From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V6 #173 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Tuesday, September 26 2006 Volume 06 : Number 173 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] RE: ancient sumer's xena ["Cheryl Ande" Subject: [chakram-refugees] RE: ancient sumer's xena Interesting article. I'm not surprised that scholar's oppose the idea of a woman warrior or warrior "king". Even in scholarship which is suppose to be objective we bring our own cultural prejudices. For example it is only recently we have begun to reexamine the role of women in the early Christian Church - I have often heard that it was impossible for women to hold important posts in the Church because women didn't have rights despite the fact that there is ample evidence of independently wealthy women financially supporting the church. We have no idea how independent lower or middle class women were since we often only know about the lives of aristocratic women. As for Sumerian grave I am astonished that even in the 1920's an archaeologist would get rid of bones found in an obviously royal tomb. That seems like just terrible scholarship - I don't think I ever heard of such thing before - it almost seems that Woolley was trying to hide something. It is very difficult to dissuade the academic community from long held beliefs even if they are based on incomplete information or faulty scholarship. If for 80 years we have assumed all Sumerian rulers had to be men based on the few graves that were study in the 1920's then it is considered a fact when it is nothing of the sort. It is amusing how many stories can be made up to explain contradictory evidence - the husband left the weapons as a gift (if the woman can't use the weapons why give them to her for use in the afterlife), the husband is buried elsewhere (why doesn't he need his weapons?). In fact perhaps we can make the argument the Woolley's male skeleton that was dressed as a woman and his female skeleton adorned as a warrior were actually a cross-dressing couple or it was an elaborate ruse to confuse demons - anything except that our long held assumptions are wrong. CherylA ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V6 #173 **************************************