Reconstructing Diverse Bodies
Every body is political: there is no such thing as a neutral one. Yet one of the goals of archeological illustration is to make images that are evidence-based and apolitical. It's an impossible mandate, but that doesn't not mean we should stop making archeological reconstructions all together. Instead, it means that we need to carefully examine the kinds of bodies we represent, how we represent them, and what this means for our perception of the past.
This project, produced for the EEA 2023 conference, attempted to address a specific bias in archeological illustration, colloquially termed "the Hollywood Effect." This is a bias in representing past people as if they were cast for a Hollywood film: young, thin, consistent with Western beauty standards, and able bodied. To combat this, this project attempted to illustrate against these biases by illustrating objects from the National Historical Museums of Sweden in relation to a diverse set of bodies. The argument these illustrations make is that bodies in the past were as diverse as bodies in the present, and that to make reconstructions with only one type of body is to limit our perception the bodies that existed in the past and to make a value judgement about the bodies that deserve to exist in the present.
Body Difference From Birth
There is the false perception that difference in the past meant death: that genetic "disabilities" were inevitably fatal or that a non-typical infant would be rejected by its parents. We get these ideas directly from eugenicists and social Darwinists, as well as from Enlightenment thinkers who felt that people in the past lived in a "state of nature" that was inherently Edenic and "pure." There is a lot to unpack.
Modern medicine has indeed improved the survival rates, quality of life, and length of life for a lot of individuals with genetic bodily differences: from cerebral palsy to cleft palate to Crohn's - but that does not mean that these differences were absent from the past. And it certainly does not mean that individuals with body differences were not full members of their communities. It is therefore not an anachronism to include this diversity in the reconstructions we make.
Infant Baptism in Baptismal Font
Object Number (SHM): 44781_HIST
Tailor Using a Thimble
Object Number (SHM): 117252_HST
Mother and Child Wearing Silver Jewelry from a Hoard
Object Number (SHM): 113584_HST
Woman Tasting Beer from a Ceramic Mug
Object Number (SHM): 120951_HST
Woman Adjusting Earring
Object Number (SHM): 44020_HIST
Acquired Bodily Difference
The experiences of life leave their marks on the body, and this was even more true in the past than it is today. Disease, accident, or the simple act of growing older change body presentation, but we almost never see these changes depicted in reconstruction. In these illustrations, individuals are depicted with the quite common bodily differences of digit loss, smallpox scarring, and a misaligned gaze. There is also a depiction of the way that physical differences that are perhaps less immediately apparent can nevertheless affect the way that individuals interact with space. Blindness - or even just poor vision - changes the gestures of use and is something that we can at least attempt to represent in our reconstructions of people and objects.
Man Examining Pipe
Object Number (SHM): 394852_HST
Throwing Dice
Object Number (SHM): 59199_HIST
Hands Unlocking a Lock
Object Number (SHM): 120325_HST
Man with Pilgrim Shell Badge
Object Number (SHM): 43947_HST
Gender Expression
Reconstructions tend to present gender, not only as a binary, but as a stark binary: the men are bearded, burly, and butch and the women are hairless, gracile, and girly. But this is just not an accurate presentation of the past - or the present for that matter.
Human bodies are diverse, and we see this in archeological skeletal analysis. Sex determination from skeletons rely on a variety of features and it is usual for a certain percent of individuals at a site to be uncertain or undetermined in their classification. Moreover, regardless of how a culture and the individuals within that culture conceptualize gender, the expression of that gender varies from person to person. Not all "men" are hypermasculine, and not all "women" are hyperfeminine.
This is a missed opportunity to explore a more nuanced representation of the past: one in which gender is complex and contingent. Different people have different bodies and feel different ways about those bodies. Women can have with 'masculine' features like facial hair, men can have 'feminine' features like soft jawlines, and sometimes it is not even necessary to draw an individual that is clearly gendered. There is room to explore and play in our illustrations, instead of getting stuck in a restrictive hyper-binary.
Baiting a Fishhook (Female Presenting)
Object Number (SHM): 197849_HST
Baiting a Fishhook (Male Presenting)
Object Number (SHM): 197849_HST
Older Individual Praying with Beads
Object Number (SHM): 43605 _HST
Frustration over a Broken Glass
Object Number (SHM): 121333_HST
Body Shape
We as illustrators consistently draw a skinny past, as if larger bodies are entirely the result of modern lifestyles, but the historical record does not bear this out. In the art and writing from the past, people exist in both large and small bodies. Our own squeamishness to draw a full-bodied past seems rooted in deep-seated societal fatphobia that is then perpetuated by the lack of body diversity in our representations of the past. Body fat is not new or abnormal - it is a regular part of the human experience.
Hands Wearing a Ring
Object Number (SHM): 41548_HST
Man Wearing Pendant
Object Number (SHM): 59093_HIST
Woman Placing Hairpin
Object Number (SHM): 461758_HST
Looking for an object?
All objects from for this project can be found using the National Historic Museum of Sweden's search feature, 'Sök i Samlingarna." Simply paste the object number into the search bar - or explore the collections yourself and see what you find.