The debate for whether ladies had panties or not is now in for a new chapter, thanks to the Lengberg finds. The finds include a pair of tongs, that looks a lot like a modern day bikini underpart, and I have seen several pictures of ladies wearing a reproduction of these together with the Lengberg brassiere. Well informed of this debate, Beatrix Nutz, who is now analyzing the finds, aims to have them, both knickers and brassieres, DNA-tested so that the sex of the wearer may be determined. Fingers crossed.
For me, these two pictures kind of sums it up for me:
Albrecht Dürer in a selfportrait wearing a tong.
The underpants from Lengberg.
The rest goes without saying. And this does not state by any means that women did not wear something at those days of the month when it was needed, but those will most likely newer be found since they ought to have been disposed of more secretly.
Not to mention that putting a towel in your panties is a fairly recent invention, even I, born in 1968, remember that when I was a child not all women used sanitary towels in their panties, but used a kind of girdle where you fastened the towel with clips.
SvaraRaderaI´ve followed the debate through the years with interest and yes, something ought to have been used, but not necessarily a version of underpants. A girdle could well enough be sufficient.
SvaraRaderaI have always felt that the idea that women didn't wear undies was daft. We have reasons to wear undies. Moreover, if we clouted babies, why wouldn't we have done something similar for adults? Other cultures considered 'more primitive' than us wore some sort of breech clout. Considering the evolution of clothing, we didn't just jump straight from wearing nothing to full sized bloomers or underwear. We have pictures of Roman women wearing bikini styled garments which would have been part of that evolutionary process.
SvaraRaderaI believe that the real issue is that the first archaeologists were men, and that they didn't consider certain things. I believe that undies were just so 'common' that no one thought about them.