Male Grooming and the Warrior Aristocracy of Ancient Europe

in Bronze Age Europe during the second millennium BC a new kind of burial tradition emerged that archaeologists called Warrior Graves these were burials or cremations centered on the individual male warrior and his personal Weaponry these Graves were interpreted by archaeologists as evidence for the rise of a warrior aristocracy as a distinct social class in the European Bronze Age the nature of these burials and the specific objects they contain are thought to reflect the beliefs and social practices undertaken by this aristocracy most notably of course the weapons like daggers swords and Spears show that the elite men who wielded them in life were occupied in the business of making War but there were other objects in these Groves along with weapons forming an essential elements of this Warrior complex that are perhaps more surprising and difficult to explain items like horn bone and bronze hair combs bronze razors and tweezers bronze cloak pins and alls for tattooing the skin all speak to a profound interest in clothing personal grooming and in adorning the Warrior this was something that hadn't been seen before so how and why did these practices emerge and spread why were these men so concerned with making themselves look a certain way and what can all this tell us about this aristocracy the beliefs and practices of these Elite men and the nature of masculinity in prehistory this is the story of the beautiful Warriors of Bronze Age Europe first I'd like to tell you about this video's sponsor Henson shaving I thought they would be a great fit for this video topic because just like in Bronze Age Europe Henson make all metal roses and they make them to last a lifetime Henton was an aerospace manufacturing company that pivoted to making the very best higher Precision razors they could one of the main reasons their razors give such a great shave is the accuracy and firmness with which they hold the blades reducing the flexing and vibrations that irritate the skin and cause razor burn what I really love though is that their razors are built to last once you buy one you only need to replace the blades which you can get anywhere so there's no more going through disposable plastic razors in fact these products are completely plastic free Hinton razors are made from aluminum and if you're an elite male like a Bronze Age Warrior Chief there's also a titanium option because you only ever need to get one razor that means that in the long run it's also the most cost effective option I'm really happy to be able to tell you about hens and shaving and if you like the sound of their products please use the link in the video description and maybe get yourself the last razor you'll ever need when you check out use the code Dan Davis for 100 free blades which is two to four years of Shaving now from Aerospace aluminum and titanium let's go back to the world of bronze the origins of the European Warrior burial tradition date two before 3000 BC but were first widely expressed in the corded Ware culture which saw Elite males being buried with a stone battle ax this ancient weapon was closely tied to the male identity for these people the tradition was later expressed by the Bell Beaker culture where male identity was linked to the bill-shaped beaker a special kind of drinking cup as well as Weapons like the bow and arrow and the copper dagger as the societies of Europe became technologically artistically and politically more sophisticated over the centuries especially after about 2000 BC so too did these burial traditions we see these expressed in Central Europe from the Carpathian Basin to Bavaria in some remarkably wealthy burials where men could be buried with a range of magnificent artifacts including bronze weapons like axes and daggers and later swords as well as metal pins for fastening clothing like heavy wool and cloaks Bronze Age Europe would see Prof round moments of change at various points around the years two thousand sixteen hundred and twelve hundred BC we can likely think of these as times of Crisis after which new social structures beliefs and traditions emerged from the old but throughout the entire period the warrior identity only grew stronger it was expressed to varying degrees in different places and times from Scandinavia to Iberia and from Ireland to Greece and Beyond as unique burial practices and artistic Traditions emerged and developed in each society and they also influenced each other it's this array of Bronze Age burial practices that tells the story of the underlying beliefs and lifestyles of the warrior aristocracy the weapons in the burials show that their primary occupation was in making war or at least that the use of weapons in life was intrinsically linked to their social identity in death but there's much more to it than that these European Chiefs and Kings ruled over fertile lowlands and extracted vast amounts of copper from the mountains which they used to create and distribute bronze objects like weapons they were linked by trade networks that extended from the Atlantic and the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the great step establishing and protecting all this wealth and power required these rulers and their Warrior retinues to fight for it they had to defend their settlements attack those of their enemies and protect the trade routes the Traders and the cargo resources like copper Amber wool and salt as well as finished goods like weapons tools textiles and jewelry were taken over land by ox-drawn wagons and along rivers and coasts by boat and ship and the emerging Warrior identity would continue to be bound up with the concept of travel and journeying we know this because these burials often involve objects like horse harnesses wheeled vehicles and boats or at least images of these things regularly leaving the Homeland to take part in Warfare and raiding trade diplomacy and piracy was part of their identity other items tell us about how these Warriors interacted with each other cups and bowls found in these Graves made from wood ceramic bronze gold and even Amber are of course objects familiar to us for their utility as we use them every day but we also understand them as potentially something more than that they can be works of art special and expensive things to be appreciated for their beauty and displayed as data symbols some ancient cups were clearly Fit For A King but we also see burials with sets of cups or large bowls for mixing water and wine that were used in life for communal drinking where a chief distributed alcohol to his Warrior retinue and where Oaths of loyalty and Brotherhood were sworn and reinforced a Warriors drinking cup placed in his grave wasn't just a personal item for use in the afterlife it was a symbol of his Oaths and social position and there were core components of this lifestyle that related to personal appearance metal cloak pins are common in Warrior graves because Woolen cloaks were an important element of the warrior outfit with The Shining pins prominently displayed in life and in death in some societies developed single large ornate buttons for fastening instead these aspects of the lifestyle of the warrior aristocracy Warfare travel beyond the Homeland Brotherhood and wearing special clothing are familiar to us even today because they continued in some places into the historical era think of Viking Raiders or medieval knights for example but the most interesting parts to me are the Combs tweezers razors and walls that were also a key part of the material culture for the Bronze Age Warrior these were for combing shaving and plucking the hair of these Warriors and the olds were for scarification or tattooing the skin of course men and women combed their hair long before this and Men could shave with Flint razors before the Bronze Age but these items collectively referred to as toilet articles were closely associated with Warrior Graves so much so that some men even had toiletry sets made along with matching swords where the idea of these roses started is debated some see them spreading northwards from martini and Greece others see them being developed independently in various places like in Ireland where the earlier Flinch races inspired the shape of the later bronze ones and some places like in the Balkans and Southern Britain didn't seem to use them some experts conclude that this means British and Balkan Bronze Age men had big bushy beards although perhaps in those places they just didn't bury their razors with the Warriors and they were instead passed on or something like that nevertheless there are huge numbers of surviving bronze razors and tweezers from Greece and Central Europe and especially from northern Europe where there was a long tradition of warrior burials that saw Elite men interred under burial mounds with their sword along with in many cases these toiletry items but why well these toilet articles were used for bodily transformation specifically hairdressing as a means of display and social distinction it was the elites who had the means to obtain these items and they had the time to use them to Mark themselves out from the common people by their shaved cheeks and well-groomed hair but hairstyles don't just convey someone's class hair has deeper meanings in many cultures even conveying its power once it's been shown consider people keeping a lock of hair from their child's first haircut today and Sean Bronze Age braids have even been found deposited in Danish bugs presumably as sacred offerings the following is from a 1995 essay by Paul Trahan titled the Warrior's Beauty the masculine body and self-identification in bronze Euro there's a link to it in the description below quote the head is often seen as the source of life and seed and thus hair is associated with sexual potency the homeric Warriors flower of Vitality particularly the beard a sacred element the first appearance of which signals the coming of generative power and marks the individual male with the vibrant Beauty unique to the warrior however because of its potency regimens of Hair Management are necessary to avoid pollution the homeric like the later Spartan Celtic or Frankish Warrior grew his hair long and delighted in its grooming the Celtic Warrior is said to have washed his hair back with lime before entering battle such regimens of bodily appearance are Central to the constitution of self-identity and subjectivity end quote it wasn't just about daily grooming we know that in many cultures Warriors would undergo ritual preparations for combat separating themselves from The Ordinary World in Readiness for violence after fighting was over they would also reverse the process with rituals of cleansing and reincorporation before returning home to their household it might be that the razors and tweezers were used for these kinds of Rights too similar processes were used when preparing for journeying another important part of their social role after all traveling this time was very dangerous and those setting out May well meet with disaster on the sea and never return perhaps these measures included preparing the head face and bodies for the journey support for this idea comes from surviving bronze razors themselves some researchers see those found in Bronze Age Island and Scotland as featuring boat shapes canoe type boats specifically in the center the most spectacular examples though come from the Nordic Bronze Age over 1300 survived today with a range of designs shapes and decorations some feature a horse head design for the handle others have a spiral shape or even a human head the horse is a special animal for many societies certainly for Indo-European ones associated with traveling as well as Warfare and even death with a horse carrying the soul to the afterlife in the ultimate Journey some reasons are thought to be in the shape of a mighty sperm whale imagine meeting one of these while paddling in a Bronze Age canoe [Music] some of these roses have engraved decorations depicting those very boats and the waves they rode whether these designs relate real or Mythic Journeys they once more reinforce the importance of journeying physically and metaphysically in the social identity of these Bronze Age Warriors some researchers have also speculated that these roses were given to a young man for his first shave and then kept all his life before being placed in his grave when he died the first shave being a riot of Passage where the boy becomes a man a full member of his community this would reflect the broader Indo-European chorius or manabund tradition seen in many cultures where youths in sacred warbands would be unshaven and unkempt with long and wild hair that would only be shown once they complete their final rite of passage and become men these Traditions continued for a long time in some places the Roman historian tacitus wrote in Germania of a tribe where it was the custom among them for a youth who had just reached manhood to let his beard and hair grow until he has killed an enemy he says over blood and booty they bear the face while the Craven and unwarlike remain unkempt all this tells us about the social roles of the Bronze Age Warrior but it also tells us about what they looked like and perhaps more importantly how they saw themselves clearly their physical appearance was of great importance their role as Warriors required them to train in the martial arts and to maintain a level of fitness and good health which would be displayed in the beauty of their physiques and the beauty of the warrior also reflected the inner virtue of the man because only through living rightly and being blessed by the gods could one achieve the physical ideal perhaps this beauty was further emphasized by tattooing or scarification of the skin of the face and body the bronze alls they were sometimes buried with and rarely what might be small ink pots suggests that it was done but human skin is preserved only in the rarest of conditions and so we have to imagine the designs surely they would have included the motifs seen in rock art and in bronze artifacts like the razors and they were perhaps Inked at important moments in the Warrior's life becoming a man his first kill or to commemorate A Moment Of Glory or the memory of a fallen brother in arms we can therefore picture the warrior aristocracy of Brunswick Europe as the healthiest strongest men of their era wearing the finest clothes available and displaying their shining bronze weapons and armor and golden artifacts their hair was well groomed and their faces and perhaps bodies well Shone and plucked and even tattooed with complex designs but this beauty was not frivolous vanity rather it was the physical expression of the heroic Warrior ethos carried within each individual man to quote Paul trahernagan this Warrior experienced himself in his actions through which he pressed the logic of a worldly existence to its extreme winning for himself Glory Beauty and eternal remembrance end quote if you enjoyed this video please hit like And subscribe to the channel for more like this in the future now to find out more about how Beauty was expressed in this era please watch this video on the beautiful women of bronzo Europe or to learn more about Bronze Age Warfare check out this excellent playlist thank you for watching

Channel: Dan Davis History

Views: 197,591

Keywords: bronze age history, history of europe, history documentaries, ancient history documentary, ancient civilizations, nordic bronze age, bronze age razors, bronze age warriors, bronze age warfare, bronze age history documentary, bronze age europe, bronze age, ancient history, bronze age civilization, bronze age documentary, prehistoric warfare, the koryos, dan davis author, bronze age warband, first warriors, ancient history bronze age, bronze age europe documentary

Id: xvoVc0O9rbM

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023