Traditionally, classes and textbooks on Western history have had little to say about the lives of women in Western civilization. This lack of attention was largely due to the fact that women were officially excluded from politics and the military in such formative civilizations as Classical Greece and Rome, as well as being excluded from official positions within the early Christian Church. In fact, when women did draw the attention of historians in the Classical and Medieval eras, it was usually because these women were transgressing accepted norms in these male-dominated, hierarchical societies. However, as we now know, women contributed to these early societies in very important ways, not just as wives and mothers but, occasionally, as political leaders and even military figures. In this class, we’ll examine the political, social, and cultural forces that shaped women’s lives, and we’ll examine the lives of a few of the remarkable women who challenged these forces, both successfully and unsuccessfully.

1. Map of the ancient Near East,
from Lynn Hunt, The Making of the West, Volume 1.

2. Mesopotamian goddesses
• Ashnan—goddess of grains
• Ama-arhus—goddess of fertility
• Damkina—goddess of earth mother
• Ereshkigal—queen of the underworld
• Gula—goddess of healing and medicine
• Inanna/Ishtar—goddess of love, war, and fertility
• Nammu—the primeval sea
• Nanshe—goddess of fishing, justice, prophecy, fertility, protector of the needy
• Nidaba—goddess of astrology and learning writing
• Ninhursag/Ki—mother goddess, goddess of childbirth
• Ninkasi—goddess of alcohol
• Ninlil—goddess of the air and grains
• Ninsun—goddess of dreams and cows
• Sirtir—goddess of sheep
• Tiamat—primordial goddess involved in the Sumerian creation myth
– Enuma Elish (When on High…): Tiamat, Apsu, and Enlil/Marduk

3. Inanna/Ishtar
Left star symbol associated with Inanna, Louvre Museum, Paris, c. 1200 BC;
right cylinder seal depicting Inanna as the warrior, British Museum.
• Goddess of
love, fertility, and
warfare, associated with the
planet Venus
• Ishtar’s descent to the
underworld
– Tammuz/Dummuzi

4. Ereshkigal
Relief in British Museum, London, c. 1800-1750 BC.
• Ruler of the underworld

5. Egyptian goddesses
• Bast—goddess of fertility, childbirth, and perfume
• Hathor—originally the vengeful eye of Ra; later goddess of
music, dancing, joy, fertility
• Hatmehit—fish goddess
• Isis—goddess of fertility and healing, Hatmehit was one of her early forms
• Ma’at—goddess of truth, justice, and balance
• Menhit—goddess of war
• Meshkent—goddess of childbirth and midwifery
• Neith—goddess of the hunt, war, and weaving and domestic arts
• Nephthys—goddess of death, decay, and the unseen
• Nut—goddess of the sky, a symbol of resurrection and rebirth
• Satet—goddess of bountiful floods
• Sekmet—goddess of destruction and war, fought sickness and disease
• Seshet—scribal goddess and librarian, responsible for
accounting, astronomy, mathematics, and historical records
• Tefnut—goddess of water and fertility

6. Bast
Left statue in the Louvre Museum, c. 650-350 BC; right statue in the British
Museum, London, c. 650-350 BC.
• Goddess of
fertility, childbirth, and
perfume

7. Isis holding the infant Horus
Statue in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, c. 650-350 BC.
• Goddess of
fertility, healing, and
rebirth
• Isis-Osiris rebirth myth
– Seth

8. Ma’at
Left image of Isis from the tomb of Seti I, c. 1300 BC; right statue of
Ma’at, Egyptian Museum, c. 650-350 BC.
• Goddess of
truth, justice, and order

9. Depiction of the judgment of the deceased: Ma’at is
represented by the feather on the right side of the scale;
Isis and Nephthys stand behind Osiris on the far right.
From the Book of the Dead of Hunefer, British Museum, c. 1275 BC.

10. Nephthys
Statue of Nepthys from the Louvre Museum, Paris.
• Goddess of
death, decay, and
unseen

11. Nut
Image from the ceiling of the tomb of Ramses VI, Valley of the Kings, Egypt, c.
1140 BC.
• Goddess of the sky, a
symbol of resurrection
and rebirth
• Egyptian creation
story
– Amun-Re, Nut, and
Geb

12. “The earth and sky were intermixed and chaotic; the universe
was formless, as if rebelling against order.”
Image from the Greenfield Papyrus, British Museum, c. 950 BC.

13. Seshat
Relief in the Brooklyn Museum, c. 1900 BC.
• Goddess of
writing, associated with
astronomy, mathematic
s, accounting, and
historical records

14. Map of the ancient Mediterranean,
from Lynn Hunt, The Making of the West, Volume 1.

15. Minoan snake goddess
Figurine in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete, c. 1600 BC.

16. Gaia
Image from the Antikenmuseen, Berlin, Germany, 410-400 BC.
• Mother
goddess, strongly
associated with the
earth and fertility
• Consort of Uranus
• Mother of Rhea and
Chronus

17. Rhea
Statue in the Getty Museum, Malibu, California, c. 50 AD.
• Mother goddess and
fertility goddess
• Mother of
Zeus/Jupiter, Hera/Juno,
Poseidon/Neptune, Had
es/Pluto, Demeter/Cere
s

18. Demeter
Statue in the Museo Pio-Clementino, Musei Vaticani, Vatican City.
• Goddess of
agriculture, fertility
• Mother of Persephone
(R. Prosperina)
– Persephone’s abduction
by Hades/Pluto
• Associated with
Elusinian mysteries

19. Demeter
Left image from the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany, 480 BC;
right image from the National Museum, Athens, Greece, 450-425 BC.
Demeter with grain
Demeter (right) and Persephone
(left)

20. Athena
Frieze of the mourning Athena, original in the Acropolis
Museum, Athens, Greece, c. 460 BC.
• Goddess of
wisdom, warfare, and
women’s handicrafts
• Athena
Parthenos, Athena the
Virgin
• Patron goddess of
Athens and Sparta
– Athena’s sacred snake
said to inhabit the
temple in Athens
• Romanized as Minerva

21. Athena
Image from the University Museum, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 460-450 BC.

22. Artemis
Statue in the Louvre, Paris, France, c. 325 BC.
• Goddess of the
hunt, associated with
important events in
women’s lives
• Romanized as Diana

23. Artemis
Left image from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, 470 BC; right image
from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, Florence, Italy, 570-560
BC.

24. Hestia
Statue in Museo Torlonia, Rome, Italy, c. 470 BC.
• Goddess of the hearth
and home
• Often depicted as a
living flame
• Romanized as Vesta

25. Hera
Image from the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, New York
City, NY, c. 500-475 BC.
• Queen of the
gods, consort of
Zeus, goddess of
fertility
• Mother of Ares/Mars by
Zeus; gives birth to
Hephaestus/Vulcan
independently

26. Aphrodite
Statue in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, 420-410 BC.
• Goddess of love and
sexuality
– Born from sea foam
• Married to
Hephaestus, but has
affair with Ares
• Romanized as Venus

27. Judgment of Paris: l-r
Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Paris
Image from the Antikenmuseen, Berlin, Germany, 440 BC.

28. Female cultic practices
• Cult of Athena in Athens
– Panathenaea, the Parthenon
• Eleusinian mysteries
– A chief priest and two priestesses, one dedicated to Demeter and one to Persephone
– The melissae (bees)
• Thesmophoria—a Demeter cult for women only
• Games of Hera—women’s version of the Olympic games
• Fortuna
– Fortuna Virginalis, Fortuna Primigenia, Fortuna Muliebri, Fortuna Virilis
• Cult of Vesta, Vestal Virgins
• Cult of Ceres
• Cult of Bacchus/Dionysius
– Bacchanalia; after 186 BC, Roman men forbidden to participate
• Cult of Isis and Serapis
– Hellenized version of the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris
• Cult of the Magna Mater/Cybele--imported into Rome c. 200 BC