asceticism

A team of archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority created quite a stir with their announcement that a body found buried in Jerusalem wrapped in chains had been a female, from the fifth century AD. This person was a religious ascetic who had apparently practiced a form of self-mortification in life as well as in death, but up to this time all the evidence had suggested that only male monks had been involved in this type of activity. Now, the same researchers responsible for this discovery have identified the woman in question as a Byzantine-era nun, ending the mystery of who she actually was and why her skeletal remains had been found in such an unusual state. This is a