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

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 (Author)

9780521193047, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 April 2011

390 pages, 46 b/w illus.
26.5 x 18.5 x 2.3 cm, 1.01 kg

'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

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.

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

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Ancient Egyptian religion & mythology [HRKP1], Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Human figures depicted in art [AGH], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]