The 3,000-Year-Old Bones of a Master Ceramicist Show Unusual Signs of Wear

[Warpy]

Back in 2009, archaeologists at Eleutherna—an ancient city-state located on the Greek island of Crete—discovered a woman’s skeleton that showed unusual signs of wear. As Michael Price writes for Science magazine, in comparison to the other females at the site, the muscles on the right side of her body were notably developed, while the cartilage on her knee and hip joints was worn away, leaving the bones smooth and ivory-like.
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Then, as Cara Giaimo reports for Atlas Obscura, the team chanced upon a master ceramicist who lived near the Eleutherna site. The woman demonstrated how she created her large artisan vases—describing the sets of muscles used and subsequent strain experienced—and provided researchers with a key breakthough in the frustrating case. Her movements and the physical toll exacted by the process, Giaimo writes, closely mirrored that of her 3,000-year-old predecessor.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/her-3-000-year-old-bones-showed-unusual-signs-of-wear-it-turns-out-she-was-a-master-ceramicist?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The rest of the article is interesting, too.

[Kali]

1. interesting that it was a woman

those large vessels are usually produced by men

[Warpy]

4. Cretan society was fairly egalitarian

even after the Greeks took over. Women were prominent in many fields.

I have to think this woman was never a wee slip of a thing, she was likely pretty robust. She had to be in order to throw pots that size and on a kick wheel and as a production potter.

The interesting part was how they compared her wear patterns with women who did other hard work and finally found a contemporary potter to compare her to.

[Karadeniz]

2. Love this stuff!

[hibbing]

3. Kickity, love this, thanks for posting n/t