Grave XX: Unlocking the door to hidden female warriors

Criteria long used to determine if graves belonged to ancient male warriors was actually based on a woman

Skull of what is believed to be an ancient female warrior, found in Norway. Displayed at a museum in Oslo.

In Birka, Sweden, known as the country’s first city due to its ancient beginnings, archeologists excavate a richly adorned burial site. It is 1878. And from the depths of the grave, they unearth a treasure trove. They find weapons ranging from a spear, sword, and shield. The skeletons of two horses are uncovered. Also found is a unique gaming board with pieces from antiquity used for military strategy. Out of over 1,000 graves from this site alone, only two contain a complete set of weaponry. This gravesite in particular is one of the two.

In Hungary, a tenth century burial site is discovered in the early 1980s. It houses skeletal remains surrounded by archery paraphernalia. All 58 graves include weaponry such as arrowheads, bow plates, and quivers. Researchers are comfortable suggesting 57 of those graves belong to warrior-type men of the Hungarian Conquest period. But this fifty-eighth grave in particular gives them pause. Why? Because buried alongside the skeleton and its various weaponry is also the presence of jewelry, suggesting the deceased was a woman.

Technological Advancement And Buried Truth

For centuries, archeologists automatically assumed skeletal remains buried with weapons and other battle-related items were male. However, in the 2000s, with the advancement of bone scan technology and tooth enamel technology, the sex of countless remains could finally and definitively be identified.

As it turns out, the Viking grave from Birka, long thought to be the monument of a high ranking male warrior, indeed belonged to a female.

The grave located in Hungary was also determined to be the final resting place of a woman.

Despite overwhelming and demonstrable evidence proving these graves belong to ancient female warriors, many in both the sciences and humanities currently refuse to acknowledge the physical and protective role these women played in their respective cultures. While several different arguments have been made as to why, which I highlight below, I believe it is of an entirely different but time-honored nature—bias—bias both longstanding and currently trending.

A Professional Viking Warrior Model

For 139 years, researchers believed the remains excavated from Birka were that of a decorated, celebrated male warrior. But in 2017, a team headed up by archeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson published a paper detailing their groundbreaking scientific discovery: the grave belonged to a female. They did not anticipate the backlash they’d receive. Many critics questioned the efficacy of their testing. Some questioned whether they got the bones mixed up. Others wondered if the woman was buried alongside a man, which would then allow for the presence of weapons.

The researchers confirmed the grave contained only one person. Furthermore, in a Smithsonian Magazine article, the researchers are quoted, stating, “After extracting the roughly 1,000-year-old warrior’s mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, the researchers found no traces of Y chromosomes indicative of male biological sex. In a further negation of critics’ comments, they also concluded that the mitochondrial DNA from all bones tested matched—and therefore belonged to one XX individual.”

As critics continued to doubt their findings, one of the researchers was featured on IFL Science. Jan Storå remarked, “This burial was excavated in the 1880s and has served as a model of a professional Viking warrior ever since. Especially, the grave-goods cemented an interpretation for over a century…”

To her point, the model was widely accepted—until the model was found to be female.

Hesitation or Willful Ignorance?

In January 2025, news broke that the grave in Hungary housing both weapons and jewelry belonged to a female. The injuries sustained to her bones and joints were identical to her male counterparts buried all around her. Further analysis of her skeletal remains indicated she participated in strenuous physical activity and often rode on horseback for prolonged periods of time. Many nomadic cultures from her time period were known for being expert hunters and warriors on horseback.

Despite all evidence pointing to her being a warrior, Live Science reported that bioarcheologist Balázs Tihanyi and his team who conducted the study are “hesitant” to give her the designation of warrior. I read further, expecting a proper reason as to why he and his team have refrained from giving her warrior status thus far. What I found was an absolute refutation of the reality of history.

“They point out in the study that, in nomadic tribes of the eastern steppes, women commonly learned how to defend themselves and their livestock and even rode horses — but were not warriors.”

Based on much evidence accrued, especially in the last 20 years since technological advancements were made available, this statement is undeniably false.

Opening The Door

Ample archaeological evidence uncovered in this very region they reference has shown that it is highly likely Scythian women, who gave rise to the modern day Amazon myth immortalized by the superhero Wonder Woman, were indeed warriors with expert skills in archery, horseback riding, and combat. Adrienne Mayor’s critically acclaimed book The Amazons goes into this history and subsequent archaeological findings in great detail separating fact from fiction.

A study featured on Miami University’s public database for their Ohio research center makes note of another gravesite, or “kurgan,” found in what was once the Eurasian Steppe, near the border of both Russia and Kazakhstan. The highlighted grave belonged to someone of the Sauromatian culture, which was closely linked to the Scythians. This grave, along with others, was featured on the PBS docuseries, Secrets of the Dead.

“The grave, or kurgan, Davis-Kimball and Yablonsky are filmed excavating is a single-person burial of a female buried with earrings, gold beads, a silver bowl, an Egyptian alabaster jar, and a mirror. The wealth and significance of these artifacts place the woman as a religious or spiritual leader. The fact she is buried alone shows she may have been an important figure. Her bowed legs prove she spent a lot of time riding. The inclusion of arrowheads as burial items and her placement in an ‘attack pose’ indicating she was also a warrior.”

While the Scythians and various nomadic cultures of ancient Eurasia are one of the more popular examples of ancient women warriors, this very realistic archetype stretches far and wide, even into Mexico.

According to Nature, a tomb unearthed in the former ancient Caucasus area revealed two females “whose skeletons suggest that they took part in military activity.”

After yet another discovery in 1999, this time of an ancient female warrior of the Iron Age from the Isles of Scilly located near modern day Cornwall, England, human skeletal biologist Sarah Stark told CBC, “It really is opening the door to this hidden female warrior.”

The Disappearance of Women

In the introduction of her book, The Missing Thread, author Daisy Dunn points out the neglect regarding women’s experiences among history both ancient and modern.

“Classical historians privileged the deeds of men over the loom-work of their wives and daughters, and modern historians have typically followed suit.”

She continued, “The disappearance of so many women was not simply chance. The men who penned the vast majority of the surviving sources simply wrote them out of the narrative as unimportant.”

In the online piece at Miami University featuring the kurgan excavation, it is noted that this bias against women was taking place as far back as the dawn of Western civilization:

“ Herodotus mentions nomadic women only briefly. These mentions are mostly to describe marriage customs or as living with slaves.[1] The Greek historian did not prioritize women’s roles within social structures other than being wives or child-bearers.”

“Unassailably Female”

While it is understandable much of women’s experience that didn’t adhere to traditional gender constructs was left out of the historical pages of antiquity, perhaps the most outlandish argument against classifying these female skeletal remains as those belonging to warriors comes from contemporary times—from the current conversation.

While trying to get the women heading up the research regarding the Viking grave in Birka to recant their statement that the skeletal remains found were “unassailably female,” critics recently suggested that the female was a transgender man.

Oftentimes, women warriors are buried along with various clothing and uniforms. Ancient women warriors often wore the same type of clothing men did while fighting and hunting. Mayor goes into great detail in The Amazons regarding the molded breastplates women often wore during warfare that were identical to men’s. This protective gear served a functional purpose, not one related to the modern concept of gender identity.

It is important to note regarding the transgender argument:

Women who dressed up as men across history, from ancient female warriors who wore the same breastplates as men to Joan of Arc who wore trousers so it was harder for her to be sexually assaulted and Emma Edmonds of the Civil War (fighting on the Union’s side) who dressed as a man so she could serve—these women didn’t dress as men because they wanted to, they dressed as men because they had to. Even while donning male attire, they were highly aware, acutely aware, and at times, painfully aware, they were still very much so women.

Their attire was not a concrete outward manifestation of them believing to have been born in the wrong body. Their attire showed the reality of them having to protect a body others often viewed as wrong, or weaker, and therefore opportunistically conquerable.

Dressing up as a man was not a primitive experiment in gender identity for these women, it was armor.

Lies Travel Faster Than Truth

Hedenstierna-Jonson and her team note, “...one of the main questions raised by critics of the 2017 study was whether the warrior was a transgender man. The authors address this in the new paper, writing, “[Transgender] is a modern politicized, intellectual and Western term, and as such, is problematic … to apply to people of the more remote past.”

To attempt to rewrite history with a modern political lens in this case, quite literally erases the history of women—history that women have had to fight for long after the truth was unearthed and uncovered. In the age of micro-aggressions and supposed cultural appropriation, it is telling to me, apparently women’s culture is the only one still considered to be fair game. To suggest that the only way we can acknowledge this grave belongs to a warrior would be to impose a male form upon her, especially without any knowledge of her life or culture that suggests it would be appropriate or accurate to do so, is wildly irrational and deceptively sexist.

These cultures have been studied for hundreds of years, and the way each of these civilizations dressed varies. Gender norms across ancient cultures varied as well. Dunn notes in The Missing Thread, “Wealthy Persian men usually wore the same vibrantly coloured robes as women and plentiful gold jewelry. Their beautiful textiles were no match for thick Scythian coverings in the biting cold.”

This suggests while Persians dressed for show, Scythian attire was used for functional purposes due to the unforgiving weather of the territories they roamed. For Vikings, an article published at The Guardian notes that for Viking males, “there were strict taboos against wearing anything that could be seen as effeminate.”

It is also important to note that descriptions stemming from Herodotus’ biased analysis of the culture regarding what is commonly called “Amazon” women, or women of the Scythian culture, have been dispelled by Mayor, though as is commonly the case—lies travel much faster than the truth.

Because Scythian women enjoyed an extensive amount of equality compared to the women of his Ancient Greek culture, he suggested that “gender norms” were turned upside down in many cultures of The Steppes. While arguments have been made regarding our modern and recent concepts of “gender fluidity,” evidence supports the far more realistic case that not only did these cultures not share contemporary views of gender theory, women and men of this ancient culture and its sister cultures very much so understood the differences between men and women, but chose a more egalitarian lifestyle between the two sexes both due to need and cultural atmosphere and traditions.

Furthermore, Herodotus’ wild claims that Scythian or “Amazon” women went through a coming of age ritual by cutting off their right breast has been debunked multiple times. Mayor dedicates a good amount of copy as to why this simply wasn’t a fact of reality in her book.

“Female Sickness”

In Barry Cunliffe’s 2019 book, The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe, he details another one of Herodotus’ biased views. Observing the egalitarian views Scythian males had towards their female counterparts, the Greek historian had a hard time coming to terms with the male essence of these men because they did not represent his view of the traditional Ancient Greek masculine male. He said these types of Scythian men were afflicted with “female sickness.”

It is understandable that when Herodotus first viewed these cultures so vastly different from his own, especially through an Ancient Greek lens regarding women’s roles, it was hard for him to comprehend the customs he was witnessing. I’m thankful for his writings on the women of Scythian and Sauromation cultures (he dedicated the most writing to Sauromation women because they were so different from what he was used to) because they offer our first glimpses into understanding the myth of the Amazon female warrior has real-world origins. However, iterations regarding women, and men, dealing with what he first called “female sickness,” still exist today. This bias thwarts the truth of women’s history and buries much of what doesn’t fit the Greco-Roman model, which still heavily influences much of Western culture today.

Greco-Roman traditions regarding the pursuit of knowledge remain, in my opinion, meritorious and superior. But on the subject of women, this lens still paints those who step out of traditional female roles as unnatural. However, if we look at history objectively, many studies show for various cultures throughout history and throughout the world, women in both protective and physical roles were actually quite the norm. And it had nothing to do with them wanting to shed their female form in an attempt to become men.

Realities of Female Identity

Regarding the critics of the Viking grave in question, there has been no evidence presented that suggests the culture shared a modern view of gender fluidity at all. Therefore, these unsubstantiated claims reduce the legacy of this female Viking warrior to that of a costume—a caricature, rooted in modern political power dynamics. This is an insult to anyone concerned with science, truth, and the realities of non-traditional female identity.

Despite low bar attempts to rationalize away bias, Hedenstierna-Johnson and her team bravely doubled down on their hard-earned and hard-won facts.

The Guardian noted, “...the notion of a female warrior did not fit with the existing ideas about the Vikings. According to convention, weaponry, in particular, swords, belonged with men and jewelry belonged with women. If this skeleton was a woman, some argued, the weapons and the warrior status should be re-evaluated. Hedenstierna-Jonson found this baffling, because everyone was fine with the warrior interpretation when the skeleton was thought to be a man, she says. ‘That cannot change just because we find out it’s a woman.’”

Smithsonian Magazine highlights, “Since [the site] was excavated in the 1870s, it has constantly been interpreted as a warrior grave because it looks like a warrior grave and it’s placed by the garrison and by the hillfort,” Hedenstierna-Johnson says. “Nobody’s ever contested it until the skeleton proved to be female, and then it was not a valid interpretation anymore.”

“...the study's authors conclude, the most “obvious and logical conclusion” is that the individual in question was a woman who lived as a professional warrior and was buried in accordance with this rank.”

Other Physical Roles Uncovered

Women as second-class citizens relegated to the private sphere of the home was indeed a stark reality many of them faced throughout much of history. But to view them as nothing but victims, incapable of defending themselves, their homeland, and their loved ones, is to believe a bold-faced lie.

A study featured at BBC highlights the freedom women had in ancient Egyptian culture, and details their ruthlessness that rivaled or outdid men’s:

“The Egyptians recognised female violence in all its forms, their queens even portrayed crushing their enemies, executing prisoners or firing arrows at male opponents as well as the non-royal women who stab and overpower invading soldiers. Although such scenes are often disregarded as illustrating 'fictional' or ritual events, the literary and archaeological evidence is less easy to dismiss. Royal women undertake military campaigns whilst others are decorated for their active role in conflict. Women were regarded as sufficiently threatening to be listed as 'enemies of the state', and female graves containing weapons are found throughout the three millennia of Egyptian history.

Although by no means a race of Amazons, their ability to exercise varying degrees of power and self-determination was most unusual in the ancient world, which set such great store by male prowess, as if acknowledging the same in women would make them less able to fulfil their expected roles as wife and mother. Indeed, neighbouring countries were clearly shocked by the relative freedom of Egyptian women and, describing how they 'attended market and took part in trading whereas men sat and home and did the weaving', the Greek historian Herodotus believed the Egyptians 'have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind'.”

Women and Manual Labor

Studies also show the upper body strength of women from prehistoric times was much stronger than that of today’s professional female rowers. In a widely published study featured on various sites like Time and Science, findings show early Neolithic female skeletons indicate significant physical strength due to the herculean demands of agrarian culture, especially when it came to food production:

“...even when compared with women on Cambridge’s championship rowing team, the prehistoric women’s arms were 11-16% stronger for their size. They were also 30% stronger than the arms of the non-athletes analyzed in the study.”

These studies highlight the fact that long before the Industrial Revolution, women played critical roles regarding hard manual labor. In more recent times, before the Industrial Revolution, up to 90% of the global population worked in agriculture. In America alone in 1790, according to Human Progress, 90% “of the U.S. workforce” was employed on a farm. Especially on family farms, women often worked the land alongside men, and children, due to necessity for survival.

The Female Hunter

Other recent studies published detail another long-lost archetype among history, the female hunter-gatherer:

“The sexual division of labor among human foraging populations has typically been recognized as involving males as hunters and females as gatherers. Recent archeological research has questioned this paradigm with evidence that females hunted (and went to war) throughout the Homo sapiens lineage, though many of these authors assert the pattern of women hunting may only have occurred in the past. The current project gleans data from across the ethnographic literature to investigate the prevalence of women hunting in foraging societies in more recent times. Evidence from the past one hundred years supports archaeological finds from the Holocene that women from a broad range of cultures intentionally hunt for subsistence. These results aim to shift the male-hunter female-gatherer paradigm to account for the significant role females have in hunting, thus dramatically shifting stereotypes of labor, as well as mobility.”

Warriors Who Happened to be Women

There are so many graves either being uncovered or re-evaluated for proper sex designation I can’t possibly link to them all. Many of these findings show graves that were once thought to belong to male warriors indeed belong to women. For instance, one review in 1988 revealed an ancient Scythian male warrior as young as 13 years old was actually female.

The context-dropping among this discussion of supposedly scientific minds astounds me. I’d like to pose some final remarks, and questions:

These burial sites, especially the Viking burial mound found in Birka, are often ornate and decorated. It is obvious great care was put into burying these women. They were women in positions of power who were respected, celebrated, and treasured. They earned their burials. In the history of the world, no single-sex civilization has ever existed and flourished. Since the beginning of time, men and women have worked together and fought alongside each other to build their cultures and families and protect their homes and territories. It is unlikely those who buried these women were an all-female crew. It is likely, those burying these women were, at least, partly made up of fellow male warriors.

I ask you this. Why is it that men of ancient times gave women warriors more recognition and respect than people today belonging to the professions of science and the humanities? Why is it that men of ancient times were more comfortable with the reality of warriors who happened to be women than today’s minds of what should be objective and unbiased science?

If ancient men from various tribes and civilizations could accept female warriors, why isn’t that the case now, in our more enlightened, modern epoch?

Why is it that ancient cultures trained women in horseback riding for combat, weapons and archery for war, and military strategy for victory, but today’s culture can only stomach a female warrior if we erase her biological existence and replace it with wild accusations of living as a male character?

Why is it, despite overwhelming discoveries, professionals like Mr. Tihanyi involved with or interested in these excavations and remains are deliberately averting their eyes to copious amounts of scientific evidence—to the truth—to the facts of reality?

After yet another row with critics, the team leading the investigation into the Viking female warrior released this statement concluding their evidence-based, logical argument:

“Time will prove us right or wrong, but we think it probable that more Viking Age female warriors will be found in the archaeological record — either as new discoveries or as reinterpretations of old finds.”

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*I have taken great pains through copious amounts of study time to not only monitor the ongoing findings of ancient warrior women and the place they held in society, but I’ve also done my due diligence in finding the most trustworthy sources possible on the matter. However, I do admit getting the history of these women right and rooted in reality is far from over, and perhaps never will be a process that is complete. Therefore, any information I’ve included in this piece that at any point comes to light to be inaccurate, I will make changes accordingly with updates and new sources. I want to also state: I remain confident in my research. Stay tuned!