> [!quote] [Viking ‘amulet factory’ discovery forces rethink of enigmatic artifacts](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/viking-amulet-factory-discovery-forces-rethink-enigmatic-artifacts?rid=C3527B5C854295B91292AABC08EE3F6B) via [[National Geographic]] by [[Andrew Curry]] on 2021-08-05 > Taken as a set, the amulets manufactured at Ribe might provide a new look into a ceremony that had special meaning for people in Viking Age Scandinavia. “Women were really prominent in these rituals,” Sindbaek says. “Of course they would be—in the home setting, they were central characters.” > > What the “Valkyrie” figurines and scenes from the Oseberg tapestry don’t depict, Sindbaek says, are women who served as warriors in real life. Although women were known to fight in the Viking Age, and women were very occasionally buried with swords and other weapons, the design of the female figurines from Ribe and elsewhere suggests something else is going on: The woman are depicted holding shields and swords, but also wearing antiquated helmets and long dresses. > > “It’s not showing us combat—you couldn’t go into battle in a dress with a long train,” Sindbaek says. “Female warriors were a thing, but that’s not what they’re showing us in these amulets.” > > Instead, the researchers say, the amulets may depict a space where traditional Viking gender roles melted away. “What the pendants are showing is ambiguity,” says Aarhus University archaeologist Sarah Croix, a co-author of the paper. “You have female individuals bearing weapons, and a male pulling his hair, which is a female gesture.” - Reminds me of some of the stuff about social inversions I was reading about in [[The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow]]. - I don't want to get into arguments on the internet about the role of women in the ancient world broadly speaking or in the middle of trans activism, but I do like the idea of doing something with ceremonies that invert traditional roles #storystem