Researchers said ruling class women may have been important in running El Argar society, the Research Group in Mediterranean Social Archeoecology at said the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in a press release published Thursday.
The team analyzed grave goods found in a princely tomb at the La Almoloya site, in what is now Murcia.
The tomb, known as Grave 38, contained the remains of two people – a man between the ages of 35 and 40 and a woman between the ages of 25 and 30 – in addition to about 30 valuable objects, many of which were made of silver.
Most of the objects belonged to the woman, including jewelry such as bracelets, necklaces and earlobe plugs, and a silver diadem.
The items were first discovered in 2014, and researchers have now determined that the tomb was located beneath what was the administration hall of a palatial building.
It is the first time that archaeologists have found evidence that El Argar society was organized around these types of complexes, which had a political function.
Study co-author Cristina Rihuete, a professor of prehistory at UAB, told CNN burial under the boardroom would have legitimized the social position of those in the tomb.
Women were part of the political elite in the highly hierarchical society, Rihuete said – and the implications are significant.
“The role of women in the past was far more important than we could have imagined,” she said, explaining that women in El Argar could have political power on their own in a highly violent and exploitative society.
“This says a lot about the silencing process that women have since undergone,” added Rihuete.
People tend to think our history was constructed, Rihuete said, but El Argar suffered so much from society that later civilizations had no memory of it.
“We lost all knowledge of these people,” said Rihuete, whose work over the past two decades has begun to build a picture of life in El Argar.
El Argar society ruled the region from 2200 to 1550 BCE and, according to the press release, developed into the first state organization in the Western Mediterranean during the last two centuries of its existence.
Archaeologists compared the diadem found in La Almoloya with four others found in different tombs of the El Argar community, and found that they were all very similar and very valuable.
“The big surprise is that they match a clear model,” even though they were found hundreds of miles apart, Rihuete said.
This means that the symbols of political power remained the same across the vast territory of the society, she added.
The fact that elite women were buried with such lavish funerary goods points to their important role in Argar society, researchers say.
“In Argarian society, women of the dominant classes were buried with headgears, while men were buried with a sword and dagger. The burial goods buried with these men were of lesser quantity and quality,” they said. “Since swords are the most effective tool for enforcing political decisions, the dominant men of El Argar could have played an executive role, even if the ideological legitimacy and perhaps the government had been in the hands of some women.”
The pair found in the tomb died at the same time, or around the same time, in the mid-17th century BC. They were unrelated and had a daughter together, who was buried nearby.
The team is planning further excavations at the site to try to expand our knowledge of El Argar, Rihuete said.
The research is published in the journal Antiquity.