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Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Ebba

Date of birth unknown; d. 879, Coldingham, Scotland

Ebba the Younger was abbess of the monastery of Coldingham in Scotland. During her tenure, in the late ninth century, the area was continually under seige by the Danes. Legend has it that Ebba and the nuns mutilated their faces to discourage rape by the invading soldiers. The strategy only enraged the Danes, who set fire to the convent, killing all the nuns.