[MR] Archaeology News: Hungarian Woman’s Grave with Bow

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble friends, especially fellow archers:

Today Archaeology News is offering a feature on a 10th century Hungarian
grave which contained a woman buried with weapons.

The grave was part of a cemetery from the Hungarian Conquest period
excavated during the 1980s, and only now are the results being published.
The cemetery contained at least 262 burials. Most of the male remains were
buried with weapons, and the women's graves contained household goods.

Grave HS-63, however, was different. It contained the skeleton of a woman,
but also an antler arrow plate from a bow, metal parts of a quiver, and an
armor-piercing arrowhead. Condition of the skeleton suggested that
the woman regularly rode horses, and suffered a number of injuries,
possibly broken bones from falls. While this does not prove she was a
warrior, these clues suggest the possibility.

You can read the story and see her conjectural reconstruction at
https://archaeologymag.com/2025/01/first-medieval-female-burial-with-weapons-hungary/
.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep the original Merry Rose relevant and in
business.