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Spain’s Copper Age Priestesses

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At the site of Valencina in southwestern Spain, just outside Seville, a woman nicknamed the Ivory Lady was buried nearly 5,000 years ago with a collection of grave goods unparalleled for the time and place. A few generations later, 20 people—at least 15 of them women—were buried a few hundred feet from the Ivory Lady with an even more impressive array of grave goods in a tomb known as the Montelirio tholos. Archaeologist Leonardo García Sanjuán of the University of Seville, who leads a team that is studying the burials, believes the Ivory Lady and the women buried in the Montelirio tholos were leaders of their community, vested with great political and religious power.

  • Among the items buried with the Ivory Lady was a flint dagger, shown here (both sides). (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Miguel Ángel Blanco de la Rubia.)
  • Archaeologists excavate the corridor in the Montelirio tholos leading to a chamber where 20 people, including at least 15 women, were buried. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Antonio Acedo García)
  • The Montelirio tholos chamber was lined with slate slabs (above) coated with the red pigment cinnabar, or mercury sulfide. These slabs were decorated with geometric motifs, shown in illustrations (top). (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photographic composition: Primitiva Bueno Ramírez and Rodrigo de Balbín Behrman)
  • At the center of the Montelirio tholos chamber was a clay stela that is thought to represent a mother goddess. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Primitiva Bueno Ramírez and Rodrigo de Balbín Behrman)
  • At least six of the women in the Montelirio tholos chamber were buried wearing elaborate outfits fashioned using, in all, around a quarter of a million beads carved from marine shells. Some of these beads are shown here. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Leonardo García Sanjuán)
  • An ivory comb including figures of pigs was among the grave goods left with the women in the Montelirio tholos chamber. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Miriam Luciañez Triviño)
  • Around the time the women were buried in the Montelirio tholos chamber, a second collection of grave goods was left for the Ivory Lady, including an Asian elephant tusk (top) carved with geometric designs. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: José Peinado Cucarella)
  • Among the ivory objects left in the second offering for the Ivory Lady was what appears to be a patterned sheath for a rock-crystal dagger. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: Miguel Ángel Blanco de la Rubia)
  • A nearly complete ostrich eggshell imported from North Africa was also left as part of the second offering to the Ivory Lady. (Courtesy Research Group ATLAS, University of Sevilla/Photograph: José Peinado Cucarella)

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(c) 2024 Archaeology Magazine, a Publication of the Archaeological Institute of America