This essay explores the reason behind the sexless human figures depicted in rock carvings from the Bronze Age in Scandinavia, to understand why they are sexless while others have indicated sex markers, and to investigate which theories about them are the most reliable - are they sexless by purpose, or are they women, men, children or are they a third gender? This interdisciplinary study with archeology and gender research will discuss and analyze human figures with non distinct sex markers from 10 pictures of rock carvings from Scandinavia with the purpose to understand the lack of sex markers such as phallus and long hair. The ambition of this essay is that a study of this kind will deepen the general knowledge of the subject of rock art and possibly contribute to the discussion about the Bronze Age society's view of gender. The result and discussion of this study have shown that several earlier theories about the sexless human figures could be confirmed, for example that small mostly sexless human figures are children but that they are not a specific indicator of sex and that shamans are depicted in ceremonies, but that not all sexless human figures should be interpreted as shamans. The discussion also contradicted a few of the earlier theories, for example the theory that weapons always indicate male sex and that the lack of it indicates female sex, and that all human figures on ships should be interpreted as male even if they do not have any sex markers. The sexless human figures are still a mystery, but this study have lead to the conclusion that they are sexless by purpose and that sex markers such as phallus and long hair are indicators of masculinity and femininity, not the biological male and female sex.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-296033 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Jansson, Jenny |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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