Traditionally women leave a relatively small mark in the history books of the ancient world but their existence in archaeology is abundantly confirmed. These women range from mothers, to Emperor’s wives, to high status priestesses to lower class citizens to high ranking foreigners and even rulers themselves.
Women are found in a variety of contexts in the ancient world including but not limited to political, religious, military, and domestic spheres where they exercised their power outside but also within their ancient gender limitations to become a leader in their own way.
Who were these women and how did they step out of the mold of Xenophon’s perfect invisible housewife – who, in fact, is actually a leader of her own household finances. This session seeks papers that explore evidence for women who took on a leadership role in their communities and who rose to the occasion to leave behind a legacy of women actively participating in the ancient world. The organizers encourage papers that look at these women with a new perspective and challenge or contribute something to the discussion of what makes a woman a leader in the ancient world. Therefore, they call for submissions for abstracts of papers that explore these and related themes, and encourage proposals from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives.
Abstracts, no more than 400 words, need to follow the AIA guidelines given at”
http://aia.archaeological.org/webinfo.php?page=10191
and should be submitted to Susan Grouchy ([email protected])
Submission deadline: March 17 2015.
