Gender Through Time in the Ancient Near East [Hardcover]

Gender studies is claiming its rightful place in the field of Near Eastern archaeology. This important and timely book will no doubt stimulate critical thinking on a subject of wide significance.Overall, this book offers the attentive reader a wealth of possibilities for thinking about gender in the ancient Near East.... One can only hope that the book's thought-provoking studies will stimulate further engagement with gender and feminist theory among scholars working in this part of the world.The editor and contributors have produced far and away the most important and stimulating study of ancient Near Eastern gender ever published. The consistently tight adhesion to the intricacies of the material evidence, the sophistication of the theoretical frameworks, and the insight and power of the interpretations throughout the book make it an astonishingly rich read.This is the first book to consider issues of gender and social identity across a broad temporal and geographical range of civilizations in the ancient Near East.Although the ancient Near East has been studied by anthropologists, archaeologists, philologists, and historians, no single work has explored issues of gender and social identity across the broad temporal and geographical range of Near Eastern civilizations. Gender Through Time in the Ancient Near East thus makes a unique contribution to gender studies. The volume's contributorsan international group of experts from Near Easern, European and American institutionslook at the archaeological and other evidence to find out how gender roles were constructed in these ancient worlds and what they meant to the men and women who assumed them.Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 1 Ambiguous Genders? Alternative Interpretations: A Discussion of Case Studies from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic - Halaf Periods Chapter 2 Feasting and Dancing: Gendered Representation and Pottery in Later Mesopotamian Prehistory Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 Evaluating Patterns of Gender through lS6