Overview

Motherhood and childhood are social and cultural constructions that have their origins in prehistoric times and are visible through Greek and Roman discourses in Antiquity. This volume explores various images of maternity and infancy, and the identification of women and womanhood in prehistoric and classic societies. Aspects such as the crucial role of maintenance activities and care, the processes of socialisation and learning, the impact of infant death, the figure of the mother queen, the religious discourses about motherhood, the rules on parental rights, the transgressions of traditional motherhood and the emotional aspects of the mother-child relation are analysed. The book covers the ancient Mediterranean area, from Mesopotamia to the Iberian Peninsula and from prehistoric communities to classic societies, with Mesopotamian, Phoenician and Iberian examples. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted, analysing material culture, representations and texts to gain a deeper understanding of the plurality of motherhood, and the diversity of women's agency through history. AUTHOR: Margarita Sanchez Romero is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain.

Full Product Details

Author:   Margarita Sánchez Romero ,  Rosa Cid López
Publisher:   Oxbow Books
Imprint:   Oxbow Books
ISBN:  

9781789250381

ISBN 10:   1789250382
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   12 September 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of contributors   1. Motherhood and infancies: archaeological and historical approaches Margarita Sánchez Romero and Rosa Ma Cid López   2. The child is dead: decision-making and emigration in Bronze Age Iberia Paloma González Marcén   3. Learning to be ...: learning and socialisation in ceramic productions during Bronze Age in peninsular southeast Spain Eva Alarcón García, Juan Jesús Padilla Fernández, Alejandra García García and Luis Arboledas Martínez   4. Beyond biology: the constructed nature of motherhood(s) in ancient Near Eastern sources and studies Agnès Garcia-Ventura   5. Death in birth: pregnancy, maternal death and funerary practices in the Phoenician and Punic world Ana Delgado Hervás and Aurora Rivera Hernández   6. Looking after dead infants: the materialisation of care in Sicilian child burials (10th–7th centuries BC) Meritxell Ferrer   7. Creating beings: relations between children and animals in the Iron Age Western Mediterranean Mireia López-Bertran   8. Maternities in Iberian societies. From day-to-day life to sacredness Carmen Rueda Galán, Carmen Rísquez Cuenca and Ana B. Herránz Sánchez   9. Motherhood, gender and identity in the Athenian polis M. Dolors Molas Font   10. Childhood and motherhood in Ancient Greece: an iconographic look Susana Reboreda Morillo   11. The (ir)relevance of being a mother. A legal perspective on the relationship between mothers and children in ancient Greece Laura Pepe   12. The Queen and her children: Royal motherhood in Hellenistic Greece María Dolores Mirón Pérez   13. Mors immatura, childhood and maternal–fi lial relationships in the carmina epigraphica. Case studies from the Iberian Peninsula Rosa María Cid López   14. Mater civitatis: forms of patronage, charity and foundations for children Almudena Domínguez-Arranz   15. Mothers and sons in Plutarch’s Roman Parallel Lives. Auctoritas and maternal infl uence during the Roman Republic Borja Méndez Santiago   16. Seruae, mothers and the mother–child bond in Roman Italy. The analysis of the epigraphic evidence Carla Rubiera Cancelas   17. On the margins of motherhood: images of the puella docta and the lover-poet in the Latin love elegy Rosa Mª Marina Sáez   18. Childhood and maintenance. Legal norms related to education and guardianship of minors, from Antoninus Pius to Justinian María Isabel Núñez Paz   19. The relationship of Iulia Mamaea and Alexander Severus, a young imperator. A review through literary sources Pedro David Conesa Navarro   20. Representations of women, motherhood and childhood in Spanish primary school textbooks Silvia Medina Quintana   21. Women and children omitted in the teaching of history: causes and consequences Antonia Garcia Luque

Reviews

This edited volume is a forceful demonstration that motherhood and mother-child relationships are relevant to virtually every aspect of society and everyday life... It is remarkable that most contributions are accessible even to scholars from outside the field. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * ...these issues, for which there is abundant archaeological and literary documentation, had, however, passed unnoticed in traditional academic studies...Released from this silence, these stories can now be returned to the place that they deserve as indispensable agents in the creation and continuation of human life. [Translated from Spanish] * Desperta Ferro * .... the most thorough synthesis of childhood and perceptions of children in the ancient Mediterranean to date... This work will be a valuable source for bioarchaeologists and prove a fascinating read for those interested in the historical period more generally. * Antiquity *

This edited volume is a forceful demonstration that motherhood and mother-child relationships are relevant to virtually every aspect of society and everyday life... It is remarkable that most contributions are accessible even to scholars from outside the field. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

Author Information

Margarita Sánchez Romero is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada, Spain. Her main research area is archaeology of women and gender relations focusing her analysis on the study of the body, material culture and maintenance activities, and the archaeology of children and childhood, taking into account process of learning and socialization. Rosa Cid is a Professor in Ancient History at the University of Oviedo. Her research has been centered in Women and Gender´s History of Antiquity during Roman times especially focused in the study of the motherhood and the mothers, the discourse religious and the feminine, and the power of the women of the family imperial.

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