Word of Mouth: Embodied Stories of Premodern Women at Work

女人，还是主人？关于前现代欧洲熟练的手工艺和艺术创作，新的证据能揭示女性的工作和健康吗？2019年，皮艾莉森·比奇和国际合作组织安妮塔·拉迪尼是一个跨学科团队的成员，该团队首次利用生物考古学的尖端技术从中世纪女性艺术家的骨骼中鉴定出她，颠覆了人们对女性在艺术中作用的普遍假设[1]。在这次非同寻常的合作中，比奇在书籍制作方面的专家历史工作将一位中世纪艺术家的重复手势与拉迪尼的生物考古数据联系起来。这位宗教女性在她的牙石中发现了青金石色素，引起了人们的极大反响，这反映了学术界和公众对这一研究的巨大兴趣。《科学进展》的原创文章下载量已超过9000次，团队合作成果被《考古杂志》评选为2019年十大发现之一。一位中世纪妇女用嘴唇画满颜料的画笔的形象也启发了几部小说，甚至是获奖诗人埃琳·雷德费恩的十四行诗《艺术家》。“我们去问问她吧，”雷德费恩提议。“你是女人，还是师父？”通过人文和科学的综合力量，她回答道：我既是女性，也是大师。通过扩大历史学家和考古学家之间的这种强大的合作伙伴关系，我们将向其他前现代欧洲女性发出声音，并通过我们自己的跨学科方法的多声乐，为她们的生活经历提供新颖而细致入微的见解。拟议的项目将恢复、情景和综合她们的故事，提供一幅前所未有的精细画面，展示寺院背景下的妇女工作和职业健康。在图书馆和实验室之间移动，我们将把历史研究与对人类遗骸的尖端分析、实验考古学和材料分析相结合，以改变我们对欧洲过去女性的看法。通过综合的多标度方法，我们将寻求回答以下主要研究问题：RQ1。在前现代宗教社区中，女性从事哪些技艺和艺术活动？工作对这些宗教女性的身体和健康有什么影响？宗教妇女的社会文化背景是否决定了她们参与/不参与特定活动？妇女之间的不平等对她们的健康有什么影响？在问和回答这些问题时，我们将挑战关于前现代妇女艺术和经济活动的性质和范围的性别叙述(RQ1的目标)；辨别手工艺和艺术劳动留下的身体痕迹与宗教劳动留下的身体痕迹(例如，广泛跪在祈祷中)(RQ2的目标)；以及评估宗教妇女在进入宗教社区之前和在宗教社区内社会不平等的证据，以及这些不平等对健康的影响(RQ3的目标)。(2019年)。从青金石在牙石中的鉴定可以看出中世纪妇女早期参与手稿制作。科学进步5(1)。

Woman, or Master? What can new evidence for skilled craft and artistic production in premodern Europe reveal about women's work and health?In 2019, PI Alison Beach and International Co-I Anita Radini were part of an interdisciplinary team that identified a medieval female artist from her skeletal remains for the very first time using cutting-edge techniques in bioarchaeology, upending common assumptions about the role of women in art [1]. In this extraordinary collaboration, Beach's expert historical work on book production linked the repeated gestures of a medieval artist to Radini's bioarchaeological data. The remarkable response to this discovery of a religious woman with lapis lazuli pigment in her dental calculus reflects the enormous academic and public interest in this line of research. The original article in Science Advances has been downloaded over 9,000 times, and the team's collaborative work was selected as one of the Top Ten Discoveries of 2019 by Archaeology Magazine. The image of a medieval woman shaping her pigment-suffused paintbrush with her lips has also inspired several novels and even a sonnet, The Artist, by the award-winning poet Erin Redfern. "Let's ask her," Redfern proposes. "Are you Woman, or Master?" Given voice through the combined power of the humanities and science, she answers: I was both - woman and master.By extending this powerful partnership between historians and archaeological scientists, we will give voice to other premodern European women, and through the multivocality of our own cross-disciplinary approaches, provide novel and nuanced insights into their lived experiences. The proposed project will recover, contextualise, and synthesise their stories, providing an unprecedentedly fine-grained picture of women's work and occupational health in monastic contexts. Moving between the library and laboratory, we will integrate historical research with cutting-edge analysis of human remains, experimental archaeology, and materials analysis to transform the way we see women in the European past.With an integrated multiscalar approach, we will seek to answer the following primary research questions:RQ1. In what skilled craft and artistic activities did women in premodern religious communities engage?RQ2. What impact did work have on the bodies and health of these religious women?RQ3. Did the socio-cultural context of religious women determine their participation/lack thereof in particular activities? What impact did inequalities among women have on their health?In asking and answering these questions, we will challenge gendered narratives about the nature and scope of the artistic and economic activities of premodern women (objective of RQ1); discern the physical traces left by craft and artistic labour from those left by religious labour (e.g., extensive kneeling in prayer) (objective of RQ2); and evaluate the evidence for social inequality among religious women, both prior to entry and within the religious community, and the impact of those inequalities on health (objective of RQ3).[1] Radini et al. (2019). Medieval women's early involvement in manuscript production suggested by lapis lazuli identification in dental calculus. Science Advances 5 (1).