Bronze Age burial site of powerful woman discovered under ancient palace in Spain

From The Art Newspaper:

Archaeologists excavating at La Almoloya, Spain, have discovered a grave filled with precious items and the remains of a woman, who may have been a ruler or powerful member of society. The woman was buried alongside a man in a large pot in around 1700 BC, beneath the floor of what may be western Europe’s earliest palace.

The majority of the grave’s objects, and particularly those of silver, were found with the woman, including a rare silver diadem, still worn on her head. Scholars argue that this was a symbol of power in El Argar society, which existed in south-eastern Spain from around 2200 to 1550 BC. Among the woman’s other grave goods were a set of silver earlobe tunnel-plugs; silver spirals that were perhaps part of her headdress; two silver bracelets; a necklace; and a silver ring on one of her fingers. In total, the burial contained about 230g of silver. The man’s objects, by contrast, were less prestigious.

read more here @ The Art Newspaper

“The Red Lady of El Mirón”

Red Lady of El Mirón bones stained in 'blood-like' paint baffle archaeologists | Daily Mail Online

A robust, relatively tall, apparently healthy, probably female adult was buried at the rear of the living area in El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Cordillera of Spain about 18,700 calendar years ago. She had lived in the cold, open environment of Oldest Dryas, with a subsistence based on hunting mainly ibex and red deer, fishing salmon and some gathering of plants, including some starchy seeds and mushrooms. The technology of her group included the manufacture and use of stone tools and weapon elements made on both excellent-quality non-local flint and local non-flints, as well as antler projectile tips and bone needles. Her burial may have been marked by rock engravings suggestive of a female personage, by red ochre staining of a large block adjacent to her skeleton, and by engravings on the adjacent cave wall, and the burial layer itself was intensely stained with red ochre rich in specular hematite specially obtained from an apparently non-local source. 

Read More Here @ Daily Mail and Here @ Science Direct

Penny Feiwel - International Brigade in Spain

From the Independent:

Penny Feiwel was the last of the British women who served as volunteers on the side of the Spanish Republic during the civil war of 1936-39.

She was one of about 75 women from Britain who joined the International Brigades following the military coup launched by Francisco Franco and other generals with backing from Hitler and Mussolini. Like Feiwel, known in Spain by her maiden name of Phelps, most of them were nurses and worked in makeshift frontline hospitals in conditions of great hardship and danger. Phelps herself suffered serious injuries in a bombing raid that put an end to her service in Spain.

In 1992 she published her memoir, English Penny, under the pen-name Penny Fyvel. In 2009, she and a small group of surviving International Brigade veterans attended a ceremony at the Spanish embassy in London to be awarded Spanish citizenship. Ambassador Carles Casajuana told them: "Your efforts were not in vain. Your ideals are part of the foundations of our democracy in Spain today."

Killer Heels - Medieval Style

From the Telegraph:

Impractically high heels, known as chopines, were worn by upper-class women in Italy and Spain during the late Renaissance era.

The higher the heel, the longer - and therefore more expensive - the dress needed to cover them, and the more servants needed to support the wearer.

Men briefly embraced heels in the 17th century, but the fashion did not last long, she added. "Except for horseback riding and a blip in the 1970s, heels have been a woman's accessory."

Spain: Abortion Protests

From Associated Press:

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Madrid Saturday to condemn plans by Spain's socialist government to liberalise abortion laws in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

In warm autumnal sunshine, protesters staged an early evening march across the city behind a huge banner reading "Every Life Matters" to protest the plan, which would allow girls of 16 to undergo abortions without their parents' consent.

The crowd, which included many families and people of all ages, rallied in the central Plaza de Independencia, where pop music blared over loudspeakers and 300 white helium balloons were released.

The proposed abortion law, approved by the cabinet last month, would allow the procedure on demand for women of 16 and over up to the 14th week of pregnancy, and up to 22 weeks if there was a risk to the mother's health or if the foetus was deformed.

Women could also undergo the procedure after 22 weeks if the foetus had a serious or incurable illness.

Spain decriminalised abortion in 1985, a decade after the death of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, but only for certain cases: up to 12 weeks of pregnancy after a rape; up to 22 weeks in the case of malformation of the foetus; and at any point if the pregnancy represents a threat to the physical or mental health of the woman.

Thin is out - Real is in

From Forbes:

Germany's highest-circulation women's magazine says it will stop working with professional models next year in favor of women whose bodies better resemble those of its readers.

Andreas Lebert, editor-in-chief for Brigitte magazine, said future photo spreads will feature a mix of prominent and unknown women who "have an identity" instead of those with "protruding bones."

The move is the latest restriction on ultra-thin models, including a 2007 Spanish law banning the extremely thin from catwalks.

Brigitte has suffered a steady drop in readers over the past 20 years but with more than 719,000 copies sold per issue it remains Germany's most-read women's magazine.

From ABC News:

At his London fashion week show, designer Mark Fast decided that big was the new black. He used three plus-size models to showcase his trademark tight knitted dresses.

The decision to use size 12s and 14s instead of the standard size zero models led to a very public row between Mark Fast and his creative team. One of his stylists resigned on the spot, refusing to dress what were referred to as bigger girls.

Bigger girls to some, but at Germany's most popular women's magazine, they are simply referred to as normal.

One of the fashion directors at Brigitte is so fed up with having to photoshop skinny models to make them look fatter and healthier that she has decided to stop using models altogether in favour of real women.

The Song of the Cid

The movie "El Cid" is one of my favourites - I have this "thing" for Charleton Heston.

Anyway, this article from Medieval News caught my eye and I thought you might enjoy reading it too - El Cid written by an Arab

"The medieval epic poem "El Cantar del Mio Cid" (The Song of the Cid), a Spanish-language account of the adventures of a warlord and nobleman during the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims, is not as Spanish as generally believed but instead was written by a Arab poet, a scholar says."