Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World

by Stephanie Lynn Budin (Editor), Jean Macintosh Turfa (Editor)

This volume gathers brand new essays from some of the most respected scholars of ancient history, archaeology, and physical anthropology to create an engaging overview of the lives of women in antiquity. The book is divided into ten sections, nine focusing on a particular area, and also includes almost 200 images, maps, and charts. The sections cover Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant, the Aegean, Italy, and Western Europe, and include many lesser-known cultures such as the Celts, Iberia, Carthage, the Black Sea region, and Scandinavia. Women's experiences are explored, from ordinary daily life to religious ritual and practice, to motherhood, childbirth, sex, and building a career. Forensic evidence is also treated for the actual bodies of ancient women. Women in Antiquity is edited by two experts in the field, and is an invaluable resource to students of the ancient world, gender studies, and women's roles throughout history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Ancient History

1074 pages, Hardcover

Published August 18, 2016

Reviews

[Catina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full review to come.
Veredict: stay far, far away. Stick with Sarah Pomeroy and Rivka Harris. More "what to read instead" recommendations at the bottom.
The authors seem to think that women who were neither whores, nor abuse victims, nor diaper-whipped mothers, nor vapid floozies who were obsessed with their appearance either don't exist or don't matter - so they shouldn't be written about (hence the obsessive, narrow focus of this book). Fortunately for those of us who would like to know what actually happened in history and what the position of women actually was in different ancient societies, there are several talented writers who've written about that. Hence my recommendations at the bottom of this review.

This terrible book has a single redeeming quality: it disproves identity politics nonsense. Female authors can be as idiotic, immune to logic, insane, condescending, and sexist as male authors - and they can do it in a very similar style too. Case in point: this trainwreck of a book. Plenty of female authors, and the nonsense they write is very similar in content the to sloppy, sexism-laden bad scholarship you can find in archaeology and history books/papers from the 19th century (most of those were written by men).

Next, there is the false advertising. The book claims to be broad/vast in scope "women in the ancient world". In reality, it's extremely narrow in its focus (more on that in a minute). It claims to be about the ancient world, but it's thoroughly modern/contemporary. This is tied into the previous "too narrow in its focus" point, and brings us to another point: the authors don't know their audience. Whether they like it or not, their audience are people who are interested in both the ancient world and women's history. It's a tiny readership, and as a rule said readership isn't interested in chick lit, bodice rippers, celebrity gossip, or minutiae about fashion and beauty. The people who are interested in those things likewise as a rule have little to no interest in ancient history. Well, our enterprising authors have -inexplicably- decided to market their book at the first/former group while filling its contents with nonsense that will appeal exclusively to the other/latter group. Hence the narrow focus on "lowest common denominator" things that won't be offensive or too alien/unrelatable to that group: sex, being a mother, and insipid and trivial feminine hobbies and affectations (cosmetics and the like). Which brings us to the "thoroughly modern" point. In order to appeal to that audience and avoid offending their sensibilities, the ancient evidence has to be butchered, then twisted into a pretzel or Moebius strip, and then distorted even further. In a sense, this book reads like bad fanfiction.

Beyond that, the book is also an utter snoozefest.
Why bother showing your readers an utterly alien (or, when not utterly alien, still very different) ancient culture in detail? Why bother presenting an overview of the position of women (legal, economic, political) in a culture to your readers in a scholarly yet engaging and readable way? Writing dumb shit that wouldn't be out of place in most popular women's magazines is easier, and so much more fun! The authors must have thought along those lines. Hence why they take so many liberties with facts, and why they filter their sources with a very distorting lens.
I'll give you a few examples of the "taking liberties with facts" I speak of...
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Mesopotamia
In Babylonian, Assyrian, and Syrian society, mothers were powerful authority figures in their families. They had considerable control and decision-making power over the lives of their children, even when said children/descendants were adults. A lot of Babylonian families (especially among the lower classes) were headed by widowed mothers. You wouldn't know it from reading this book, however. The authors have instead preferred to present a more 21st century picture, by focusing mainly on cherry-picked ancient literary texts.

Even if we ignore all of the issues raised so far, the book still has other flaws. A lot of the information in it isn't even a new discovery, in fact most of it fits the "same old, same old" category (the same old Babylonian legal codes, the same old Egyptian love poems, the same old Neo-Assyrian reliefs, etc). Several of the essays also have a pompous holier-than-thou posturing "oh, I'm not like those sexist, chauvinist pigs who've written about ancient women before me! I'm so much more sensitive and enlightened!" (when in reality a lot of those older authors were/are much more talented and less condescending and sexist than most of the authors in this book).
I'm starting to think that women's history is a great refuge/hiding place for all the hacks out there.

What to read instead?
I've already mentioned Sarah Pomeroy (classical antiquity) and Rivka Harris (ancient Mesopotamia), but there are many other authors and books...
-"Studies of women at Mari". Women in an Old Babylonian city-state. It's one of the best works about women's history ever written, and it has aged incredibly well.
-"Beyond hearth and home" by Sherry Lou MacGregor. It's about Neo-Assyrian women in politics and public life.
-Viktor Marx. Back in 1902 he published an overview of the position of women in Neo-Babylonian society.
-Christian Jacq's non-fiction book that deals exclusively with Egyptian women.
-"The reign of the phallus" (an important corrective about women in ancient Athens)
-"The myths of Avalon" by Kari Sperring. It's an essay (and corrective) about early medieval Celtic women.
-"When god was a woman" by Merlin Stone. It isn't history or archaeology, but it's full of useful information, and it will make you think.

[Ellana Thornton-Wheybrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is unique in that the majority of the primary sources were created for and/or by women. There are references to literature written by men, but ultimately it is a book about women through the eyes of women.

The final chapter links antiquity to modern times, showing that despite all that has changed and all the progress that has happened, very little has changed.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume is, if not unique, unusual in its range of articles on women across many cultures and many periods. It does not use literature to reconstruct the lives of women, as such literature was almost totally written by men for men (we do have a few hymns purportedly composed by women). Rather it uses artifacts, skeletons, medical writings, laws, inscriptions etc. to illuminate these lives and/or to suggest different ways of interpreting the evidence. The B&W illustrations are clear and large enough to be useful. The 74 contributing scholars are experts in their fields.

The essays are organize in the following sections: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Hittites, Cyprus, The Levant and Carthage, the Aegean Bronze Age and historical, Etruria and the Italian archipelago, Rome, Outside the Mediterranean cultures ("At the edges"), and Coda ("Continuities in rape and tyranny in martial societies from antiquity onward"). Each section is preceded by a short overview of the history of the area and its culture/s (Rome, however, is under Etruria and the Italian archipelago) and is accompanied by a map (except for Etruria, Rome, and Coda).

Contents:

Part One: Mesopotamia
Introduction
1. Stephanie Lynn Budin—"Female Sexuality in Mesopotamia"
2. Erica Couto-Ferreira—"Being mothers or acting (like) mothers? Constructing motherhood in ancient Mesopotamia"
3. Claudia Suter—"Images of Queens, High Priestesses, and Other Elite Women in 3rd-Millennium Mesopotamia"
4. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati—"Women's Power and Work in Ancient Urkesh"
5. Alhena Gadotti—"Mesopotamian Women’s Cultic Roles in late 3rd – early 2nd millennia bce"
6. Josué J. Justel—"Women, Gender and Law at the Dawn of History: The Evidence of the Cuneiform Sources"
7. Andrew McCarthy—"Businesswomen and their Seals in Early Mesopotamia"
8. Anna-Isabelle Langlois—"The Female Tavern-Keeper in Mesopotamia: Some Aspects of Daily Life"
9. Saana Svärd—"Neo-Assyrian Elite Women"
10. Janet Monge and Page Selinsky—"Patterns of Violence Against Women in the Iron Age Town of Hasanlu, Solduz Valley, Iran"
11. Maria Brosius—"No Reason to Hide – Women in the Neo-Elamite and Persian Periods"
Part Two: Egypt
Introduction
1. Rosalie David—"Understanding The Lives Of Ancient Egyptian Women: The Contribution Of Physical Anthropology"
2. Marc Orriols-Llonch—"Women’s role in sexual intercourse in ancient Egypt"
3. Erika Feucht—"Motherhood in Pharaonic Egypt"
4. Suzanne Onstine—"Women's participation in the religious hierarchy of Ancient Egypt"
5. Jan Picton— "Living and Working in a New Kingdom 'harem town'"
6. Deborah Sweeney—"Women at Deir el-Medîna"
7. Katharina Zinn—"Women in Amarna: legendary royals, forgotten elite, unknown populace?"
8. Joyce Tyldesley—"The Role of Egypt’s Dynastic Queens"
9. Jacke Phillips—"Women in Ancient Nubia"
Part Three: Hittites
Introduction
1. Trevor Bryce—"The Role and Status of Women in Hittite Society"
2. Gary Beckman—"Birth and Motherhood among the Hittites"
3. Billie Jean Collins—"Women in Hittite Religion"
Part Four: Cyprus
Introduction
1. Kirsi O. Lorentz—"Real bones, real women, real lives: Bioarchaeology of women in ancient Cyprus"
2. Stephanie Lynn Budin—"Maternity in Ancient Cyprus"
3. Jennifer M. Webb—"Women at home and in the community in prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus"
4. Louise Steel—"The social and economic roles played by the women of Alashiya"
5. Nancy Serwint—"Women and the Art of Ancient Cyprus"
6. Joanna Smith—"Women in the Cities of Cyprus: Rulers and Urban Dwellers from the Late Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period"
Part Five: The Levant and Carthage
Introduction
1. Patrick M. Michel—"Functions and personalities of "Syrian" Priestesses in the Bronze Age: Priestesses at Mari, Emar, and Ugarit"
2. Marguerite Yon—"Women’s Daily Lives in Late Bronze Age Ugarit (2nd millennium bce)"
3. Jennie Ebeling—"Women's Daily Life in Bronze Age Canaan"
4. Kevin McGeough—"‘Will Womankind Now Be Hunting?’: The Work and Economic Lives of Women at Late Bronze Age Ugarit"
5. Carol Meyers—"Women's Daily Life (Iron Age Israel)"
6. Assaf Yasur-Landau—"Women In Philistia: The Archaeological Record Of The Iron Age"
7. Carol Meyers—"Women's Religious Life (Iron Age Israel)"
8. Peggy Day—""Until I Come and Take You Away to a Land Like Your Own:" A Gendered Look at Siege Warfare and Mass Deportation"
9. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels and Meritxell Ferrer Martin—"Phoenician & Carthaginian women: the evidence from ritual contexts"
Part Six: The Aegean, Bronze Age and Historical
Introduction
1. John Prag—"From the Caves of the Wind to Mycenae Rich in Gold: the faces of Minoan and Mycenaean women"
2. John Younger—"Minoan Women"
3. Stephanie Lynn Budin—"Maternity in the Bronze Age Aegean"
4. Cécile Boëlle-Weber—"I-je-re-ja, ka-ra-wi-po-ro and others… Women in Mycenaean Religion"
5. Cynthia Shelmerdine—"Women in the Mycenaean Economy"
6. Brendan Burke—"Beyond Penelope: Women and the role of Textiles in Early Greece"
7. Sherry Fox—"The Bioarchaeology of Women in Greek Antiquity"
8. James Whitley—"Women in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece: A View from the Grave"
9. Yurie Hong—"Mothering in Ancient Athens: Class, Identity, and Experience"
10. Matthew P. J. Dillon—""Chrysis The Hiereia Having Placed A Lighted Torch Near The Garlands Then Fell Asleep (Thucydides Iv.133.2)." Priestesses Serving The Gods And Goddesses In Classical Greece"
11. Allison Glazebrook—"Prostitutes, Women, and Gender in Ancient Greece"
12. Edward E. Cohen—"The Athenian Businesswoman"
13. Gillian Ramsey—"Hellenistic Women and the Law: Agency, Identity and Community"
Part Seven: Etruria and the Italian Archipelago
Introduction
1. Fulvia Lo Schiavo and Matteo Milletti—"The Nuragic women: Facts and hypotheses on Bronze Age Sardinian women"
2. Judith Swaddling—"Seianti: portrait of an Etruscan woman"
3. Larissa Bonfante— "Motherhood in Etruria"
4. Jean MacIntosh Turfa— "Health and medicine for Etruscan women"
5. Gilda Bartoloni and Federica Pitzalis— "Etruscan marriage (matrimonio etrusco)"
6. Gilda Bartoloni and Federica Pitzalis— "The wife of the prince (la donna del principe)"
7. Ingrid Edlund-Berry— "Etruscan goddesses & worshipers: the place of women in the context of urban and non-urban sanctuaries"
8. Margarita Gleba— "Women and textile production in pre-Roman Italy"
9. Jacopo Tabolli and M. DeLucia Brolli— "Faliscan women"
10. Camilla Norman— "Daunian Women: Costume And Actions Commemorated In Stone"
11. Enrico Benelli— "Etruria: female slaves and slave-owners"
Part Eight: Rome
1. Lena Larsson Lovén— "Roman motherhood"
2. Emily Hemelrijk—"Women's daily life in the Roman West"
3. Fanny Dolansky—"Strained relations, gender differences, and domestic ideals: the significance of two Roman family festivals"
4. Hilary Wills Becker— "Roman women in the urban economy: occupations, social connections, and gendered exclusions"
5. Linnea Åshede—"A demanding supply: prostitution in the Roman World"
6. Elizabeth Greene—"Identities And Social Roles Of Women In Military Settlements In The Roman West"
7. Anna McCullough— "Female Gladiators in the Roman Empire"
Part Nine: At the Edges
Introduction
1. Adrienne Mayor—"Warrior Women: The archaeology of Amazons"
2. Lourdes Prados Torreira— "Women in Iberian Culture: 6th–1st centuries b.c."
3. Miranda Aldhouse-Green—"Viragos and Virgins: Women in the Celtic World"
4. Nancy Wicker— "Women In The Roman Iron Age (A.D. 0–400) In Scandinavia"
Part Ten: Coda
1. Kathy L. Gaca— "Continuities in Rape and Tyranny in Martial Societies from Antiquity Onwards"

[lauren ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

i actually read this for fun. everyone gasp and shake their heads now. i was pleasantly surprised by this. i learned a lot and it didn’t bore me to death. yay!

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent sourcebook of women in the ancient past.

[Stefanos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massive volume, mostly friendly to general readership (except for the part about the Greek world, which remains typically undecipherable), and an eye-opener to common biases.