Aal de Dragonder (died before 1710) was a female soldier killed in Rotterdam whose skeleton was displayed in the Rotterdam anatomical theatre.Anna de Haas
"Aal de Dragonder"
in: ''

Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland ''1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis'' is a compilation of 1001 biographies of famous women of the Netherlands spanning roughly 1700 years. Project The book is the result of a research project called the Digital Women's lexicon of the N ...

'', 13 January 2014 (in Dutch) Sometime before 1710, and probably in Rotterdam, she was involved in a fight between soldiers and lost her life. Only after her death was it discovered she was female. Her body was not buried, but donated to the Rotterdam medical school, founded in 1642, and her body was probably used for anatomical lessons. Eventually her skeleton and prepared skin were put on display in the anatomical theatre, her skeleton holding a sword while seated upon a horse skeleton.R.M. Dekker and L.C. van de Pol, ''The Tradition Of Female Transvestism In Early Modern Europe'' (Basingstoke, 1989), p. 73. In November 1710, a German visitor to the anatomical theater, Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, was told that the mounted person was a woman who had served for a long time as a

dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat w ...

and had been stabbed by her fellow soldiers. Uffenbach wrote that she wore a hat bearing the name "Aal de Dragonder". Her mounted skeleton remained on display for well over a century, as in 1817 a visiting physician reported that she at that time was wearing armor. The collection was probably broken up in 1828.

References

17th-century Dutch military personnel 17th-century Dutch women Dutch female military personnel Female wartime cross-dressers Military personnel from Rotterdam Women in 17th-century warfare {{Netherlands-mil-bio-stub

See also

References