Female Identity in Roman London, 2014 (MA thesis 2013) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Medicina nei Secoli 23.1, 2011
The article considers how burial evidence might contribute to the undestarnding of gender, i.e. the socio-cultural construction of sexual difference, as a dynamic aspect of identity in a roman province, with a particular focus on women. This subject has hitherto received limited attention and its potential is too great to explore fully in a short paper. Given this costraint, the article indicates possibilities and problems rather than to offer definitive conclusions. Its emphasis lies on Roman Britain, but similar questions could be applied to other parts of the roman world.
This article concerns the characterization of Roman artifacts so that they can play a greater role in gendered approaches to Roman sites—sites that constitute lived spaces but lack actual references to sexed bodies. It commences with a brief discussion on gendered approaches in the two main strands of Roman archaeology—classical and provincial. Within the differing frameworks of the wider disciplines of classics and archaeology, both strands focus on contexts with sexed bodies—burials, figurative representation, and inscriptions. The discussion serves as a background for more integrated and more interrogative approaches to relationships between Roman artifacts and gendered practices, approaches that aim to develop interpretative tools for investigating social practice in contexts where no representational or biologically sexed bodies are evident. Three types of artifacts—brooches, glass bottles, and needles—are used to demonstrate how differing degrees of gender associations of artifacts and artifact assemblages can provide insights into gender relationships in settlement contexts. These insights in turn contribute to better understandings of gendered sociospatial practices across the Roman world. www.ajaonline.org/forum/1944
Characterizing Roman Artifacts to Investigate Gendered Practices in Contexts Without Sexed Bodies
American Journal of Archaeology, 2015
This article concerns the characterization of Roman artifacts so that they can play a greater role in gendered approaches to Roman sites-sites that constitute lived spaces but lack actual references to sexed bodies. It commences with a brief discussion on gendered approaches in the two main strands of Roman archaeology-classical and provincial. Within the differing frameworks of the wider disciplines of classics and archaeology, both strands focus on contexts with sexed bodies-burials, figurative representation, and inscriptions. The discussion serves as a background for more integrated and more interrogative approaches to relationships between Roman artifacts and gendered practices, approaches that aim to develop interpretative tools for investigating social practice in contexts where no representational or biologically sexed bodies are evident. Three types of artifacts-brooches, glass bottles, and needles-are used to demonstrate how differing degrees of gender associations of artifacts and artifact assemblages can provide insights into gender relationships in settlement contexts. These insights in turn contribute to better understandings of gendered sociospatial practices across the Roman world.* * I am grateful to Carol van Driel-Murray, Margarita Díaz Andreu, Katherine Huntley, Daan van Helden, Tom Derrick, and the anonymous reviewers for the AJA for their comments on drafts of this article. Any errors or misunderstandings are my own. I would also like to thank Debbie Miles-Williams for producing the figures.
The study focuses on the Roman gravestone of a British woman named Regina who died in the second half of the second century AD at the Roman fort of Arbeia (South Shields) at the mouth of the Tyne and was commemorated by her Palmyrene husband. The paper examines the Latin and Aramaic inscriptions on Regina’s gravestone, the depiction of her ethnic clothing and bodily adornment, and the portrayal of the deceased as a woman skilled in wool-working in order to contextualise and understand the important messages the monument conveys about physical mobility, ethnicity, social standing, and gender relationships on Rome’s northern frontier.
A woman's world: a bioarchaeological approach to the Romano-British female life course
2019
This thesis examines Romano-British women using a life course approach and from a holistic perspective by combining archaeological, historical and biological information. Within the female life course three physical events or transitions occur which directly relate to shifts within society: puberty, childbirth and menopause. These transitions were explored using 436 females between the ages of 10.0 and 44.9 from 11 southern Romano-British urban centres. These sites are of different legal status and size, with some examples bordering between urban and rural, providing insights into the lower status and local populations as well as towns of higher legal status. All individuals are dated to the later (2nd – 5 th century) Roman period. The Females between 10.0 and 24.9 years of age were included within the puberty subsample (n=136) and placed into six categories ranging from Initiation to Completion. Puberty primarily took place over 5 years with a mean age for menarche of 14.1 years. T...
2007
A decline in female status has often been assumed in works addressing Roman Britain. Few authors have, however, discussed the role of age in gender configurations or as a component of age identity. This thesis utilized Late pre-Roman Iron Age/Early Roman and Romano-British data from mortuary contexts in Dorset, England, to explore the extent to which Roman contact affected social organization in this region, particularly gender and age configurations, and how these changes, if present, manifested themselves in mortuary contexts. The null hypothesis tested by this research was that there were no changes in social organization related to gender and age identities and that any change, if identified, was unrelated to the Roman conquest of Britain. Statistical analyses of the data indicated that social organization in the region did, in fact, undergo changes, expressed as a renegotiation of social categories characterized by striking contextual complexity – male/female, subadult/adult, rural/urban and elite/commoner. The sex-based evidence for changing gender configurations did not take many of the forms seen in other ethnographic contexts. There was, for instance, no decline in grave good distribution particular to one sex, nor were there gendered differences in the majority of funerary behaviors in the largely rural sample or the more urbanized population. Differences were obscured in the interment rates for males and females by an apparent Romano-British increase in the use of the “invisible rite” – excarnation through exposure – for females in rural populations. In the more urbanized population female burials become more strongly gendered, as can be seen in the striking change in the number of artifact types found as grave goods. Both rural and urban transformations were likely due to the changing opportunities and roles available to males and females in Roman Britain. The age of the deceased was found to have played a greater role in mortuary treatment than has hitherto been recognized, with striking differences in LPRIA/Early Roman and Romano-British subadult:adult interment rates and differential age-related mortuary patterning likely reflecting changing concepts of gender and age identity.