Wanted: Adriana Rivas

Adriana Rivas with Manuel Contreras

From the Australian:

AUSTRALIA is being asked by Chile's Supreme Court to extradite a woman accused of involvement in torture and murder during Chile's 1973-1990 military dictatorship.

The court requested the extradition of Adriana Rivas overnight.

She is wanted for her role in the 1976 murder of a Communist Party leader who was held in a secret prison before he was suffocated and thrown into the ocean.

Ms Rivas was assistant to Manuel Contreras, the head of the DINA secret police during General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

She moved to Australia in 1978 but was detained during a visit to Chile in 2006.

Ms Rivas was released after some months on probation and escaped to Australia.

In an interview last year with SBS, she insisted she was innocent of the charges.

From SBS: The Other 9/11

Obit: Professor Halet Çambel

From Hurryet Daily News:

One of the most important figures in the archaeology world, Istanbul University’s retired academic Professor Halet Çambel, has died aged 98. Turkish archaeologist and writer Çambel was found dead in her house on Jan. 12. 

After a ceremony to be held tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Bosphorus University, Çambel will be buried next to the grave of her husband in the western province of Muğla. 

She played a key role in the understanding of Hittite hieroglyphics by discovering a tablet with the Phoenician alphabet, which allowed philologists to decipher the inscription. 

Medieval Women & Armour

Rather interesting article from  - What Kind of Armour Did Medieval Women Really Wear:

We know that skimpy armor that shows off a woman's cleavage is rather impractical for combat and that sculpted "boob plate" armor can be a hazard to your health, but on occasions that women did don armor in medieval Europe, what kind of armor did they actually wear? And is shapely, feminine armor a modern convention, or does it have some roots in the Middle Ages?

Even if they aren't necessarily historically accurate, depictions of armor worn by men in European historical fictions or European-inspired fantasies tend to have at least some basis in fact, whereas women's armor is often depicted in a more fantastical manner. There are, of course, the infamous body-bearing suits of armor with scale mail bras and chain mail loin clothes that seem to scream, "Please, stab me in my fleshy stomach!" And then there is the overly sculpted boob-plate breastplate for suits of plate mail, which gives fictional woman warriors the appearance of femininity, but places a rather dangerous metal protrusion right at the wearer's sternum.

History of the Hennin

From Smithsonian dot com:

Nothing says “princess” like a pointy, cone-shaped hat. From kids’ costumes to medieval paintings, the cone hat—more formally known as a hennin (or henin)—is a sure sign of royalty. But here’s something you might not know about the hat that adorn the heads of pale-skinned ladies: they were actually modeled after the hats of Mongol warrior queens.

Medieval PoC points to the book Secret History of the Mongol Queens, where author Jack Weatherford writes:

The contraption struck many foreign visitors as odd, but the Mongol Empire had enjoyed such prestige that medieval women of Europe imitated it with the hennin, a large cone-shaped headdress that sat towards the back of the head rather than rising straight up from it as among the Mongols. With no good source of peacock feathers, European noblewomen generally substituted gauzy streamers flowing in the wind at the top.

More on St Ketevan

Further on from my post "Mystery of Saint Ketevan" in June 2011, comes this article from Past Horizons - Search for relics of martyr Queen Ketevan:

DNA analysis has confirmed that a relic discovered by archaeologists amongst the ruins of St. Augustine’s Church in Goa, southeast India, is likely to be that of 17th century Queen Ketevan from the Kingdom of Kakheti in eastern Georgia.

Since 1989, various delegations from Georgia have worked together with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to locate Ketevan the Martyr’s relics within the Augustinian church which was founded in 1572. There have been several unsuccessful attempts at locating the relics, but finally the continued searching has paid dividends for the team.

As per the literary sources, the relic box of Queen Ketevan was expected to be at the second window of the chapter chapel towards the Epistle side. Therefore, this area was systematically explored in 2004 for a stone sarcophagus, which was found broken into pieces due to the collapse of the wall. Whilst clearing the rubble the team also found an arm bone. Two other bone relics were recovered from outside the second window area, within intact stone boxes.

See also this post on the "Wordcraft & Statecraft" blog: Queen Ketavan's Bones Discovered & Identified

Celebrating Nadia Mehr

From the Malaysia Sun - First Pakistani girl gets doctorate in medieval history in Indian Kashmir:

Nadia Mehr has scripted history by becoming the first Pakistani female to complete a doctorate in medieval history from the Kashmir University here.

She completed her thesis titled: "The Development of Science, Technology, Arts and Language during the Sultanate period in Kashmir". Hailing from Kasur near Lahore, 31-year-old Mehr was selected under the South Asia Foundation programme.

See also the articles from -

The Greater Khasmir:

A Pakistani girl Nadia Mehr daughter of Mehr Din of Lahore, Pakistan has completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History from Kashmir University. She is the first Pakistani girl to have completed the doctorate from this Srinagar-based varsity under the South Asia Foundation (SAF) program.

The KU officials said Nadia pursued the research program vide University Registration No: 52-PhD-2010 from the Institute of Kashmir Studies. She did her thesis on “The Development of Science, Technology, Arts and Language during the Sultanate Period in Kashmir”, under the supervision of Prof Gulshan Majeed, Institute of Kashmir Studies.

The Tribune:

After a difficult visa process, bouts of violence and four years of hard work, Nadia Mehr Din has completed her PhD in history from the University of Kashmir, Srinagar. She is the first Pakistani woman to have completed the doctorate from Indian-administered Kashmir under the South Asia Foundation (SAF) programme, report Kashmiri newspapers.

Her dissertation was titled “The Development of Science, Technology, Arts and Language during the Sultanate Period in Kashmir”, under the supervision of Prof Gulshan Majeed, Institute of Kashmir Studies and she received her degree on December 9.

Stone Babies

From Authint Mail:

An elderly Colombian woman has been found to have a 40-year-old fetus inside her abdomen.

 Such a medical event is an extremely rare occurrence. It is known as a lithopedion, or a “stone baby”. This is the result of an ectopic pregnancy where a fetus happens to be conceived outside of the uterus.

 There have been only about 300 documented cases of lithopedia in recorded medical literature. The earliest which was recorded happened in 1582. In that event, physicians were performing an autopsy on a 68-year-old woman and discovered she had most likely carried a stone baby for almost 30 years.

 However, archaeological evidence reaches back even farther. There is an example of a “stone baby” which was discovered in a fourth century Roman dig in France.

The medical condition was even discussed by the ancient physician Albucasis in a tenth century dissertation even though he did not know what it was.

See also: Zahra Aboutalib and her Sleeping Baby

The Tattooed Priestess’ of Hathor

From Ancient Origins:

She was known as the mother of god and the daughter of god, the eye of god, the creatrix of the rays of the sun, the embodiment of the circular essence of life. She was the Lady of the Limit or the one who spreads to the edge of the universe and the Lady of the West who welcomed souls to the afterlife. She was the goddess of fertility and assisted women in childbirth. She was Hathor the Celestial Cow whose legs formed the pillars of the sky and the Milky Way ran across her belly.

It is this trend towards the marginalization of women within the temple that leads us all the way to the late 19th century when several tattooed female mummies were discovered. Before this discovery only pictures in tombs and on pottery were the best evidence that some Egyptians were tattooed. Previously tiny faience female figurines showing tattoo patterns on their thighs, wrists, abdomen, and upper body had been discovered in tombs and the tattoos on the newly discovered mummies were in many instances almost identical to the figurines.  Suddenly it became obvious that the tiny figurines were actually depicting real tattoos and their meanings could be directly traced to the priestess’ of Hathor.

Statuette of Ankhesamon

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Image by Winifred Brunton

Egypt said Sunday it has recovered a statue of pharaoh Tutankhamun's sister looted from the southern Mallawi museum during riots by supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

 

The 32 centimetre limestone statue of Ankhesamon, sister of the famous boy king and daughter of pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled around 1,500 BC, was stolen on August 14.

 

"The piece is one of the most important in the museum," said antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim in a statement.

Links to Ankhesenamun:
Ankhesenamun on wikipedia
Ankhesenamun on Ancient Egypt Online
Ankhesenamun - Ancient Egypt on St Louis University website
Ankhesenamum on Spiritweb