The Austin Variations | III | The Maiden (2024)
Embroidery on Tabby Weave Linen
Linen, Merino Wool
A Maiden About Her Duties
Assaulted By A Roguish Knave
Help Arrives, Alas Too Late
Rogue to Justice, Maiden To Grave
This individual is known as the Skull Of A Young Man. However, it is extremely difficult to accurately define the assigned gender of skeletal remains without DNA analysis. Generally the circumstances of the burial and grave goods are used to define this, but the reliance on modern perceptions of gender stereotypes has led to misidentification.
A Palaeolithic skeleton discovered and assumed male in 1872 was discovered to have been female in 1995 and is now referred to as ‘Lady Sapiens’. In 2017 a 10th century Viking Warrior grave discovered in the 1870’s on the Swedish island of Björkö was found to be that of a woman. There have been numerous such examples – the skeletal differences between assigned genders are slight and easily misinterpreted, and give no indications as to how an individual may have identified in life.
This …Variation looks at the potential for this individual to have identified as female, meeting her end at the hands of her abuser.
Vicky Roden 