#MisCourage and telling the whole truth

It's all gone a bit quiet from me recently- not been on Twitter much, been rubbish at replying to emails, not been banging on about archaeology online, not done much writing since coming back from Ireland.

This could just be a natural reaction to the intensity of a Visiting Fellowship, a joyful time which was stuffed to the gunnels with work.

Sadly, that's not what the problem was. The problem was that last Friday I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and have since been going through the process of my body disposing of this poor little misplaced bundle of cells. It's not been much fun. In fact, there was a point on Friday when it looked like I would be in surgery that afternoon. I can't say how thankful I am that this didn't happen and my body has dealt with it without intervention. I'm definitely one of the lucky ones.

I've read other brave posts from scholars writing about how their ongoing conditions have affected their work- what comes across most is their strength to carry on in spite of long term pain. I don't know quite how to explain my own sudden absence except in these brutally honest terms: I've had bigger things to worry about than Etruscans, publications, and even Twitter, like potentially losing a Fallopian tube and leaving my daughter overnight while she is still getting over being separated in Ireland.

Tommy's, a charity that supports families who suffer pregnancy loss and stillbirth, have started a campaign called #MisCourage that encourages people to share their experiences, start a conversation, acknowledge that this happens: it's not all happy endings and cute scan pictures. For some of us, what starts with a joyful little line on a stick ends with tears and tests and ultra towels.

I wanted to join in, to explain, to state what has happened in the last week. But I do feel afraid- is this appropriate, is this too much information, is this really ok for a blog that is deeply tied to my academic identity? But the two things go together- if you've been wondering where I've been, now you know. Is it better to be perceived as an oversharer or a flake?

I'm going with it's better to tell the truth.

The researcher wants a wife...

The researcher wants a wife, the researcher wants a wife, ee ii the adio the researcher wants a wife.

Wife wanted. 1950s style preferred. Satisfaction its own reward, no stipend. You will need to take care of my child full time while I work, be prepared to pick up and move to a new city every 2-3 years for the next 10, keep on top of the lion's share of the housework, do any and all childcare in a strange place while I'm on fieldwork. You certainly won't have time for your own career as I will need all your time to support my own. Oh, and any kids will need to be 100% adaptable to my sudden disappearances and continual new houses and schools.

I'm in Galway, and for the next two weeks I do have a wife (of sorts) as my husband (keep up!) has taken precious annual leave to take care of our daughter while I enjoy the absolute luxury of space to time, think and write here on a Visiting Fellowship.

Our daughter, while coping brilliantly with being with Daddy in the daytime (and my parents for the previous week- thanks Mum and Dad) is clingy and sad at night, and wants to be with me almost continually, waking every two hours. I am, as a result, just a bit tired.

If I had a wife, she would be the primary carer and Silvie would be fine. I wouldn't have to make this wife take Annual Leave. Applying for a post-doc to come back here full time wouldn't be a source of worry and nervousness, it would be an exciting prospect as said wife would just get on with her homely tasks and settle the baby in for me.

Seeing as how no 1950s housewife/free of charge Mary Poppins figure is going to show up and sort this issue out, I'm going to have to keep on juggling, and enjoy the short term time for my own work.

Yet I can't help feeling that the structure of research careers: characterised by prestigious international fellowships, national relocations, and short term contracts, is inherently biased against people with families- men and women.

These posts are underwritten by other people doing the domestic labour - a kind of labour that has traditionally been highly gendered. But in the modern world, your spouse (male or female) is highly unlikely to be a full time domestic god(dess) who can just pack up their hoover and the nappies and move wherever you need to go next.

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm going with just applying for everything and hoping that things fall into place. But if you'd like to be my 1950s wife, get in touch.

Shakespeare, Street Harassment and the Etruscans

Yes, really.

I'm working on the first draft of my second book at the moment. It's great fun, almost a formalised extension of this blog. The big idea is to explore the relevance of Etruscan culture to the modern world, incorporating analyses of historical texts and archaeological materials. But, as I've blogged about before, it's written for a popular audience.

I'm chugging on through- nearly done with Chapter 7. This is my favourite part of the book so far, because it deals with some pet interests of mine- the lives of Etruscan women and the state of modern feminism.

In the course of writing it, though, I've gone down the rabbit hole of chasing a stereotype. Etruscan women were independent and lascivious- everyone knows that. It's a scholarly trope. But where does it come from?

Well, the obvious answer is Livy. But how does Livy wiggle his way into England? Of course, the educated elite might have been reading Ab Urbe Condita for themselves, but Etruscan women also feature in a rowdier format.

In Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece, dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, we have a prologue designed to clarify the poem. Here are the Etruscan women:

“The other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports.”

It's only a sentence, but an interesting one. In the original text, Livy describes the same women as:

"passing their time in feasting and in luxury with their acquaintances."

Shakespeare, has chosen to go further. He deliberately implies that the Etruscan wives are misbehaving- and their misbehaviour has a sexual undertone. The word disport, while meaning unrestrained enjoyment, has a sinful implication here. In several disports? In Elizabethan bawdy talk, disport has a definite link with copulation and sexual play.

The sexual infidelity of Etruscan women is useful to Shakespeare- it sets up a direct contrast with the purity of his Lucrece. It is her chastity, and not her beauty, which first inflames the villainous Sextus Tarquinius, who will go on to rape her and bring down disaster on his family.

In Livy's account, I would argue that there remains an implication that the Etruscan women are responsible for the demise of the Tarquinii as a ruling dynasty. For Shakespeare, however, they are more sinister. It is their sexual availability, not their dedication to luxury, that causes Lucrece's death with its spiralling consequences. One of the poem's messages is that the availability of loose women damages all good women, and not just by repute.

It's a fascinating scenario- one of the first appearances of Etruscan women in the English language. To what extent it is responsible for the survival of the stereotype of Etruscan women, I don't know. But there are plenty of issues in here that impact our lives as women in the 21st century. Women's enjoyment of pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, is still considered problematic by our society. Look at the victim shaming of revenge porn, or the hooting tabloids and the sidebar of shame.

There is another aspect to this shaming behaviour too. A particular politician's recent statements on women-only carriages after the exposure of figures of the rate of sexual harassment on public transport emphasise our daily encounters with the Sextii Tarquinii of the Tube. The rationale of these abusers remains that some women (denigrated with terms like "slut" or "whore")  like their behaviour.

In Shakespeare and in the street, the equivalents of the Etruscan women- women taking pleasure - are still being blamed for attacks on other women.

When will they be absolved of responsibility for the acts of men?

Boobs and bad advice

If you have Twitter, you'll have spotted the latest firestorm over some questionable career advice. A post-doc's advisor can't keep his eyes from her boobs. She should put up and shut up, apparently. Cue rage.

Science, the journal that hosted the agony aunt column, has whisked it down from the internet and popped up a statement condemning such behaviour. I would rather have the original response back. When we condemn behaviour that is inappropriate and troubling in this manner, it is hidden away. We prefer that you never experience this, so when you do we won't give you practical support and guidance to deal with it. It's a different kind of putting up and shutting up, from an even weaker position- one of denial.

Anyway, this ugly little incident got me thinking about mentors. I have been very lucky to have several good ones. My intended PhD supervisor, who head hunted me into specialising in things Etruscan and fostered my frustration with the discipline. My actual PhD supervisor, who taught me how to think, how to write, how to turn failure to success, how to live beyond academe yet enjoy what it offers. My advisor, his practicality and fine tuned bullshit sensors keeping the project together. Field school director, supporting decisions on, or rather in, the ground, backed up by a senior staff who care for each other and good archaeology, not politics and positions. Colleague and project leader, vivacious, courageous, engendering respect wherever she goes. Internal and external examiners, tough but fair, demanding the best. My boss, the best man manager around.

And not one of them looked at my tits. I am one lucky pup. Thank you all.

That brings me to my advice for the Bothered who wrote to Science. You probably have a larger support network than you think. Use it, and get recording the inappropriate behaviour. Find a mentor who will support you in taking action once you've compiled the evidence. Then move against the ogler, not alone but as a team. And know that the online scientific community is totally with you.

***it's 4:45am and I have baby sick in my hair, so apologies if this makes no sense***

Silvia

A slightly better excuse than last time I had a big break from this blog.

Silvia Marianne made her entrance just after midnight on the 18th March, and since then I've been pretty much glued to her- when she's not feeding I want to cuddle her and gaze at her perfect little face. She's unimpressed by archaeology though...

This is great, for now. She'll be a month old, and although it's not been easy (dural puncture, mastitis, all the fun of the forceps fair) it's been bliss getting to know each other and not thinking tough thoughts about things that matter- like dead people and how we think about them.

It's the practicalities of how we think about them that are now starting to worry me. If I take Silvie to the shops, we can dash to the car for a feed. Or a cafe, or even (in some blissfully manipulative shops that sell baby things) a parent and child room. These are options that are not going to be possible in libraries, as I research my new book. I half jokingly floated the idea of bringing a baby to the Sackler Library in Oxford- their lovely Twitter account confirmed it's a no. I'm not surprised- but I'm still slightly disappointed. How are mothers going to access knowledge when baby isn't welcome? I totally get that a squalling infant, projectile milk puke and nappies aren't a good match for ancient books. It just sucks (no pun intended) that the only way I can get my increasingly grubby mitts on the books I need will be by pumping a ton of milk and leaving baby with Daddy on a Saturday- when the library closes early.

I guess that's the reality of having a small person who is totally reliant on you for sustenance. Were Daddy an academic, he could swan off to the library any time he liked. I can't fight the biology, but it does seem a shame that there isn't some space, some flexibility, some understanding. A little room, somewhere in the bowels of a library, where you could plonk your potentially noisy little nuisance and read while they slept, making your crucial notes while they suckle. Just an idea.

In other news, just as I was feeling really rotten (mastitis is NOT fun), an article I wrote has been published in the journal Antiquity. Have a look- I am a scholar, and not just a milk parlour. Or maybe both. That's why I'd quite like a boob room in the Bodleian. Please?

Just a love machine

Not like that. Oooooh no. Nuh uh.

A great review in the New Statesman today of a new book, All That Matters, that is a critique of the way in which pregnant women are conceptualised, socialised and treated by society.

At 36 weeks pregnant this week, I'm thinking more and more (and, being on maternity leave, I have the luxury of time to think) about what it is to be pregnant, what this bodily state is like, and what the lasting memories of this time will be. I've also been thinking about the myriad things I've read, the advice I've been given (both from healthcare professionals and others) and the fears/opinions of other pregnant women on forums that I've browsed, lurked in and occasionally posted on.

And I have to agree with much of what Rebecca Schiller describes in her book, which I must confess I haven't yet finished. But there is a pernicious and dangerous undercurrent of fear and guilt that I have felt exerted upon myself, and witnessed being pushed onto other women, throughout my pregnancy. It makes me furious that even something so simple as feeling your baby move is now a source of anxiety, stress, worry and fear. Haven't felt it move? Go get checked out, or you could have a stillbirth because YOU didn't take action.

It's not just from medical professionals either (as might be implied). Other women policing each others behaviour, peer pressure dressed up as peer support, particularly in an anonymised online context. The continual theme is that if anything happens to your baby it will be your fault- you ate that cheese, you went for that run, you had that glass of wine, you didn't take enough account of your baby's movements. I think that this blaming is the dark side of our desire for control- wanting to ensure that all goes well, and distancing ourselves from the terrifying losses of other women by ineffably linking miscarriage and stillbirth to behaviour.

The blame game is also played out in labour itself, of course. I wasted 8 hours of mine and my partner's lives on an active birth day, in which we were basically told that if baby wasn't in a good position then we wouldn't have a good labour. We were given exercises to get baby in that position, but guess what? If I end up having a traumatic birth with a little monster back-to-back, it's my own fault for driving, sitting wrongly, slouching, sleeping in the wrong position etc etc. Even in this circle, where the mantra is "trust your body," the agency of the person inside my body is left out. It's not "you know what you're doing," it's abstracted to "your body knows." So if your body knows, mechanically and instinctively, what to do, it's your fault, your conscious fault, that you let your thinking brain into the process and ruin everything. Trauma from serious tears, interventions, well- you didn't trust your body. It's your fault, again.

Medical staff can be equally manipulative in this situation- I've read scenarios and heard stories, seen documentaries etc (One Born Every Minute in particular...), in which women are frequently forced to make decisions on medical interventions in labour with massive consequences for themselves with little time and still less information. "We need to get baby out now." "Baby isn't happy." The implication being that if you don't go along, do as you are told, and something happens? Well, it's your fault. How dare you desire to be treated as a person with adult thoughts and the right to make a collaborative decision?

All of this, from the shaming over food consumption to the count-the-kicks to the "trust your body" mantras to the emergency forceps, seems to me to be focused on draining out the joy and optimism from pregnancy and motherhood, removing the individuality and agency from a woman and minimising her body to a machine- a production line with a tendency to go haywire if not carefully and continually policed by either external interference or internalised behaviours.In this situation, is it any wonder that perinatal mental health (the ghost in the machine or the elephant in the room, pick your turn of phrase) is so incredibly precarious?

My body is mine. It's doing a bloody good job creating another being. But so is my mind. So is my will. So is my purpose.  I am not going to be sucked down into fear and blame in these last few weeks. I am not going to dread my labour. I am not going to be guilt tripped into panic each time I wake in the night and baby is asleep too. I am not going to spoil these last precious weeks with fear. I'm not a love machine, I'm a person. 

Reopening old wounds

I read a fantastic article this morning- it was brave, it was bold, and it put forward solutions to problems rather than just moaning about them. You can read it here.

The author, Selina Todd, a historian from Oxford University, describes a conference from hell. Male scholars preen and groom each other, furiously stoking their egos while an alienated group of Other contributors are excluded, left to huddle by the remnants of the catering. I described a terrifyingly similar conference on this blog a year and a half ago, stoked by rage. I'm still angry, but mostly at myself. I did nothing. I snarked online, I wrote an article critiquing those views which will be coming out soon in a journal that none of the culprits will ever read. But I was too cowardly to risk my own prospects by calling out this appalling behaviour. Thinking about it now, there were a number of constructive things I could have done- I could have calmly and rationally emailed the organisers, pointing out the problems, and asking these to be rectified for future conferences (just one female chair- or oooh, big wow, two? some guidelines on appropriate language and behaviour during question sessions?). I could have been brave and asked difficult questions, and tried to puncture the self-satisfaction. All I did was give my paper and slink off to the refreshments.

So my favourite thing about the article is that Todd isn't just angry- she's productive. She puts forward a number of strategies that she, and the other members of the Oxford Women in the Humanities group are developing to try and encourage female scholars. One of these that particularly caught my eye was the idea of writing fellowships, a breathing space for early career scholars to give them a chance to get the publications that lead to a career. I was not in a position to get a research post when finishing my PhD- I simply didn't have the output, something I learnt the hard way through many wasted hours applying for positions overrun with much better applicants. That's not intended as a moan or a whine- that is the way things are, and I am the only person I have to blame for that situation.

 So, over the last year, I've worked my nuts off trying to both write and hold down a full time job. My first book is now out, and I've just about managed to co-author one article as part of a wonderful project, in addition to the critique mentioned above. It's still nowhere near enough- I'm working on a second book, a pair of articles, and trying to get ready for the arrival of our baby. The difference a writing fellowship would have made to someone like me is immeasurable in all sorts of ways. Just having the sense of belonging to an academic network, the access to online journals, let alone the time and space to write without feeling guilty about not doing something else, that would be enough. I will be fascinated to see what the holders of these new fellowships achieve- I am sure the result will be truly transformative research, and maybe, just maybe, a break from the circle of male love Todd describes and we've all witnessed. They might also be courageous enough to turn the tables at the next hell conference, into the bargain.

50 Shades of Material Culture

No, not a Munsell chart.

Nor the hilarity that resulted in reading the said book during lunch break on site, with different diggers taking on the different voices.

A good few shades darker than that.

I was actually thinking about the material culture of verbal and emotional abuse. That's what the film is about, that's what the book is about. The lifestyle of the antihero is wrapped up in objects, and quite apart from the contents of the Red Room of Pain, it is through some unsuspecting things that the emotional abuse of the series plays out. The publicity surrounding the film's release on Friday, perhaps combined with the recent publication of a project focused on the prevalence of online abuse in archaeology led by Sara Perry, and being quizzed by the health visitor about my relationship ("do you feel safe?"), has had me thinking about about emotional abuse in the past.

Physical abuse can show up loud and clear in the archaeological record- fractured bones, violent death. Yet the pernicious removal of a person's agency and confidence is harder to spot, the grinding misery of manipulation, the panic and fear of being found wanting, the increasingly desperate attempts to please. These are experiences that can be mediated through the simplest of objects, including some that we find all the time.

Dropping a pot, it smashes on the floor. A sarcastic voice lashes out, ripping off yet another layer of self. You're clumsy, you're useless, you're a waste of space, why do they even put up with you?  Yet when we shove the fragments into a finds bag, there's no echo, no obvious sign of the context in which that vessel was broken- in which a person might have been broken too.

 It's not always the whips and handcuffs that have the most devastating effect. The pen used to sign the infamous 50 Shades contract by Anastasia Steele bears no trace of its use, signing away a woman's control over her body, her time and her self worth. I chose the image at the top of this post based on the shirts- their exact uniformity, their careful curation as a collection of costumes projecting a very particular and disturbing identity that thrives on the manipulation of other people, sexually and otherwise. The biographies of these objects, their life stories, can be tainted with deep and long-lasting pain just as surely as a fractured cheekbone speaks of a blackened eye and swollen face.


The problem, of course, is that these narratives are exactly that- stories. They are marooned in the use life of an artefact, trapped in the sticky mess of use and reuse, the long mist between the making of a thing and its disposal. How can we excavate the dark side of things, exposing hurt and humiliation?

Intimate Worlds

Warning- big fat swear coming up at the end.

When I was a young, idealistic archaeologist in training (i.e. when I was doing my MA), I was obsessed with sex. Well, who wouldn't be, at 21, filled with all the hormones of youth, right? Except the sex I was interested in was sex that had taken place thousands of years ago. It was sex that, unlike the kind that you could actually have, was not being scrutinised in glossy magazines or talked about by everyone having or not having it. It was a kind of sex that had been forgotten, fleeting yet important moments from lives long lived and over, that archaeologists preferred to pretend hadn't happened and go back to more important things like, you know, trade and politics and arguing over theories of "Romanisation." To be fair, there were some scholars who were working on this material- people like Barb Voss, Marilyn Skinner and others- but I wanted more.

Young and self-righteous as I was, I wrote several in depth papers on this topic- arguing that risqué films of the Roman world, such as "Gladiator: Uncut" and "Caligula" were more honest about Roman sexuality than most archaeologists, in that at least they acknowledged that sex happened. The paper that was writing sample for my PhD used three case studies to construct an argument that an archaeology of sex was possible- and it was important. When I started work on the PhD, it was largely inspired by my interest in erotic vase painting how these images had ended up in Etruria, and how they connected with hammed up later Greek writings about Etruscan sexuality. By the end of the PhD, the dataset had expanded vastly- and the evidence forced me to look at the erotic scenes in context with other pottery images. So, the thesis ended up being more about alcohol and the construction of the self than sex. Trade and politics got in there too- I guess I sold out, moving from sex to booze and egotism. Maybe that's maturity for you. 

ANYWAY, last weekend I had an opportunity to get back into ancient sex. And it was brilliant. You might have seen or read some of the press surrounding the Sex and History project at the University of Exeter- it's pure genius. I wish I'd thought of it myself. By using objects connected with sex, a team of three brilliant scholars are bringing archaeology into the classroom for sex education, encouraging young people to talk about the objects, then moving on to expectations and wider ideas surrounding sex in our own society. It's a fantastic illustration of just how bloody relevant things from the past can be to some of the deepest issues modern young people are grappling with. If this fab programme wasn't enough, there's also an exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, bringing together ethnographic and archaeological material to create a thought provoking gallery filled with interesting, intimate things, often so meaningful they take your breath away. Small but perfectly formed, a group of us were guided around the exhibition by Tony Eccles, the curator, who told us of the struggle to get the objects on show, and the unique nature of many of them. My favourite was a small votive vulva- a carved vagina left at a Roman temple, either in thankfulness or in hope, part of a tradition of leaving representations of afflicted body parts for the gods to sort out. Whoever made it may have suffered from a variety of different problems- but the desperation and discomfort they went through was wound up in this emotional little carving. I hope they got the cure they were looking for.

Prior to the gallery tour, we had two great talks from members of the Sex and History project. Dr Jen Groves (who I think just completed the coolest PhD ever- major thesis envy going on here) told of the wonder of entering the Wellcome collection's stores, and seeing the vast scale of the collection of erotic material. The deliberate decision to collect and curate this material by Wellcome was obvious in the diaries and letters she presented from her archival research- his requests to missionaries for anything "phallic" made me grin. Then Dr Rebecca Langlands spoke about Roman sexuality- electrifying the room with her discussion of the disquieting mixture of aggression, violence, playfulness and pleasure that infuses so many Roman texts dealing with sex. She ended with what I think may be my new favourite Martial epigram:

"Rumour tells, Chiona, that you are a virgin,

That there's nothing purer than your cunt.

Nevertheless, you don't bathe with the right part covered,

If you have the decency, move your knickers to your face."

You really can't beat that for a sign off. But seriously, if you're in Exeter, you should go down to the RAMM and see this great free exhibition. And start thinking about sex- as archaeologists, we're still far too reticent about something that was happening every day, involving thousands of people in the past. 

Christmas 2013: #mulledwines and Ian Hodder

Hello all, a Merry Christmas to you. I've blogged for work about some Christmas festivals in the past, if you fancy a read of that here for some classy blogging (ahem) about pagan Roman and Norse goddesses that got turned into witches and child-eating trolls (no, really) after the Christian takeover.

But what I really want to blog about is that one of the most irritating, senseless, sexist bullshit songs of the year has had a Christmas makeover... and is now almost utterly delightful.

Mulled Wines... by Greg James and Chris Smith, off of BBC Radio 1. If the link doesn't work (and I suspect it won't as it's being rubbish) click here to have a watch.

However, just so as you know, while the original song drove me nuts, one single lyric saved it for me- because it made it so funny I couldn't help gurgling like a happy toddler each time this overplayed piece of disgusting misogynistic nonsense came on the radio.

This redeeming line? "Try to domesticate ya, cos you're an animal, baby it's in your nature."

Okay, maybe this is one of the worst lines in the whole sorry business, as it reduces women to animals (huge rage, not ok, fury burning fury). UNTIL it made me think of Ian Hodder's Domus theory. The idea that Neolithic humans had to deliberately make a decision to make the wild world of animals and plants safe, domesticated and everyday. So everytime over the last year I've heard that piece of shit song, I have a terrifying mental picture of Hodder himself singing out to a recalcitrant aurochs and waving an improvised halter around... on top of a Catalhoyuk style house.

So yeah- that mental picture, and saving you from an impending hernia each time Blurred Lines gets played (even though it should have been put in a bin long ago), is my Christmas present to you.

In the meantime, #mulledwines. And Happy Christmas. See you in 2014.

Stone: Levels of Sexism?

As you can probably tell, based on previous posts (especially that one last weekend), I'm not someone who enjoys being patronised. People treating me poorly because of what's between my legs (and maybe those two things on my upper body) drives me up the wall. It's not just a selfish thing, I hope- I can rage and stomp and scream just from reading an absurd statement that denigrates all of us in possession of female minds or bodies (like the one this week by a Saudi cleric stating that women cause damage to themselves and their ovaries- clearly the most important body part- by driving and giving themselves a modicum of independence). As I wrote last week, it's even worse when this is happening closer to home- "Now we have to listen to the ladies." At an academic conference with a large number of female presenters. Worse: "we know women were only important for their dowries and their weaving skills." I'll let that settle for a moment.

Yet, sometimes, someone behaves in a way that's sexist and it doesn't irritate me. I don't know if this makes me a bad feminist, a traitor to the cause, or just two-faced. But I had an incident of this kind a couple of months ago that I have been meaning to share but I couldn't think of the right occasion or link to my professional life. You see, I love cricket. If you know me offline, (or even follow me on Twitter) then you've probably clocked this. And one of the highest echelons of cricket is to join the ranks of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) who control the rules and dictate the spirit of the game. Those ranks are mostly male, mostly over 50, and mostly rather conservative. I was proposed as a member by a lovely family friend, who knew I would love to be involved in the organisation that lies at the heart of the game I love. Another kind family friend agreed to sponsor my application. What happened next was the interview.

I dolled up in a dress of my mother's that was too big for me yet suitably sensible and classic. I entered the hallowed soil that is Lord's cricket ground in London, chattered to the receptionist, eyed up the small museum. Then the interviewer arrived- an older gentleman in his sixties, I'd guess. His opening shot "Ah, you must be the archaeologist, I can tell by your figure." I can't decide if he would have made the same remark to a male- I reckon he probably would. Either way, it didn't send me into the stratosphere. "Come upstairs with me," he said, before turning to a handsome young man obviously waiting to be interviewed as well. "I bet you wish you could say that to her." Definitely not something to say about a bloke, although I'm sure it was intended as a compliment. I kept "charming smile number 1" fixed on my face and mentally raised my eyebrows and allowed the steam to begin seeping from my ears.

We went through the Long Room (google it if you don't know- one of the most famous spaces in any sporting venue in the world) where I gazed longingly at the pitch and even more longingly up the stairs to the changing rooms, although I knew they were empty of the tall, gorgeous fast bowlers my husband is jealous of. We went in and we sat down. He had held open every door. He pulled out the chair for me and stood until I was seated. He poured me water. And the conversation began.

It started with a question about whether I played cricket, as "the gels" were doing so very well these days. I don't- my record is getting all 3 of an ex's brothers (and him) out in two overs in a fiery garden game. We went on to whether my husband played, and whether I made teas- "hard to find enough ladies to help" (disapprovingly). Very quickly we were arguing- about whether or not Nick Compton, an England player at the time, should be dropped. I said not, he said yes. He looked tickled by this point and started to visibly relax, while by now I was letting his earlier remarks go and just enjoying chatting to a fellow fan. We went on to argue about the merits of various players, before turning to rugby. The half hour was over too quickly- the young man was shown through by an anxious receptionist, and was told "he can wait- I want to finish talking to this lovely young lady." The older gentleman signed me onto the waiting list with a flourish and a grin, and showed me out with all the over-politeness of my arrival. When I left, all the sexist indiscretions and relics of a bygone age that had peppered my time there had become funny, rather than rage inducing.

That makes me feel slightly bad, looking back on it. I'm not sure why I chose to let those remarks go, why it was funny rather than infuriating. Why did behaviour not a million miles away from this so upset me at the conference last week? I think I've worked it out. The gentleman who interviewed me at the MCC took time to listen to my opinions, weighed them and decided to respect me and my views, even if his opening lines were inappropriate attempts at charm. The highly respected miscreants of the conference did no such thing, snorting and chatting and sniggering through any female paper and refusing to even pretend to engage with the arguments made within them. Are there levels of sexism? Am I a bad feminist for feeling like this, having double standards? I hope not. Because I will always remember my MCC interview with fondness while I suspect that I will never again think of those individuals whose work I had previously respected with anything but straight up indignant fury.

Pots: Everyday Irritations and Extraordinary Discoveries (Rant Warning)

I went to a conference last weekend, and gave a paper. I was happy and excited to meet up with friends and colleagues- the organisers are delightful, and I was hoping to hear some of the most interesting research on Etruscan archaeology. Sadly what I heard, in a lot of papers, was the same old culture-history interpretations, with people equating pots with particular “cultures” and the presence of particular objects in funerary assemblages as obvious and unquestionable evidence of gender, ethnicity and all sorts of other complex categories. Fine, fine- so be it, Etruscology remains firmly imbued in the politics and ideas of the 1950s and 1960s and to some extent probably won’t change any time soon. As long as I can keep pushing for new ideas, developed in the sixty years of archaeological engagement with social theory and anthropology from then to now, I don’t mind people keeping to traditional views. I may disagree with them on a fairly fundamental level, but that’s my opinion developed from my history as a product of a highly theoretical university and a free-thinking doctoral supervisor. What I do mind is individuals talking over young scholars, patronising even senior female academics in a highly sexist manner and treating discussions as an opportunity to hold court.

While I was going mad with frustration and being too cowardly to comment on these negative behaviours, however, really exciting Etruscan archaeology was taking place in the field. On that very same Saturday of last week, an intact tomb from a necropolis at Tarquinia was uncovered. I cannot overstate how rare and incredible and amazing this is. So many of the tombs the Etruscans painstakingly created for their dead have been looted- the profession of the tombarolo, or tomb robber, can be lucrative and has a long heritage. Most Etruscan tombs were cleaned out over the intervening centuries, although some have been emptied tragically recently, with artefacts removed and human remains left strewn around in a mess. Yet this tomb was magically, miraculously intact. 

All the objects were inside, in situ around the skeleton as they had been placed 2,600 years ago in the 7^th century B.C.E. Lying on the funeral benches were the remains of an Etruscan person, accompanied by a large amount of pottery, some jewellery, a bronze vessel and an iron spearhead.

Now, this is all great. But that spearhead (I'm blaming YOU spearhead) seems to have caused some problems. Yes, this is a rich Etruscan burial- as intimated by the archaeologist in charge, Alessandro Mandolesi, who described the remains as those of an “upper class individual.” Yet all the media coverage has leapt to a conclusion I critiqued some months ago- how many times do I need to yell that this is not a “prince.”  Using that terminology is, as I have ranted before, an example of naïve, lazy attempts to put modern labels onto the past. I’ve said that before and it’s even more irritating when this happens in your own archaeological back yard. Yes, the burial was found near to a tomb known as the “Queen’s Tomb.” But the tomb is only known as such due to previous archaeological assumptions! Both the person buried in the “Queen’s Tomb” and the newly discovered “Prince,” even if DNA testing ties the two together, should not be considered royals, with all the modern day baggage that entails. 

Trying to tie that royal label into texts written centuries later (which is what has happened) only serves to exacerbate the situation. Yes, a King, supposedly from Tarquinia is recorded as having ruled over Rome in the 6^th century B.C. But that doesn’t mean this burial is connected to him, it doesn’t mean the individual is a relative of this figure (who may not even be entirely real) and it only provides a tiny shred of information about Etruscan social structures, interpreted through the eyes of Roman authors!

Even worse than these right royal assumptions is the individual is being described as a “warrior” prince. That’s the spearhead’s fault. Not a symbol of masculinity, not a token gesture to ancestral warrior identity, nope. That spearhead means that the individual buried in the grave a) must be male; b) must be royal and c) must be a warrior hero. All this from one object that could have a myriad of different meanings. I notice that the pots have been conveniently shoved to one side- he’s not a “banqueter prince” or a “glutton prince” or a “drunken prince.” No- our own cultural values that prioritise male aggression jump straight on that spearhead and use it to transform this extraordinary tomb into an example of the same tired interpretations that were driving me so crazy last weekend.

 I don’t want to be negative. I don’t want to be ungrateful for this discovery or the chance to attend that conference. But until we are honest about the limitations of these approaches and the mismatch between them and the rest of the archaeological community, all the intact tombs in the world are not going to bring Etruscan archaeology into step with our peers in other areas of research.

To be fair, at least (unlike the Poggio Civitate infant remains stories) all the media I’ve seen has actually got something right and called the discovery “Etruscan” and not “Roman.” There’s still time though.

Bones: Queens, Journalists and Shrieking

Image (c) Wessex Archaeology

There have been a couple of super exciting discoveries in British archaeology recently. One of the absolute best things about Twitter is that I find out about these a lot faster through my network of wonderful archaeology tweeps. One of the most annoying things about this is that I will be cheekily scrolling through my tweets, come across a link, read the article and give out a strangled shriek of rage. Well, irritation, but it still makes my other half look at me like I'm raving mad. You'd think he'd have realised by now. Why would I have such a silly reaction to these wonderful pieces of news? This week I want to talk about an otherwise great discovery that provoked that yowling groan, and why it made me make stupid noises and jump around ranting.

The first one was the discovery of a female burial at Windsor, and included in her grave were some wonderfully rich artefacts. Gold jewellery, a distinctive pot known as a beaker, amber buttons, lignite beads- you name it, this lady was rocking it. The archaeologists themselves were cagey at first- Wessex Archaeology described the Kingsmead Quarry burial as that of an "important woman." Gareth Chaffey, who directed the excavation, tried desperately to encourage reporters to think of the woman in context with her community- to think about the life she led, her potential importance in trade, suggesting she could have been a leader. You can read his remarks on the Wessex Archaeology Blog, and they were pretty damn sensible. Yet mainstream media, Discovery News, the Daily Mail (no, surprise me), and NBC news all went for the royal connection. "Windsor's Earliest Queen!" "The First Queen of Windsor." Cue the NEAAAAAAARRRGH.

There are two massive problems with describing the Kingsmead burial as royal. The first one is an issue of terminology. Queen, princess- these are terms that we have manufactured and specified over centuries of very distinctive monarchy. Queens and princesses belong in interpretations of medieval royal palaces, dynastic marriage and arguments over Tudor succession. They do not belong in prehistory. We have absolutely no way of knowing whether someone living in the Windsor area in around 2500 BCE would have had a conception of a queen. My money says that they wouldn't. It's a completely inappropriate act of ethnocentrism to smear such culturally laden language all over the past. This leads me to the second problem. The terming of a burial as royal suggests that the value this woman had to her community was closely connected to her family, to her lineage. Terming her a Queen makes her body the source of her power- the mother of an heir, the daughter of a King. It removes all sense of this woman as having earned her beautiful grave goods through hard graft, through her position in the community, through her knowledge and wisdom, through her trading nous. To call this woman a queen reduces her to a womb or a chattel, an object revered as the channel for male power. A pretty plaything, revelling in her amber buttons as much as a modern princess might in her designer shoes. Yes, queens can wield power for themselves- Victoria, Elizabeth. Yes, royal women are intelligent, canny and strong. But they do not get hold of power due to their skills. They inherit it from a man, and their primary role is to produce an heir. And it seems like the only way that mainstream archaeological media can conceive of a powerful female figure in the past is to squash her into a royal box. I know the Windsor connection must have been a powerful temptation in this case- but it's symptomatic of a far wider problem. Inappropriate terminology, sexist interpretation, all being peddled to an interested public who lap up the byline and bling, as the journalist gets away with repeating the same tired narratives which press the past into terms so specific to the present as to obscure all its delicious complexity. Apart from being supremely irritating, it's bloody boring.*

I don't know how the Kingsmead woman got hold of her gorgeous grave goods. I don't know who decided she needed them in death. Maybe she did inherit hereditary power. Maybe she was married to a rich, male leader who covered her in goodies. The feminista interpretation of her as powerful in her own right may be as wrong as the sexist idea of her as a queen. My point is that popular science journalism should be exposing this juxtaposition, talking about it, making it clear to the public that archaeological interpretation isn't about splashing modern terms and assumptions on the past. That's why archaeology is so exciting. The world of "Windsor's Earliest Queen" was unimaginably different from our own- you got a flavour of that in the excellent Wessex blog by Karen Nichols. Why is it so impossible for mainstream media to get that message across?

What do you think? Did the Kingsmead coverage drive you nuts? Do you think that the Wessex blog should have been used in the mainstream press rather than just manipulated for the interpretation that journalists wanted? Please let me know.

* In an aside, this isn't just a problem for the media. In my own work, I come up regularly against "Tombe Principesche" or "Princely tombs." It seems like the royal metaphor is still, in spite of critique, clinging on in all its biased glory.