent new book by author Rosalind Miles and historian Robin Cross, restores their wartime heroics to a rightful place of honour and prominence by painting vivid portraits of over 100 outstanding women across 3,000 years of history.

From the ‘silver-sworded, man-loving, male child-killing Amazons’ to Colonel Martha McSally, the first female pilot in the US Air Force to fly in combat, women have often proved themselves cool and courageous under fire.

Some, like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc and Elizabeth I, are familiar names but others like Susan Travers, the only woman to have joined the French Foreign Legion, are lesser known but just as thrilling.

As far back as 1049 BC, the legendary Delilah acted as the first ‘honey-trap’ operative when she ensnared Samson for the Philistines and in 61 AD Boudicca, dubbed the ‘Killer Queen’ of Britain by the Romans, cried ‘death before slavery’ as she took on the invaders.

In the second century, the Vietnamese Tru’ung Sisters led a famous rebellion against the Chinese Han Dynasty while swashbuckling swordswoman Tomoe Gozen, ‘a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god’, was a senior samurai officer in the Japanese Genpei War of 1180-85.

Austrasian warrior queen Brunhilde paid the ultimate price for 40 years of bravery and skill during the Frankish wars of the 6th century - her enemies literally pulled her to pieces by stringing her between four horses.

The religious struggles following the 7th century birth of Islam produced Salaym Bint Malhan who, although pregnant, fought in the ranks of Muhammad with swords and daggers strapped round her swollen belly.

A woman not to be crossed was Caterina Sforza, daughter of the 15th century Duke of Milan, who took revenge on the ringleader of her husband’s killers by having him dragged round a square by a horse and then disembowelled and dismembered while still alive.

One of the most extraordinary women warriors was Jinga Mbandi, the 17th century queen of what is now Luanda, the capital of Angola, which was then being exploited by Portuguese slavers. Jinga is reported to have sat on the back of a crouching slave to assert her rights as queen during talks with the Portuguese governor and then executed the slave, explaining that she never used the same chair twice.

In more recent times, Second World War spy Pearl Witherington, a brilliant agent with the British Special Operations Executive, took command of over 3,000 men of the French Resistance in the field and was so feared by the Germans that they put a bounty of one million francs on her head.

Brimming with fascinating histories and an amazing collection of colour pictures and illustrations, Warrior Women is a big, beautifully produced book which tells the awe-inspiring and revealing story of some unforgettable female fighters.

(Quercus, hardback, £20

Iran Bitches About Scholarship in Name of Neda

Story from Yahoo News, reported by Associated Press (AP)(c). Iran condemns Oxford for honoring slain protester By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 11, 4:01 pm ET TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has protested to an Oxford University college over a scholarship in memory of the slain Iranian student who became an icon of mass street protests sparked by the disputed June election. In Tehran, a small group of hard-line women demonstrated Wednesday against the scholarship in front of the British Embassy. The women chanted "Death to Britain," the semi-official Fars news agency reported. Oxford's Queen's College established the Neda Agha Soltan Graduate Scholarship in Philosophy earlier this year, named for the 27-year-old student fatally shot on June 20 on the sidelines of a Tehran demonstration. Her dying moments were caught on a video viewed by millions on the Internet, and she became a potent symbol of the opposition's struggle. "It seems that the University of Oxford has stepped up involvement in a politically motivated campaign which is not only in sharp contrast with academic objectives" but also linked to British interference in Iran's post-election turmoil, Iran's Embassy in London said in a letter to the provost of the British university's college. Queen's College confirmed it had received the letter dated Tuesday. Iran has in the past accused Britain of playing a role in the protests following the June 12 presidential election and meddling in its internal affairs. The opposition said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election by fraud. But hard-liners have described the massive protests as a plot by Iran's enemies to overthrow the system of clerical rule through a 'velvet revolution.' The Iranian letter said Soltan's "suspicious death" is still a criminal case being investigated by the police at home. It said she had been shot on an isolated street far from the protesters and her "murderers" had filmed her and her companions for 20 minutes before the killing. The letter also mentioned Arash Hejazi, an Iranian doctor who was with Soltan at the time she was shot and said he tried to save her life. Hejazi is studying at Oxford and was visiting Iran at the time. "Surprising, an Oxford fellow, Mr. Arash Hejazi, who had arrived in Iran two days before Neda's killing, was present on the scene when she was bleeding to death and immediately left for London the day after her horrible death," the letter said. "There is further supporting evidence indicating a pre-made scenario and other complications yet to be investigated. In July, a couple weeks after Soltan's death, Iran's police chief said intelligence officials were seeking Hejazi. That came after Hejazi returned to London and told the BBC that Soltan apparently was shot by a member of the volunteer Basij militia, which is linked to Iran's powerful and elite Revolutionary Guard corps. Hejazi said protesters spotted an armed member of the militia on a motorcycle, and stopped and disarmed him. Iranian police claimed this was a fabrication and the incident had nothing to do with the street riots. Police did not say why officials want Hejazi, but the regime repeatedly has implicated protesters and foreign agents in Soltan's death. The protesters in Tehran Wednesday accused Hejazi of being behind Soltan's killing and demanded his extradition, even though he is not facing any charges in Iran. "We want you to extradite Neda Agha Soltan Murderer" read a placard carried by the women. They also chanted "U.K. and U.S. perpetrators." The provost of Queen's College, Paul Madden, said the names of scholarships were decided, "within reason," by donors. The college did not disclose the donors behind the Soltan scholarship, but said the key individual was a British citizen who is well known to the college. The scholarship is open to all philosophy students, with preference given to Iranians and those of Iranian descent. The first holder is Arianne Shahvisi, studying for a master's degree in the philosophy of physics.

***********************************************************************

I found it interesting that there were no photographs accompanying this AP article showing the women protestors against the UK and USA. Makes me wonder - how many were there? One? Two? Couldnt' the ruling regime bribe more of them to come out and parade around in their burkas? Compare to the photo I found at The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the Iranian 30th anniversary of the "revolution" and takover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. During the government-sponsored photo-ops, anti-government protestors took to the streets and their images were captured and broadcast world-wide via cell phone and You Tube videos. The photo I published above shows several women (I counted ten) in the midst of the protests with Iranian police threatening them with batons, etc. on November 5, 2009. Here is the link to the article and the caption to the photo: European Pressphoto Agency Iranian riot police clash with protesters criticizing the government in Tehran on Wednesday, the same day as an annual anti-American rally organized by the state.

The Writing on the Wall

Prior post. It ain't over 'til it's over... The Lede at The New York Times and Nico Pitney at The Huffington Post (continual) have been blogging about the election and its aftermath in Iran. MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN... Tonight the NYT carried this story - and lead photograph (copyright Associated Press). Here is a quote from the story: ... A young woman, her clothing covered in blood, ran up Kargar Street, paused for a moment and said, “I am not scared, because we are in this together.” The tradition of the pre-islamic warrior woman is alive and well in Iran.

Allah-u-Akbar

(Times reported are New York time) 4:54 p.m. New York Times Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen was out on Tehran’s streets on Saturday and has filed this account of what he witnessed. Here is some of what he reports: I don’t know where this uprising is leading. I do know some police units are wavering. That commander talking about his family was not alone. There were other policemen complaining about the unruly Basij. Some security forces just stood and watched. “All together, all together, don’t be scared,” the crowd shouted. I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!” Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her. There were people of all ages. I saw an old man on crutches, middle-aged office workers and bands of teenagers. Unlike the student revolts of 2003 and 1999, this movement is broad. [...] Later, we moved north, tentatively, watching police lash out from time to time, reaching Victory Square where a pitched battle was in progress. Young men were breaking bricks and stones to the right size for hurling. Crowds gathered on overpasses, filming and cheering the protesters. A car burst into flames. Back and forth the crowd surged, confronted by less-than-convincing police units. I looked up through the smoke and saw a poster of the stern visage of Khomeini above the words, “Islam is the religion of freedom.” Later, as night fell over the tumultuous capital, from rooftops across the city, the defiant sound of “Allah-u-Akbar” — “God is Great” — went up yet again, as it has every night since the fraudulent election, but on Saturday it seemed stronger. 3:09 p.m. The BBC has posted accounts from several eyewitnesses of today’s events in Tehran, including this one, from someone identified as Siavash: I was part of the protest in Valiasr Square. When we got there, there were riot police and plain clothes guards shooting at people, I could see that people had been shot and were on the ground. There were also water cannons. We decided to head towards Azadi Square, and there were guards on motorbikes and attacking people with batons. There were thousands of people out on the streets the police were using tear gas - the whole experience was terrifying. Towhid (Unity) Square looked like a battle ground. There were lots of female protestors - I saw a guard attack one women and then she went back up to him and grabbed him by the collar and said ‘why are you doing this? Are you not an Iranian?’ - he was totally disarmed and didn’t know what to do but her actions stopped him. There were no ambulances around - people were helping each other - helping the wounded - taking them to safety away from further attacks. Another opposition supporter who contacted the BBC said: We will continue to protest and we have several reasons to do so. First because we demand our rights. Second because were not afraid. Third - we will not be fooled. And fourth - in this way, the true face of this regime will be revealed to the whole world. 2:19 p.m. The video of a young woman who was apparently shot in Tehran today has been uploaded to many Web sites and Facebook pages this afternoon. One of our readers comments: Make special note of that unarmed innocent Girl shot and bleeding from her mouth, nose, eyes, ears…..hundreds of copies just went up on Youtube. The tide of the ‘79 revolution was turned overnight by a similar front-page photo of a Soldier at point blank range shooting an un-armed protester. Update 1:45 p.m. CNN has aired a very graphic and disturbing video clip which was uploaded to YouTube and Facebook on Saturday, showing a young woman who has been shot, bleeding profusely. (WARNING: Please be advised before you click on the link below that these are truly horrifying images.) On both Facebook and YouTube, the video comes with this explanation, written by someone who says that he was present when this video was shot and describes what it shows: Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know. Again, we have no way of knowing when or where the video was shot, or if this reader’s account is accurate, due to the intense restrictions on first-hand reporting imposed on the press inside Iran. More. President Obama said it best: The world is watching.

Women Warriors

I've made a point in this blog of writing about some of the history of women in war and women warriors. It is a tradition that goes back into the mists of time, something about which I am still learning (for we sure didn't study any of this stuff in school!) and now studying. (A few good resources to get you started: "Warrior Women," by Jeannine Davis Kimball, Ph.D.; "Women Warriors: A History," by David E. Jones; "Woman As Force in Long History: A Study in Traditions and Realities", by Mary Beard) Women have always fought, usually side by side with their husbands, fathers and brothers. History has given short-shrift to them, but there are examples from every age of women warriors who have made it into the history books. The thought of women being "too fragile" to fight seems to be a peculiarly late 19th century concept out of the age of Victoria that, at some levels, still seems to hold root in popular imagination in western cultures today but which denies a very different reality. Now, with the advent of "modern" warfare, more women warriors than ever are being injured and killed in the line of duty. This op-ed piece from The New York Times brings home some bitter truths about a different kind of injury in today's reality of women in war: For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care By HELEN BENEDICT Published: May 26, 2008 THIS Memorial Day, as an ever-increasing number of mentally and physically wounded soldiers return from Iraq, the Department of Veterans Affairs faces a pressing crisis: women traumatized not only by combat but also by sexual assault and harassment from their fellow service members. Sadly, the department is failing to fully deal with this problem. Women make up some 15 percent of the United States active duty forces, and 11 percent of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served. This sort of abuse drastically increases the risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress disorder. One study found that female soldiers who were sexually assaulted were nine times more likely to show symptoms of this disorder than those who weren’t. Sexual harassment by itself is so destructive, another study revealed, it causes the same rates of post-traumatic stress in women as combat does in men. And rape can lead to other medical crises, including diabetes, asthma, chronic pelvic pain, eating disorders, miscarriages and hypertension. The threat of post-traumatic stress has risen in recent years as women’s roles in war have changed. More of them now come under fire, suffer battle wounds and kill the enemy, just as men do. As women return for repeat tours, usually redeploying with their same units, many must go back to war with the same man (or men) who abused them. This leaves these women as threatened by their own comrades as by the war itself. Yet the combination of sexual assault and combat has barely been acknowledged or studied. Last month, when the RAND Corporation released the biggest non-military survey of the mental health of troops since 2001, it unwittingly reflected this lack of research. The survey found that women suffer from higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression than men do, but it neglected to look into why this might be, and asked no questions about abuse from fellow soldiers. Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-editor, told me that RAND needs more money to explore these higher rates of trauma among women. As the more than 191,500 women who have served in the Middle East since 2001 return home, they will increasingly flood the Veterans Affairs system. To ask those who need help for post-traumatic stress disorder to turn to a typical Veterans Affairs hospital, built in the 1950s and designed to treat men, is untenable. Women who have been raped or sexually assaulted often cannot face therapy groups or medical facilities full of men. At the moment, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates only six inpatient post-traumatic stress disorder programs specifically for women. And although all 153 department-run hospitals will treat women, only 22 have stand-alone women’s clinics that offer a full range of medical and psychological services. This number of clinics may seem adequate for the 1.7 million female veterans currently at home, especially since they represent only 7.2 percent of all veterans at the moment, but it isn’t. Many clinics are miles from where soldiers live, and many more are open only a few hours a week and lack staff members trained to deal with sexual assault, let alone assault combined with combat trauma. The Department of Veterans Affairs says it plans to open more clinics for post-traumatic stress disorder, but how many will be only for women remains undecided. Women are the fastest-growing group of veterans, and by 2020 they are projected to account for 20 percent of all veterans under the age of 45. Not all of these women will have suffered sexual assault, but many will have medical or psychological needs that conventional department hospitals cannot meet. The Department of Veterans Affairs must open more comprehensive women’s health clinics, designate more facilities for women who have endured both combat and military sexual trauma and finance more support groups specifically for female combat veterans. The best way to honor all of our soldiers is to do what we can to help them mend. Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia, is the author of the novel “The Opposite of Love” and the forthcoming “The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq.” ************************************************************************************* I did not publish this piece to denigrate the service of our male warriors. They, too, are being short-changed by inadequate funding of veterans' support and medical services. The situation as it exists today is absolutely appalling! If our President is willing to send our brave members of the armed forces and the armed forces reserves into dangerous combat situations, we as a nation should do whatever it takes and fund whatever it costs to serve them and treat them when they are injured as a result of service for their country. Anything less is just a disgrace, pure and simple. If we have trillions to fight wars in foreign lands, why don't we have trillions to treat and provide services to our veterans? Shame shame on the President. Shame shame on Congress.