Gay Skeletons

No jokes about finding gay skeletons in a closet. Although that’s quite deep and could spawn a meaningful story of youth lost through fear, that’s not what this is all about. I’ll save that for a later date.

A 5,000-year-old skeleton has been uncovered in the Czech Republic which seems to suggest that the remains were that of a gay man, transsexual or a male otherwise viewed by his society as female.

No, there were no feather boas, no male nurse uniform or hair stylist implements. Rather, researchers suggest that the burial of the body reflects traditions more associated to female members of society than males.
So here’s the “facts” part (which you should read instead of just taking my word for it)

Males were traditionally buried with food and drink (no beer cans reported as of yet), weapons and hunting tools, and their bodies laying on their right side with their heads facing West. Whereas women were buried on their left side facing East, surrounded by jewellery, their pets (which is really creepy, did they die together on the morning poop walk?) and cooking vessels. Notably, females were buried with an egg shaped container near their feet. Although not many of the typical items expected to be found with a female were present in this grave, there were no male-associated implements or offerings there either, only an egg shaped vessel.

Now it seems that no one really knows what that egg shaped thing means. But as they are traditionally buried with women, is it not fair to assume that this symbolises a mother figure? Someone noticed that birds lay eggs, they care for those eggs until they hatch and they are suddenly a mother. Therefore it’s fair to guess that this is where that egg shaped thing comes from, am I right?

Does this show that they had some confusion when deciding whether this person was male or female, or does it perhaps depict their place in society? It seems that this guy was not seen as a warrior or fighter, and it seems there were no hunting skills here either. So what did he do? What was his place in society?

You might not think it’s important. I mean, how does this minor discovery affect any of us? But there is at least one way in which this nameless guy can help us…

Think of the next time you meet a bigot. And now instead of using the same old “Look at the Romans” you can go back even further and say “Look at the Czechoslovakian cavemen!”

Okay, so it doesn’t quite have the same power, but it does show that the roles of gay people in society have always been on the mind. Even 5,000 years ago they were perhaps debating the role of gender and sexuality in society, and by the looks of things they were accepting it too. This man obviously had his place, he was respected enough to have equality, and there probably wasn’t even a fight to gain it. You’d think that if homosexuality was a punishable offence 5,000 years ago, this guy certainly wouldn’t have been buried with respect. In fact he would probably not have lived much beyond his teenage years.

I think that what it should remind us of most of all, is that – if this man was gay, which we don’t really KNOW (lets not out him just yet) – sexuality was never really a problem for numerous societies throughout the history of Mankind. Whether it’s a tribe in South America who encourage male mutual masturbation as a form of bonding, or the Greek warriors fighting alongside their male lovers while their wives worried at home, many societies throughout history never really considered what was right or wrong when it came to sex.

So when did things change? When did we suddenly “socially devolve” and decide that the right to sleep with another adult was open to public discussion and judgement?

Yep, I think we all know the answer to that, don’t we?