Mothering in Antiquity

Giulia Pedrucci is a postdoctoral fellow at Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). Her research explores the religious dimensions of motherhood in antiquity. She has published, among other works, a monograph, two edited volumes, and an article in Numen outlining a new subfield between Motherhood and Religious Studies.

• Introduction. Bridging Motherhood as Institution and Mothering as Practice; Studying Mothers, Motherhood and Mothering in Antiquity through a Matricentric Epistemological Framework: An Introduction - Florence Pasche Guignard and Giulia Pedrucci; Part I. Mothers in Biological and Medical Contexts; 1. Becoming a Mother in Mesopotamia: Biological and Social Aspects - Laura Battini; 2. Breastfeeding, Co-breastfeeding, and Weaning in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Literary Sources and Archaeological Evidence in Dialogue - Giulia Pedrucci and Carlo Cocozza; 3. Birth Control and Abortion in the Graeco-Roman World, 500 BCE–750 CE - Laurence Totelin; 4. Afterbirth and Genius: Beliefs and Symbolism among the Romans and Other Peoples - Attilio Mastrocinque; 5. Contraception and Birth Control through Rabbinic Eyes: Ancient Competing Models of Mothering - Avraham Yoskovich; Part II. Mothers in Archaeology: Material Evidence and Practices; 6. The Bio-archaeology of Mothers: Approaches to Motherhood and Kinship in European Prehistory - Katharina Rebay-Salisbury; 7. Mothers in Bone and Stone in the Bronze Age Aegean - Stephanie L. Budin; 8. Representing Motherhood in Archaic Cyprus - Emma de Koning; 9. Motherhood and Infancy in Latium Vetus during the Iron Age within Pre-Roman Italy - Francesca Fulminante; 10. Invisible Motherhood in Italy before the Roman Conquest - Massimiliano di Fazio; 11. Etruscan Mothers: An Archaeological Perspective - Elisabetta Govi and Chiara Pizzirani; 12. “ativu sacniśa aturś”: Seeking the Evidence of Mothering in Ancient Etruria - Jean MacIntosh Turfa; 13. Mediating Religious Narratives through Small Protecting Items: Archaeological Data from Votive and Funerary Contexts in Archaic Sicily - Gabriella Sciortino; 14. Being a Mother: Experiencing Mothering and Motherhood in the Phoenician-Punic World - Meritxell Ferrer Martín and Mireia López-Bertran; 15. Between Archaeological and Figurative Evidence of Mothering in Ancient Gaul and Beyond - Fabienne Dugast; Part III. Mothers in Texts: Norms, Myths, Ideals; 16. Mothers in Ancient Near Eastern Wisdom Literature - Annunziata Rositani; 17. The Mother in Mesopotamian Narratives - Lorenzo Verderame; 18. Motherhood in the Hebrew Bible - Marco Pavan; 19. Medea, the Murderous Mother - Augusto Cosentino; 20. Between Physical and Spiritual Dimensions: Motherhood in Ancient Christianity and Its Implications - Roberta Franchi; 21. Emmelia, Her Relationship to Her Many Children, and the Idealised Representations by Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzen (4th c. CE) - Ilaria L. E. Ramelli; 22. Spiritual Mothers and Real Mothers: Motherhood in Syriac Sources between Practice and Idealization - Claudia Tavolieri; 23. Motherhood in Christian Apocryphal Literature - Gabriella Aragione; 24. Writing Motherhood in Early Islam: Religious and Literary Texts - Roberta Denaro; 25. Islamic Perspectives on Mothers as Norm Transgressors in Early Islamic Sources - Darai Saddik and Jaouad Agudal; Part IV. Mothers in Political and Legal Contexts; 26. Preserving the Patrimony: Mothers as Agents of Their Sons’ Legal Interests in Babylonia - John P. Nielsen; 27. Materna Potestas: Maternal Agency and Marriage Decisions in Roman Times - Cristina Soraci; 28. Maxentius and Eutropia: An Interdisciplinary Case Study on an Early 4th-Century Syrian Christian Motherhood - Diego Serra and Pedro David Conesa Navarro; 29. Seneca’s Mothers: Parenting Strategies, Power, Myth, and Representation at the End of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty - Rosa M.ª Marina Sáez; 30. From Goddess to God: The Shift in Religious Authority and Its Impact on Motherhood in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Times - Nina Käsehage; Part V. Mothers in Social and Religious Contexts; 31. Mothers and Motherhood in the Ancient Near East from Cuneiform Adoptions - Daniel Justel Vicente; 32. Tracing Maternal Filiations in Middle Kingdom Stelae: Reaching the Afterlife through Motherhood in Ancient Egypt - Beatriz Noria-Serrano; 33. Motherhood and Child-Rearing in Ancient Israel - Kristine Henriksen Garroway; 34. Nurses, Weavers, and Myths: Mothering Individuals as Primary Religious Enculturators in the Ancient Southern Levant - Jonathon Riley; 35. Motherhood and Mothering in Ancient Greek Religion - Matthew Dillon; 36. Mothers, Mother-Figures, and Child Care in Roman Egypt - April Pudsey and Ville Vuolanto; 37. Motherhood and Mothering Experiences in the Byzantine World - Despoina Ariantzi