About the Site
Welcome to Women of 1000 AD! On this website, you will find my illustrations of women from around the world who all happened to live in or around the year 1000. Click The Women to see a slideshow of all works in the series so far, or use the drop-down list below the button in the header bar to find an individual woman. On each woman's profile, you'll find the following:
If you have recommendations of a woman you'd like to see included in the project, please feel free to use the Contact form to get in touch!
- My illustration of the woman how she may have looked in the year 1000 AD
- A link to recommended background music to listen to while reading about her; please note this music does not always date to her actual time period, since it is difficult to reconstruct music from the period
- The story behind the illustration
- A map showing you where the illustration's scene took place
- The artist's comments about my process of researching and creating the picture
- Recommended resources for anyone who wants to learn more about the woman and her time
If you have recommendations of a woman you'd like to see included in the project, please feel free to use the Contact form to get in touch!
About Me
My name is Meg Hyland, and I've been drawing and writing as long as I can remember! I grew up in Wisconsin and attended Lawrence University for a year before moving to Scotland with my family. I then completed a degree in Mediaeval History (2017) at the University of St Andrews, graduating with first-class honours and over a dozen awards. I also hold a Masters in Celtic and Scottish Studies (2019) from the University of Edinburgh and am now undertaking a PhD in the same subject there. I specialize in Scottish history, but I've always loved learning about cultures from all over the world. I started this project after reading The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon. Her lively work challenges commonly-held ideas about what women's lives were like a thousand years ago. The huge difference between her sassy autobiographical text and the tone of surviving information about women from Europe in the same period inspired me to learn more about how different the lives of women who were all alive at the same time could be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use your work in my teaching?
Yes! Please give credit to me when using the illustrations though as these are all © Meg Hyland. I don't want to add watermarks to my images but will do so if I find they are being distributed without credit to me. Please be advised that some of the illustrations include nudity when appropriate to the culture, and I will not censor the female breast. The written materials on a woman's profile page and in the Resources section may include references to sexual themes, so please keep this in mind. There will never, however, be any graphic violence depicted or described anywhere on this website. In 2020 I was approached by the Middle Ages for Educators project and asked to create a video showing people how to use my website for teaching. You can find it and the associated discussion questions here.
What medium do you use to make the illustrations?
I sketch with pencil, ink with Micron pens, and colour with coloured pencils. I then scan all of the illustrations, which means that the colours you see on the screen are usually not exactly what I saw on the page, but I use the basic editing tools in the scanning software, Preview, and Photos to make the digital colours as close as possible to the original.
How long does it take you to create one illustration?
Since the project began in January 2018 there has been roughly one illustration a month, but this is subject to change based on my schedule. I am always researching many women at the same time. Once I have started drawing, it usually takes several days to complete an individual drawing.
How many illustrations will be in the series?
There is no limit! Right now I have over 300 women on my list of ones I might draw, so there are plenty of ideas to keep me going for a long time!
Who will you draw next?
Whenever I tell someone which countries will probably be next, I often end up drawing something different! Since I research so many women at once, I can really never say for certain which one I'll draw next, since I let inspiration guide me. If you have a recommendation for a woman or country you'd like to see next, please feel free to get in touch using the Contact form.
Why did you pick 1000 AD?
Sei Shōnagon lived at the turn of the first millennium, and it was her work The Pillow Book that inspired me to start this project in the first place since her experience was so different from any I'd learned about while studying medieval European history during my undergraduate degree. It's also a nice round number!
What do you mean by "women" of 1000 AD?
The definitions of gender in today's Western society are not the same as those that were used in any society in the year 1000 AD. The use of the term "woman" as a unifying label for this project is fairly anachronistic, and part of the goal of this project is to explore just how diverse understandings of what "female" identity comprises have been across history. I am open to including any person in this series who identified her gender as "female" in the context of her own society. I am a cisgender woman, but this project is not limited as a rule to cisgender women! However, since many societies of the past had more gender categories than Western society does today, I want to be very respectful of the fact that someone who might have identified as a transgender man or woman were they alive today may have identified as a non-binary, fluid, or a "third" (or fourth, fifth, etc.) gender in their own historical period, or exhibited many gender non-conforming behaviours but never had a cultural framework in which they could identify as a different gender than the one assigned at birth, so I will be keeping that in mind while going forward. (I'm always learning, so if you are concerned about my representation of an individual's gender or culture, please feel free to get in touch.) PBS has provided a really handy map for anyone who would like to learn about different systems of gender identity around the world in the past and present (though note that sometimes the words used to describe gender here are too essentialist).
In spite of these considerations, I feel that it is worth using "women" as a framework for this project because in my own society and in many others around the world, there are many people who identify as women who are taught historical narratives that exclude or downplay the contributions of their female-gendered forebears throughout history. From traditional patriarchal accounts that focus on the dealings of men as "proper" history, to modern narratives that present women's lot in history as one of the hopeless struggle to overcome oppression until the sudden liberation of 20th century Western feminism, the stories we are told about the women of our past often fail to do justice to the crucial role women have always played in societies throughout the history of humanity. If my art can help bring to life the stories of women living life on their own terms a thousand years ago, then I hope it will help challenge these misconceptions and make it easier for people of any gender to see how important women have always been and always will be to the course of history.
What about women who weren't alive in the year 1000 but were pretty close?
For women whose years of life are definitely known, I will be fairly strict about sticking to only those who were definitely alive in the year 1000. This is because I love the idea that all of these women were living and breathing at the same time, all across the globe, waking up to the same sunrise. However, when a woman's exact lifespan is not known, I am more flexible about including a woman thought to be from the time period. This is especially true for women who come from cultures that don't have written documentation of the period, who I will sometimes base on archaeological evidence even if there is no written record of a specific person's name. Although my inclusion of such women includes more speculation on the precise details of their lives and appearances, the alternative would be ignoring women from all over the world whose societies didn't include writing, which I think is worse than making a few educated guesses!
Do you intend to publish this series in a book?
I'm not sure yet, but am open to this possibility in the future. For now, you can purchase prints and other items in the shop.