Channel 24 News, South Africa (http://www.news24.com/News24/Archive/0,,2-1659_1188346,00.html)
London - The remains of a young Roman man who dressed as a woman and probably castrated himself show a previously unknown side of Britain's ancient history, archaeologists said on Tuesday. Excavations at Catterick, northern England, unearthed the skeleton of a fourth century man buried wearing a jet necklace and bracelet, a shale armlet and a bronze anklet. "He is the only man wearing this array of jewellery who has ever been found from a late Roman cemetery in Britain," Dr Pete Wilson, senior archaeologist at English Heritage said.
Thanks for this one, Kristi, it's the kind of thing I'm keeping an eye out for.
If you didn't receive the car for your new position yet, then I really want to thank you for having the gumption to walk all the way to South Africa for the story.
Peace,
Rebecca
If this young man really was castrated, then he must have been a true TS, not a cross dresser. :D
hugs & giggles
helen
I am having a hard time with this story because I don't know what a jet necklace is. I also don't know what an armlet is. But I do wish I had similar items.
There was a trans Roman emperor when he announced he was going to castrate himself, he was assassinated.
Nero or Caligula, I can't remember which, both showed gender variant behavior.
But it must be understood Roman sexuality was prefaced on hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity not unlike what is written in the fantasy/scifi Gor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor) series. So, it's safe to say this person was probably rich enough not to be beaten down in ancient Roman society, or was part of the Galli/Gallae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli).
-- Brede
I saw some pictures of the types of instruments used to castrate men over the course of history and those tools looked brutal. You had to be committed.
To be honest, I'd go for it. In fact, I think I'd prefer it to this humiliating process that they make us go through now. Like we can't make our own decisions. We have to be examined and cross examined and approved of as if we're not adults. Hopefully, those ancients had decent drugs.
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 14, 2007, 09:12:30 PM
I am having a hard time with this story because I don't know what a jet necklace is. I also don't know what an armlet is. But I do wish I had similar items.
Jet is a type of semiprecious stone. It's black in colour. An armlet is an armband that goes around the upper arm. It is generally made out of metal.
Quote from: HelenW on May 14, 2007, 08:52:47 PM
If this young man really was castrated, then he must have been a true TS, not a cross dresser. :D
She may have been a priestess of Cybele. The candidates worked themselves into an ecstatic frenzy and then castrated themselves with stone knives. This was usually done at the spring festival where they ran through the streets. The severed members would be thrown through the front doors of houses along the route. The house where each landed was concidered to be specially blessed by the goddess.
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 16, 2007, 06:07:18 PM
Hopefully, those ancients had decent drugs.
No. Prayer, chanting, and dancing.
Quote from: Lisbeth on May 17, 2007, 10:56:02 AM
She may have been a priestess of Cybele. The candidates worked themselves into an ecstatic frenzy and then castrated themselves with stone knives. This was usually done at the spring festival where they ran through the streets. The severed members would be thrown through the front doors of houses along the route. The house where each landed was concidered to be specially blessed by the goddess.
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 16, 2007, 06:07:18 PM
Wow... this Cybele expected a lot didn't she?
Oh, looked her up...Cybele's son...Attis. Well I never guessed, the resident atheist activist is the son of a Goddess
why transvestite?
the didnt have grs back then to this extent, this shows this is not a modern phenomenon
im glad to see she was burried as herself
just wiki'd
Galli (singular Gallus) was the Roman name for castrated followers of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, which were regarded as a third gender by contemporary Roman scholars, and are in some ways like transgendered people in the modern world. The chief of these priests was referred to as a battakes, and later as the archigallus.[1]
Cybele's Galli were similar in form to other colleges of priests in Asia Minor that ancient authors described as "eunuchs", such as the priests of Atargatis described by Apuleius and Lucian, or the galloi of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
The first Galli arrived in Rome when the Senate officially adopted Cybele as a state goddess in 203 BC. Until the first century AD, Roman citizens were prohibited from becoming Galli. Under Claudius, however, this ban was lifted.
Further information is difficult to come by, given the persecution faced by followers of Cybele and other pagan deities after the Theodosian edict of 391 AD. All of her temples were destroyed, with orders that they should never be built upon (in contrast to the usual practice of converting non-Christian religious sites). As a result the only surviving records of the Galli come from historians and archivists. The accuracy of such records is often dubious because of the gender biases of most ancient writers.
The name Galli is probably derived from the Gallus river in Phrygia. One of the first temples to Cybele was built near this river, which led to a rumor that drinking from the Gallus would cause such madness that the drinker would castrate himself. It has also been supposed that Galli is derived from the Latin word for rooster. Hieronymus believed the name was given by the Romans as a sign of their contempt for the Gauls. However, in that case, gallus would have been borrowed from Asia or Greece, where it meant eunuch.
The Galli were castrated voluntarily, typically during an ecstatic celebration called Dies Sanguinis, or Day of Blood, which took place on March 24.
Quote from: Lisbeth on May 17, 2007, 10:56:02 AM
She may have been a priestess of Cybele. The candidates worked themselves into an ecstatic frenzy and then castrated themselves with stone knives. This was usually done at the spring festival where they ran through the streets. The severed members would be thrown through the front doors of houses along the route. The house where each landed was concidered to be specially blessed by the goddess.
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 16, 2007, 06:07:18 PM
Hopefully, those ancients had decent drugs.
No. Prayer, chanting, and dancing.
I'm sorry about the pronoun slip. I had read the article and it kept calling her
he. I forgot to adjust.
I like the idea of throwing the removed bits into peoples' houses. I'd like to throw mine onto the white house lawn, but not if it was to bring the current resident
good luck.
Quote from: Lisbeth on May 17, 2007, 10:56:02 AM
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 14, 2007, 09:12:30 PM
I am having a hard time with this story because I don't know what a jet necklace is. I also don't know what an armlet is. But I do wish I had similar items.
Jet is a type of semiprecious stone. It's black in colour. An armlet is an armband that goes around the upper arm. It is generally made out of metal.
Quote from: HelenW on May 14, 2007, 08:52:47 PM
If this young man really was castrated, then he must have been a true TS, not a cross dresser. :D
She may have been a priestess of Cybele. The candidates worked themselves into an ecstatic frenzy and then castrated themselves with stone knives. This was usually done at the spring festival where they ran through the streets. The severed members would be thrown through the front doors of houses along the route. The house where each landed was concidered to be specially blessed by the goddess.
Quote from: RebeccaFog on May 16, 2007, 06:07:18 PM
Hopefully, those ancients had decent drugs.
No. Prayer, chanting, and dancing.
Excellent Lisbeth!
Obviously we all find our nitches in what we learn, it seems you have a lot of historical info. I would love it if you would do a blog on it alone!
Quote from: Pica Pica on May 17, 2007, 11:39:08 AM
Hieronymus believed the name was given by the Romans as a sign of their contempt for the Gauls. However, in that case, gallus would have been borrowed from Asia or Greece, where it meant eunuch.
Consider it to be a play on words. "Gaulus" and "gallus" were pronounced similarly. There were two regions that the Romans would have been familiar with Gauls coming from. The largest was Gaul, which today we call France. The other was Galatia, which is in modern Turkey. It's likely that Hieronymus was referring to the Galatians since the Gallus river flows through Galatia.
Quote from: Pica Pica on May 17, 2007, 11:39:08 AM
The Galli were castrated voluntarily, typically during an ecstatic celebration called Dies Sanguinis, or Day of Blood, which took place on March 24.
It is probable that the Apostle Paul was referring to this celebration when he wrote in Romans 1:27, "Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
Quote from: togetherwecan on May 17, 2007, 12:16:32 PM
Obviously we all find our nitches in what we learn, it seems you have a lot of historical info. I would love it if you would do a blog on it alone!
On history? I don't know, my knowledge is rather idiosyncratic. It's more closely tied to mythology and religious practices.
lets not get the religious gaybashers turned onto us instead lisibeth :)