Women Who Bled For God & Country

the long ignored history of women warriors

Jun 02, 2025

My former University of North Florida professor, Dr. Henry Thomas knows that I have a particular interest in the history of military service by women. I find the lost stories of women whose blood soaked battlegrounds, homesteads, and waterways to be tragic and deeply consequential.

Last week, when “Dr. T” appeared in my inbox with a subject line that read “Weapon-filled burials are shaking up what we know about women's role in Viking society,” he knew he would get my attention. It’s a unique gift some educators have; to come to know not just a person but their curiosities as well. I graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Administration in 1998. The last time I physically saw Dr. T was in 2010. Yet, somehow, he is still teaching me.

Okay, enough with the sappy stuff. Let’s get to the bloody bits.

Live Science, May 9, 2025, by Laura Geggel

Laura Geggel knows her subject. She is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. She can be found in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association. She holds degrees from Washington University - St. Louis and NYU.

This month she reported on the lives - and deaths - of Viking Warriors who also happened to be women.

“In Birka, Sweden, there is a roughly 1,000-year-old Viking burial teeming with lethal weapons — a sword, an ax-head, spears, knives, shields and a quiver of arrows — as well as riding equipment and the skeletons of two warhorses. Nearly 150 years ago, when the grave was unearthed, archaeologists assumed they were looking at the burial of a male warrior. But a 2017 DNA analysis of the burial's skeletal remains revealed the individual was female.”

Archaeological findings of the burial spots of women warriors provide fascinating insights into gender roles, social status, and the truth about who has been willing to pay the ultimate price for their nation. A recent study out of the University of South Florida found an added complexity; the level of violence across Nordic communities. During the Viking Age, for example, Norway was a much more violent place then its neighboring Denmark.

Regardless, “Given how much violence permeated Viking society, "it would be naïve to think that only one half of the population was invested in it," wrote said Marianne Moen, head of the Department of Archaeology at the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo.

And that is the heart of the matter.

Do we really just blindly accept that our female ancestors weren’t just as invested in defending their way of life? Their property? Their neighbors? Their children? Themselves?

Human history is one long saga of conflict. Every day on planet Earth, war is being waged. Today, it shocks us when we see civilian structures being taken out by military force. But guard rails on war are new to human history. 1864, to be exact, when the First Geneva Convention established protections for wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Civilians (and prisoners of war) weren’t protected until the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

For the vast majority of history, even if women weren’t physically on the battlefield, war came a knocking and raping them as a tool of war wasn’t considered a crime until 1945. So, yes, friend, the women who gave life to your lineage, were just as fierce and courageous as any man in your DNA. They were also just as traumatized by the things they did, saw, and survived.

What they didn’t get was the recognition. The honor. The glory.

Go down the rabbit hole with me. Who knows, we might just meet Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Queen Nzinga, Tomoe Gozen, Artemisia I, or Queen Tomyris along the way.

Mycenaean (Ancient Greece)

In Lepreon, Greece scientists found a grave containing female remains with weaponry and armor challenging the traditional belief that warfare was solely a male role in 950 BC Greece.

Roman Martiobarbuli

Burial sites including women and weapons indicate Roman women were assigned protective roles likely based on family status.

Egyptian

Warrior Queen (e.g., Queen Ahhotep) artifacts show evidence of royal women in military strategy and defense during conflicts.

Native American Nations

Some burials of women with weapons or in warrior-like postures have been uncovered, especially among the Plains tribes and others where women participated in warfare. Other archeological records include women with war paint, weapons, or attire indicating participation in combat roles.