200 YEARS A WOMAN, 1000 YEARS A MAN: THE CASE OF THE MARBURG MUMMY (original) (raw)
2021, Rev. Arqueologia Pública
For 200 years, in the Museum Anatomicum of the Philipps University of Marburg (Germany), an Andean mummy is exhibited that, since its arrival in the collection, has been inventoried as a woman. This gender attribution was made based mainly on her long hair. As a recent investigation has been able to reveal, this gender assignment is incorrect, which has been confirmed by studying the grave goods. In this article, it will be shown that this attribution to the female gender is a social and cultural construction, typical of the time when the mummy arrived in Marburg. The present analysis intends to deconstruct the previous assumptions, investigating the bioanthropological and archaeological evidences.
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