Facial reconstruction made of Bronze Age woman 'Ava'

Facial reconstruction made of Bronze Age woman 'Ava' - BBC News

A facial reconstruction has been made of a young woman who died more than 3,700 years ago.  The woman's bones, including a skull and teeth, were discovered at Achavanich in Caithness in 1987.  Known as "Ava", an abbreviation of Achavanich, she is the subject of a long-term research project managed by archaeologist Maya Hoole.

Forensic artist Hew Morrison, a graduate of the University of Dundee, created the reconstruction.  Ava's remains, along with other artefacts found with her, are held in the care of Caithness Horizons museum in Thurso.  Unusually, the Bronze Age woman was buried in a pit dug into solid rock and her skull is an abnormal shape which some suggest was the result of deliberate binding.

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Archaeologists Unearth Thracian Princess Grave

Archaeologists Unearth Thracian Princess Grave Rich with Jewelry and Mythic Meaning | Ancient Origins

The remains of an ancient Thracian noblewoman that was ritually dismembered has been unearthed along with bronze and silver jewelry buried with her in a rock tomb in the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria.

Researchers are speculating the “Thracian princess,” as she is being called, was torn apart after death during ceremonies linked to the Orphic mysteries about 2,300 years ago. Dismemberment was not a mark of disfavor but rather an honor accorded to Thracian nobility and clerics.

The woman had a Greek silver coin that was possibly placed under her tongue as an obol or offering to Charon, the mythical figure of Greece, Rome and Thrace who ferried the dead across the rivers Styx and Acheron into their afterlife in Hades.

The body of the woman was in five pieces with her skull propped up on two rocks and sitting on a silver tiara, says the blog Archaeology in Bulgaria. The ancient people hewed her grave into the rock of the mountains. The archaeologist who discovered the burial, Assistant Professor Lyubin Leshtakov of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, speculates there may be a necropolis or rock mausoleum there and hopes to find more graves, the blog states.

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Skeleton of woman with jewels in her teeth

Skeleton of 1,600-year-old woman with jewels in her TEETH found in Mexican burial ground | Daily Mail Online

Decorating teeth with jewels may be popular among some groups today, but it seems the idea was around in Mexico more than a thousand years ago.

Archaeologists have discovered the skeleton of an upper-class woman whose skull was intentionally deformed and her teeth encrusted with mineral stones.

The type of jewels found in her teeth show the woman was foreign to the region, and her skeleton was more deformed than any found before. 

The body was discovered near Mexico's ancient ruins of Teotihuacan, at a town called San Juan Evangelista.

The woman, between 35 and 40 years old when she died, was buried with 19 jars that served as offerings, the National Anthropology and History Institute said.

Her cranium was elongated by being compressed in a 'very extreme' manner - a technique commonly used in the southern part of Mesoamerica, not the central region where she was found, the institute said.

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Meet the feminist pioneers who helped shape Central Australia

Meet the feminist pioneers who helped shape Central Australia - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Life in Central Australia is a tough, isolated existence, and for women in decades past confined by the gender roles of their era, the challenges were enormous.

Bringing up children, trying to cook nutritious meals, and running households thousands of kilometres from family and friends meant these women had to make the most of what was available to them.

The concept of feminism, as we know it today, was not one society recognised, but these tenacious and resilient pioneers certainly left their mark.

ABC Local Radio spoke to family members and others who have been touched by the legacy of these remarkable women.

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'The World's Oldest Profession'

'The World's Oldest Profession' May Not Be What You Think

Next to prostitution, wet-nursing (being hired to breastfeed another woman’s child) is perhaps one of the world’s oldest professions for women; nearly every advanced civilization employed some version of it. There are countless examples: a Sumerian lullaby from 3000 BC makes mention of a nursemaid suckling; King Tut built a lavish tomb to honor his own wet nurse; Islamic law views two children having suckled milk from the same woman as a lifelong form of kinship equal to that of a blood relative; ancient Romans could bring their hungry infants to the Columna Lactaria for a nursing; and in the medieval kingdom of Castile, wet nurses for royal children were hired for one or two decades and became governesses after weaning.

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Unique Tomb of Viking Power Couple

Unique Tomb Found in Denmark Contains Remains of Viking Power Couple - History in the Headlines

A large burial ground located at Hårup in southwest Denmark is the site of the latest striking find from the Viking world. The wooden building, originally discovered in 2012 by engineers building a highway, was later identified as a 10th-century Viking tomb known as a dødehus (death house). Judging from the grave markings and items found with the remains, archaeologists have concluded that the man and woman buried in the tomb were likely noble–or at least highly distinguished–and had international connections.

The unique wooden structure found in Hårup and identified as a Viking dødehus, or death house, measures some 13 by 42 feet and contains three graves dating to 950 A.D. In the main part of the building, archaeologists found the remains of a man and a woman; the third grave, which appears to have been added later, contained the remains of a second man.

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Women Rulers of the Arab & Muslim World

Women Rulers of the Arab & Muslim World

From Indonesia to Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan to Nigeria, Senegal to Turkey, it is not particularly rare in our own times for women in Muslim-majority countries to be appointed and elected to high offices—including heads of state. Nor has it ever been.

Stretching back more than 14 centuries to the advent of Islam, women have held positions among many ruling elites, from malikas, or queens, to powerful advisors. Some ascended to rule in their own right; others rose as regents for incapacitated husbands or male successors yet too young for a throne. Some proved insightful administrators, courageous military commanders or both; others differed little from equally flawed male potentates who sowed the seeds of their own downfalls.

Read more here from Tom Verde: Khayzuran & Zubayda , Radiyya bint Iltutmish , Shajarat Al-Durr

The Radium Girls

The Radium Girls documents the war women factory workers health battle | Life | Life

It was the miracle of the age, the secret of vibrant health, the magic formula for a brighter life. It turned darkness into light. It was liquid sunshine. Radium, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in December, 1898. It seemed the most exciting element imaginable. It was also one of the most dangerous. It didn’t take long to become a widely available sensation.

Who would not want a watch you could see in the dark? And what young woman doing low-paid clerical work in a boring office would not want to enhance her pay packet and status with a skilled job in a company riding the crest of the luminous wave.

To work at the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation in Newark, New Jersey, was to be part of something special.

While the company’s scientist owner laboured away in his laboratory exploring new ways of exploiting radium, the women were working with maximum speed applying precious radium to the hands and faces of watches, helping feed a demand that was nighon insatiable.

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