It was believed that she was a warrior from the Middle Ages: however, science discovered that she was buried as a non-binary person
In 1968, a medieval tomb was discovered in Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, a town in southern Finland. In it they found skeletal remains of a body along with a sword, a sheathed knife, two brooches, a bearer of chains< /b> and a sickle. Due to the ambiguity of the artifacts found - half related to the male gender and the other half related to the female gender - for a long time it was believed that the tomb belonged to a warrior woman. A second sword was also found, but the Cambridge University study that analyzed the find determined that it was left on the grave some time after the body was buried.
Suontaka's tomb became a symbol of medieval warrior women and was used to gain insight into the role of women in some ancient societies. Others, more skeptical regarding the role of women in medieval society, believed it more likely that two bodies were buried together in the same grave, one of a man and one of a woman, which would explain the presence of typically related artifacts. with both sexes. This theory, however, was dismissed by the research team in charge of analyzing the remains.
Between 1995 and 2016 the tomb was part of the permanent exhibit at the National Museum of Finland and was displayed as evidence of leading women at the time and the sword found became a symbol of weaponry of the female warriors. The certainty with which it was stated that it was the body of a woman despite the difficulty of analyzing the bone remains due to their high state of decomposition - only samples could be extracted from the femurs, since the rest of the body had disappeared or it was already very deteriorated -, it was due to the fact that the brooches were just below the shoulders, which indicates that the body was buried with typically feminine clothing. Also, the chain carrier was on the chest, between the two clasps, and without chains, indicating that it may have been used as a pendant or necklace; also a typically feminine garment.
However, the Cambridge University team led by archaeologist Ulla Moilanen analyzed soil samples and managed to find traces of DNA in the bones that allowed their analysis. This is how they came up with the result that would completely change the meaning of the Suontaka tomb and open the door to endless interpretations and analyzes regarding gender roles: the The person buried was an individual with a chromosome aneuploidy, meaning that their chromosome makeup was XXY - instead of being XX like males or XY like females. This condition is more common than known, occurring in about 1 in 576 male births. Its symptoms vary from very subtle and imperceptible to noticeable physical differences. In many cases, the patient never finds out that he has this condition, while in others the signs are stronger, such as infertility, small penis and testicle size, and larger-than-normal growth of the mammary glands. This finding would indicate that we are dealing with a person who did not fall into either of the two rigid categories of the binary gender, and could then be considered as non-binary.
This discovery highlights how already in medieval societies there were people who escaped the dichotomy of gender and did not fit into any particular model. The burial of this person with artifacts typically related to both genders allows us to assume that his gender-fluid condition was accepted by himself, as he lived his life in this way, and respected by his peers. peers to such an extent that I respect her even at the time of her death. It also leaves open the possibility that there were medieval societies, or of different historical times, that had a different understanding of the genre than the one that tradition supposes and imposes to this day.
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