DNA explodes Greek myth about women

[Viggen]

Women in Ancient Greece were major power brokers in their own right, researchers have discovered, and often played key roles in running affairs of state. Until now it was thought they were treated little better than servants. The discovery is part of an investigation by Manchester researchers into the founders of Mycenae, Europe's first great city-state and capital of King Agamemnon's domains...

 

full article at the Guardian

[Nephele]

Hold on a minute...

 

Professor Terry Brown of Manchester University is saying that everything previously thought about women's status in ancient Greece is now wrong, based on his discovery that mitochondrial DNA, extracted from the remains of a man and a woman discovered in the same "richly endowed grave", shows that the woman was not the ruler's wife but rather his sister?

 

Does the fact that an ancient Grecian power-broker found buried with his sister really prove that men and women of his era might have been "of equal status and had equal power" -- considering that there might have been another reason for the sister to have been buried with him? And, wouldn't more evidence, than that found from a single pair of remains, be required to come to such a conclusion about women's status in ancient Greece?

 

-- Nephele

[WotWotius]

Said woman may well have also have been the man's wife and thus still exerted power through her husband. We do, after all, know very little of the mentality of the period.

 

Further, I resent archaeology being dubbed a 'male-oriented' field: so-called 'feminist' archaeology has been a quite a notable factor in the subject since 1970s. This is especially true in both the study of ethnographic analogies and in anthropology.

[Nephele]

Said woman may well have also have been the man's wife and thus still exerted power through her husband. We do, after all, know very little of the mentality of the period.

 

True. But do we have reason to believe that the rulers of ancient Mycenae married their sisters?

 

Further, I resent archaeology being dubbed a 'male-oriented' field: so-called 'feminist' archaeology has been a quite a notable factor in the subject since 1970s. This is especially true in both the study of ethnographic analogies and in anthropology.

 

I absolutely agree, and would love to see more evidence of women having held a greater role in ancient civilization. Such evidence has been found from time to time. But I'd also hate to see any credibility for such a position possibly damaged by inconclusive evidence being offered up as "proof" that all previous notions were wrong.

 

-- Nephele

[WotWotius]

Said woman may well have also have been the man's wife and thus still exerted power through her husband. We do, after all, know very little of the mentality of the period.

 

True. But do we have reason to believe that the rulers of ancient Mycenae married their sisters?

 

Not to my knowledge: this could either be a case of evidence of absence or absence of evidence. Who knows.

 

If we cautiously draw an analogy with Pharaonic practices in Egypt at this time, we could have some sort of grounds for an argument. But to compare these vastly different cultures could be deemed foolhardy.

 

This is just a drawn out way of saying that I know very little about the Bronze Age Aegean...