Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 1098
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Buchet , Luc and Christian Pilet
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Des femmes orientales en basse Normandie au Ve Siècle
  • Source: La Femme pendant le Moyen Âge et l'époque moderne. Actes des Sixiémes Journées Anthropologiques de Valbonne 9-10-11 juin 1992.  Edited by Luc BuchetDossier de Documentation Archéologique, 17.  CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches Archéologiques) Éditions, 1994.  Pages 111 - 127.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Airan, Calvados, France - Burials Archaeology Barbarians Grave Goods Human Remains Huns, People Saint Martin de Fontenay, Calvados, France- Cemetery Skull- Artificial Deformities
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: Eastern Mediterranean;France
  • Century: 5
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations: Nine Figures. Figure One Louis-Auguste Théodore Rivière, "Les Huns ou Attila et sa horde," bronze statue, presented to the Salon des Artistes Français in 1897. The group includes three women, one riding in an ox cart holding a baby, one leaning forward to kiss a horseman, and one standing still above the crowd. Figure Two Jewelry from Airan: two fibulae, a necklace, a hair pin, and a plaque-buckle (from the Musée de Normandie and the CRDP of Basse-Normandie). Figure Three Map showing the movement of populations from the East around 430/440 CE, based on discoveries in burial grounds. Sites range from Detroit de Kertch, north of the Black Sea, to Airan, near Caen, in France. Figure Four Map of the mouths of the Orne and the Dives in northern France showing the towns of Airan and Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay. Figure Five Grave goods from burials at Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay. Grave 359: two fibulae, a plaque-buckle, a ring with a gem, and a ring with decorative engravings. Grave 300: Fibulae. Grave 719: Earring in the form of a crescent. Grave good from Saint-Germain-du-Chemin (in the commune of Fontenay-le-Marmion): Plaque-buckle with a gem (All grave goods from the collection of the CRDP of Basse-Normandie). Figure Six Female skull deformed after birth (Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, Grave 300). Figure Seven Drawings of two skulls showing the means by which skull deformation was created, one with a single wrap and the other with a double wrap. Based on skulls from Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay. Figure Eight Map of Eastern Europe and the Middle East showing where deformed skulls and grave goods similar to those at Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay have been found. Figure Nine Four drawings of deformed skulls found at Bereznovka (north of the Caspian Sea) (from Kiszely, 1978).
  • Table:
  • Abstract: The first centuries of our era were marked by large migratory movements. During such journeys, people representing populations of varied origins settled in small groups in areas sometimes quite distant from their native land. The archaeological material discovered in their graves is the first established fact, but commercial and cultural exchange is sometimes uneasy [sic] to distinguish from true immigration. An anthropological study may enable further understanding. We thus present the case of Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay, where a feminine group is noticeable by its funerary furneshig from the north of the Black Sea, its morphological features as well as its practice of voluntary deformation of skull.
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Centre de recherches archéologiques du CNRS, Valbonne (Buchet);CRAM - Université de Caen (Pilet)
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1994.
  • Language: French
  • ISSN/ISBN: 2271051576