ABSTRACT

Representations of sexual difference (whether visual or textual) have become an area of much theoretical concern and investigation in recent feminist scholarship. Yet although a wide range of relevant evidence survives from the ancient Near East, it has been exceptional for those studying women in the ancient world to stray outside the traditional bounds of Greece and Rome.
Women of Babylon is a much-needed historical/art historical study that investigates the concepts of femininity which prevailed in Assyro-Babylonian society. Zainab Bahrani's detailed analysis of how the culture of ancient Mesopotamia defined sexuality and gender roles both in, and through, representation is enhanced by a rich selection of visual material extending from 6500 BC - 1891 AD. Professor Bahrani also investigates the ways in which women of the ancient Near East have been perceived in classical scholarship up to the nineteenth century.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

Women of Babylon: gender and representation in Mesopotamia

chapter 1|21 pages

Women/Sex/Gender

Women's history and the ancient Near East

chapter 2|12 pages

Envisioning Difference

Femininity and representation

chapter 3|30 pages

The Metaphorics of the Body

Nudity, the goddess, and the Gaze

chapter 4|26 pages

That Obscure Object of Desire

Nudity, fetishism, and the female body

chapter 5|25 pages

Priestess and Princess

Patronage, portraiture, identity

chapter 6|20 pages

A Woman's Place

Femininity in narrative art

chapter 7|20 pages

Ishtar

The embodiment of tropes