Monday, 17th November 2008
Dr. Jack Green (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
WITH STRINGS ATTACHED - GENDER DYNAMICS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST
(Jointly with the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL)
The human body is a highly sensitive medium of expression and identity. Personal ornaments, clothing and hairstyles are accessories that highlight similarities and differences for both individuals and groups, expressing social rank, ethnicity, age, and gender. Jewellery is a particularly rich category of material culture that can be examined through archaeological evidence, visual representations, and textual sources, allowing for contextual study over time and space.
This lecture examines evidence for gendered asymmetry (i.e. male/female differences) in dress and ornamentation within the Ancient Near East. Some common female gendered associations include the erotic role of jewellery in art and literature, the wearing of wealth on the body, and physical and symbolic restriction for high-status women. Males are frequently associated with emblematic jewellery that symbolised social power and rank. These aspects are explored through archaeological case studies, including well-known burial sites in Mesopotamia (where ornaments are clearly associated with individuals) such as the Royal Cemetery at Ur (mid 3rd Millennium BCE) and the 'Tombs of the Princesses' at Nimrud (early 1st Millennium BCE). Evidence from the Levant in the Bronze and Iron Age incorporates burials, iconography, and the Old Testament; sources which are not always reconciled with each other. Although the available evidence is often biased towards elite burials and representations of female deities, it is argued that there were both marked and subtle differences between men and women in the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as 'grey areas' that relate to the manipulation of gender and the expression of trans-gendered identity. Another aspect that will be considered is the socialization of gender from infancy into adolescence and towards adulthood.
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