About 3,700 years ago, a man and a woman were buried together in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula. Their tomb was an ovoid vase under the floor of a large hall in a large hilltop complex known as La Almoloya, in what is now Murcia, Spain. It is one of the many archaeological sites associated with the El Argar culture from the early Bronze Age that controlled an area the size of Belgium from 2,200 BC to 1,500 BC
Judging by the 29 high-value objects in the tomb, described on Thursday in the Antiquity newspaper, the couple appears to have belonged to the upper argaric class. And the woman may have been the more important of the two, raising questions for archaeologists about who wielded power among the Argarians and adding more evidence to a debate about the role of women in prehistoric Europe.
She died in her 20s, possibly from tuberculosis, and was placed on her back with her legs bent towards the man. In life, she had a series of congenital anomalies, such as a shortened and fused spine and an atrophied left thumb.
Above her and around her were sublime silver emblems of wealth and power. Her hair had been tied with silver coils, and her silver lobed protectors – one larger than the other – had silver coils wrapped around them. A silver bracelet was near his elbow and a silver ring was still on his finger. Silver embellished the diamond-shaped ceramic pot next to it, and triple silver plates embellished its oak awl – a symbol of femininity.
His most fantastic silver artifact is an impeccably crafted diadem – a crown shaped like a band – that was still on his head. Only six were discovered in Argaric’s tombs.
She would have shone in life. “Imagine the diadem with a disc going down to the tip of the nose,” said Cristina Rihuete Herrada, a archaeologist and professor of prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and one of the discoverers of the tomb. “It’s shining. You can really see yourself on the disc. Framing that woman’s eyes, it would be a very, very impressive thing to see. And someone’s ability to be reflected – his face in another face – would have been a bit of a shock. ”
Her sound would also have been dramatic: “Think about the noise – that tinkling, tinkling, because it is silver against silver in those very large ear lobes,” said Rihuete Herrada. “That would be a remarkable person.”
The man, who was in his 30s when he died, was buried with his own fines, including gold plugs burned in his ears. The silver ring on his finger had fallen off and was close to his lower back. Beside him was a copper dagger with four silver rivets.
Like their contemporaries – like the Minoans of Crete, the Wessex of Great Britain and the Unetice of Central Europe – the Argarians had the marks of a state society, with a governing bureaucracy, geopolitical borders, complex settlement systems and urban centers with structures monumental. They had divisions of labor and class distinctions that persisted after death, based on the wide disparity in mortal goods discovered at archaeological sites.
And while most of these systems were considered to be deeply patriarchal, the double burial at La Almoloya and other araric graves are causing archaeologists to reconsider life in the ancient Iberian Peninsula. Was she the one who held the power? She was a symbol of power, but didn’t she own any of her property? Did they share power or did they exercise it in different domains?
They were buried under the floor of a large hall, where long benches lined the walls, and a podium stood in front of a fireplace designed to heat and light, not to cook. The space was large enough to accommodate about 50 people. “Hundreds of buildings in El Argar have been excavated and this one is unique. It is clearly a building specialized in politics, ”said Rihuete Herrada.
The couple had at least one child – a baby discovered buried under a nearby building was a genetic combination for the two.
In the El Argar culture, girls received mortal goods earlier than boys, indicating that they were considered women before boys were considered men. Diadems are found exclusively with women, and their graves contain a richer variety of valuable goods. Some elite male warriors were buried with swords.
As for the power structure that the two occupied, Dr. Rihuete Herrada suggests that perhaps they had strength in different kingdoms. Swords can suggest “that the application of government decisions will be in the hands of men. Perhaps women were political leaders, but not alone, ”she said.
She suggests that perhaps the Argarians were similar to the matrilineal Haudenosaunee (also known as Iroquois), with women holding political and decision-making powers – including issues of leadership, war and justice – but men controlling the military.
These intriguing ideas fit into an emerging body of research from various archaeological studies in Europe that are reexamining female power during the Bronze Age.
“The fact that most mortal goods, including all silver fittings, are associated with women clearly points to an individual considered to be very important,” said Karin Frei, a research professor in archeometry at the National Museum of Denmark. “It makes sense to raise the question of whether a class-based state society could be governed by women.”
Dr. Frei is the director of the Bronze Age People’s Tales, which uses methods such as biogeochemical and biomolecular analysis to study the remains of elite and commoner graves in Denmark. “In various parts of Bronze Age Europe, women may have played a much larger role in political and / or long-distance networks than previously thought,” she said.
Joanna Bruck, a Bronze Age expert in Britain and Ireland and head of the School of Archeology at University College Dublin, says the assumption that elite women of this time were “exchanged brides”, exchanged as objects in networks male power, is ripe for reconsideration.
The burial in La Almoloya “provides clear evidence that women could have had special political power in the past,” said Bruck. “I think we should be open to the possibility that they have the power and the agency. Of course, power is a very complex thing. You may have power in some contexts, but not in others. We must not think that power is something you have or don’t have. “