In Cividale del Friuli, where the first Langobard duchy took root in Italy, archaeologists studying the remains of a woman they call T46 have overturned 1,400 years of silence. Two brutal wounds scar her skull—one a clean slice from a blade, the other a crushing blow—making her the first direct evidence that interpersonal violence in Langobard society was not, as previously believed, exclusively a male domain.
The Langobards have long dominated historical imagination as a fierce warrior people who swept across Italy and Hungary, carving out a kingdom between the 6th and 8th centuries CE. Graves filled with swords, knives, and bones scarred by violence painted a picture of an almost uniformly male-dominated warrior culture. Every skeletal record of head trauma in Langobard remains—33 individuals across Italy and present-day Hungary—belonged to a man. Until T46.
Yet the historical sources told a different story. The Edictum Rothari, the legal code that governed Langobard society, contained six provisions explicitly addressing violence against women, describing penalties for attacks ranging from husbands killing wives to cases where women themselves engaged in fights. One law, Liutprand 141, even describes men sending women to fight on their behalf, noting that these women would commit violent deeds "more cruelly than men might do." The legal record acknowledged female participation in violence; the bones had remained silent.
T46 was discovered in 2012 during an emergency excavation in the Ferrovia cemetery, her grave cut through and scattered by later burials. The skeleton was fragmented and severely damaged, but even in its broken state, the violence was unmistakable. Protein analysis determined she was female—a crucial detail, since sex determination in degraded remains requires careful scientific work. Her left forehead bore a narrow gash, the kind of wound made by a blade struck downward, likely a scramasax, the long knife carried by Germanic warriors. The attacker had stood before her. A second fracture, a crushing blow to her skull, suggested a flat, blunt object—possibly a stone. The infection that followed left its mark on bone, a physical record of her suffering.
What makes T46's story remarkable is not merely the violence she endured, but the fact that she survived it. The wounds show signs of healing, indicating she lived for years after the attack, cared for by her community. She bore her scars into whatever remained of her life—a testament to both the brutality she experienced and the social support that kept her alive.
Dr. Valentina Martinoia of the University of Udine, who co-authored the study published in the International Journal of Paleopathology, suspects the archaeological silence about female violence stems from both cultural and biological realities. Women likely participated less frequently in raids and armed warfare, the kinds of violence most likely to mark bone. Instead, violence against women typically took the form of household abuse, leaving bruises on soft tissue but no trace in the archaeological record.
Yet T46's skeleton poses an urgent question: how many other women have been overlooked? Future research combining ancient DNA, isotopic studies, and traditional pathological examination could uncover more cases, Dr. Martinoia suggests. The bones are beginning to speak, challenging long-held assumptions about who bore violence in Langobard society, and reminding us that the absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.