Images of Woman and Child from the Bronze Age: Reconsidering Fertility, Maternity, and Gender in the Ancient World

ISBN-13: 9781107660328 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 396 str.

Stephanie Lynn Budin

Opis

This book is a study of the woman-and-child motif - known as the kourotrophos - as it appeared in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. Stephanie Lynn Budin argues that, contrary to many current beliefs, the image was not a universal symbol of maternity or a depiction of a mother goddess. In most of the ancient world, kourotrophic iconography was relatively rare in comparison to other images of women and served a number of different symbolic functions, ranging from honoring the king of Egypt to adding strength to magical spells to depicting scenes of daily life. This work provides an in-depth examination of ancient kourotrophoi and engages with a variety of debates that they have spawned, including their role in the rise of patriarchy and what they say about ancient constructions of gender.

Recenzje

'The book debunks several long-held and unsubstantiated beliefs in the literature, and reorients our thinking about images of women and children towards a context-specific approach.' Allison Thomason, Near Eastern Archaeology

Spis treści

1. Introduction; 2. Egypt; 3. The Levant and Anatolia; 4. Mesopotamia and Iran; 5. Cyprus; 6. Aegean; 7. Conclusions.