Excavating Women

330 Pages·1998·9.25 MB·English

by  Magarita Díaz-Andreu

EXCAVATING WOMEN

EXCAVATING WOMEN
A history of women in European
archaeology
Edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu
and Marie Louise Stig Sørensen
LONDON AND NEWYORK
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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© 1998 Selection and editorial matter:
Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Marie Louise Stig Sørensen;
individual chapters: the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-98151-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-15760-9 (Print Edition)
THE COVER PICTURE:
The Kungsåra Bench
Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh
Pictures, like other material objects, have great potential for evoking meaning. Thanks
to the polysemical qualities of an image, different aspects of its meaning can be
focused upon by the photographer or the director. A slight shift in focus can
emphasize a detail of the subject or the background, making possible a specific
intended or unintended interpretation. However, it is also in the nature of an image
that it allows the observer to interpret and reinterpret from different perspectives.
This particular picture shows us four women sitting on a bench, which is decorated
with elaborate wood-carving. The picture is an artistic composition with oblique light
falling from the right, the vivid pattern of the wood-carving contrasting the calm
position of the women, a position which is saved from monotony by the rhythm of
the repetitive light and dark colouring of the dresses. The straight backs and thin
necks of the women, and the surrounding darkness, might even be said to give the
picture a poetic character. A sense of humour is displayed in the juxtaposition of
different worlds: that of the bench, an ancient piece of art probably from a museum;
and that of four bourgeois women in the early twentieth century.
The picture was taken at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm in 1908.
The four women are sitting on the ‘Bench from Kungsåra’. This bench had reached
the attention of the antiquarians a few years earlier. It had been standing in the small
parish church of Kungsåra, in the county of Västmanland, in central Sweden. From
its construction and decoration it was dated to the eleventh century, the time when
the old Norse pagan religion was giving way to the Christian faith. The decoration of
the bench has many similarities with other Viking Age objects. The remaining
animal head at the extreme right of the back-rest resembles the head on the wooden
chair from the Norwegian ship-burial from Gokstad dated to the early tenth century.
The wooden carvings are in Viking Age style, with the body of the animal twining
into itself. Other typical Viking Age traits occur, like the legs and feet of the animals.
However, there are also other features, like the acanthus elements, which associate
the bench with the continent. This bench was therefore for good reasons considered
an extraordinary piece of furniture from a transitional era (Eckhoff 1907).
However, the picture might also be said to express other things. It shows us
something about the place of women: seated within a restricted area with clear
boundaries that should not be exceeded. It also perhaps indicates that the women
were posed here, not as individuals to be depicted, but as objects to show us the
function of the bench. They are turning their backs towards the observer. In contrast
vi THE KUNGSÅRA BENCH
to the back of the bench, which is full of significant features and detail, the four
women have similar dresses and similar hairstyles. We do not see their faces. They
were presented as an anonymous collective.
Their names, however, are recorded. They are four of the seven women who were
employed at the National Historical Museum in 1908. One of them was Miss Sigrid
Leijonhufvud. She had a university degree, comparable to a B.A. In the official
record of the museum, she was titled ‘caretaker’ of the library of the National Office
of Antiquities (for example in Montelius 1908: III). She had held that post since
1901, but not until 1910 was she called ‘librarian’ in the records. The other women in
the photo are Mrs Rosa Norström, assistant in the department of numismatics,
Miss Märta Leijonhufvud, assistant in the antiquarian-topographical archive and
Miss Fanny von Hartman, assistant in the department of documentation and
conservation of archaeological objects.
It may also be of interest to note that the remaining three female employees at the
museum were called assistants. This can be compared with the fact that the eight men
employed in 1908 had six different titles—an indication that the development of the
antiquarian profession in those formative years was gendered and biased (Montelius
1908: II—III).
Despite being termed ‘assistants’ these women participated fully in scientific work
and discussion. Between the years 1906 and 1910 three of the women in the photo
wrote six different articles in the journal Fornvännen, published by the National
Board of Antiquity and the Royal Academy. These dealt with various topics,
including presentations of hoards of coins, discussions of stone inscriptions, and
ethnological and biographical essays (Leijonhufvud 1906, 1907, 1910, Norström
1906, 1907). One article can serve as an example (Leijonhufvud 1908). Here Märta
Leijonhufvud presented a newly discovered rock-carving. She described how, at the
request of Dr Emil Eckhoff, she was recording a rock-carving in the county of
Västergötland. The article included all the elements of a good report: a description of
the setting, a record of how the rock was cleaned and prepared, an account of the
scientifically well-known method of casting, a description of the images, a
consideration of the possible motive for the carving and a chronological discussion.
This was undertaken in 1907 by a woman who never could be considered an
archaeologist.
With this in mind, The Kungsåra Bench can also be read as a representation of
women who worked within the early field of antiquarian research, but who were
marginalized as people and as professionals and made invisible within the history of
our profession.
REFERENCES
Eckhoff, E. (1907) ‘Snidad bänk från Kungsåra kyrka i Västmanland’, Fornvännen.
Tidskrift for svensk antikvarisk forskning 2:49–76.
Leijonhufvud, M. (1908) ‘Nyupptäckt hällristning på Kinnekulle’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift
for svensk antikvarisk forskning 3:87–92.
ELISABETH ARWILL-NORDBLADH vii
Leijonhufvud, S. (1906) ‘Gotländsk uppteckning af medeltida formulär for invigning af
födoämnen’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift for svensk antikvarisk forskning 1:151–7.
—(1907) ‘Malin Stures bönbok’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift for svensk antikvarisk forskning 2:
145–58.
—(1910) ‘Kungastenarna i Varnhem’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift för svensk antikvarisk
forskning 5:138–65.
Montelius, O. (1908) ‘Riksantikvariens årsberättelsc’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift för svensk
antikvarisk forskning 3: I–VI.
Norström, R. (1906) ‘Myntfynd från Bösarps kyrkogård, Skytts härad, Skåne’,
Fornvännen. Tidskrift for svensk antikvarisk forskning 1:191–5.
—(1907) ‘Romeskt myntfynd från Sigdes i Burs s:n, Gotland’, Fornvännen. Tidskrift för
svensk antikvarisk forskning 2:202–3.

CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xiii
List of Contributors xiv
1 EXCAVATING WOMEN Towards an engendered history of
archaeology 1
Margarita Díaz-AndreuMarie Louise Stig Sørensen
Part I General perspectives on the history of women in European
archaeology
2 RESCUE AND RECOVERY On historiographies of female
archaeologists 31
Marie Louise Stig Søremen
3 ARCHAEOLOGY OF FRENCH WOMEN AND FRENCH
WOMEN IN ARCHAEOLOGY 59
Anick Coudart
4 GENDER POLITICS IN POLISH ARCHAEOLOGY 85
Liliana JanikHanna Zawadzka
5 WOMEN ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN RETROSPECT The
Norwegian case 103
Liv Helga Dommasnes,Else Johansen Kleppe,Gro MandtJenny-
Rita Nœss
6 SPANISH WOMEN IN A CHANGING WORLD Strategies in
the search for self-fulfilment through antiquities 123
Margarita Díaz-Andreu
7 WHEN THE WALL CAME DOWN East German women
employed in archaeology before and after 1989 143
Ruth Struwe