women, children and the family in the late aegean bronze age: differences in minoan and mycenaean...

Women, children and the family inthe Late Aegean Bronze Age:differences in Minoan andMycenaean constructions of gender

Barbara A. Olsen

Abstract

This paper discusses how the relationship between women and children is portrayed and under-stood in the societies of the Mycenaean (Greek) mainland and Late Minoan Crete. Child rearinghas been long assumed to be the primary social role of Aegean women. Yet the art of Late MinoanCrete reveals almost no interest in idealizing women as child-nurturers. The women of Minoaniconography are almost uniformly depicted outside of domestic contexts. In contrast, Mycenaeanimagery provides a systematic, iconographic reinforcement of women's task as child-rearers andsuggests a much greater level of investment on the part of Mycenaean society to envision womenwithin the context of the home. Therefore, while the written records of both societies place womenas child-care givers in daily practice, their iconography suggests that the two cultures valued thisrole differently and did not invest equally in placing women primarily within the family structure.

Keywords

Aegean Bronze Age; figurines; gender; kourotrophoi; Minoan; Mycenaean; children.

Introduction

Motherhood and the tending of children has long been assumed as the primary social roleof the women of the Late Bronze Age Aegean Minoan and Mycenaean societies. Thisassumption, however, has been more based on ethnographic analogies or contemporaryideologies than on examinations of relevant archaeological material. Evidence forMinoan and Mycenaean child-care practices derives from two sources: the administrativerecords written in the Linear B script and artistic depictions of women and children. TheMycenaean texts attest that women of Mycenaean Crete and the Mycenaean mainlandwere the primary tenders of children. Iconographie sources, however, reveal distinctdifferences among Minoan and Mycenaean depictions of child-care scenes. Child-bearing,

World Archaeology Vol. 29(3): 380-392 Intimate Relations© Routledge 1998 0043-8243

Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 381

or kourotrophos, scenes are only a trope in Mycenaean iconography; Minoan art evincesno interest in portraying women with children.

Background

The Late Bronze Age in the Aegean Basin (1600-1100 BC) witnessed the rise of twointerdependent civilizations, the Minoans on Crete and the Mycenaeans on the Greekmainland. While the Mycenaean Greeks spoke the same language and worshipped manyof the same gods as their historical period descendants, the identity of the Minoans isless apparent. Their language, written in the Linear A script, is untranslated, and theirrelationship to known ethnic groups in the Mediterranean remains uncertain. TheCretan civilization, designated Minoan after the legendary Cretan king Minos, heldprimacy first. It culminated in the Second Palace period which lasted from MiddleMinoan III to Late Minoan IB (c. 1700-1450 BC; for abbreviations and chronology seeTable 1). This period witnessed the rebuilding of the Cretan palaces following earth-quake damage, the emergence of Cretan syllabic writing in the Linear A script, a flour-ishing of Minoan art in such diverse media as fresco, glyptic, figurines, and ceramics, ahighly-developed system of internal and external trade, and a dominant cultural role inthe Aegean which in turn heavily influenced the Mycenaean mainland in art, architec-ture, and possibly in more direct political mechanisms. This cultural hegemony lasteduntil the Late Minoan IB period (c. 1450 BC). L(ate) M(inoan) IB marks the destructionby fire of nearly all the primary and secondary sites of the Minoan administration. Thisdestruction has generally been attributed to the Mycenaean Greeks from the mainlandand has been traditionally understood as a Mycenaean military conquest of Crete. (Aminority of scholars have proposed less directly military explanations for the Mycenaeandomination of Crete in the Third Palace Period (LM II-LM IIIB).) In any case, My-cenaean presence and Mycenaean administration are securely attested on Crete in thisperiod. The most compelling evidence for the Mycenaean administration of Crete is thatthe language and script of the palatial administrative records changes from the Minoan

Table I Late Bronze Age Aegean chronology, following Dickinson 1994; all dates approximate.

Date BC Mainland (LH = Late Helladic) Crete (LM = Late Minoan)

LMIA,IB

16001500

1400

1300

12001100

1000

LH1, IIA

LH IIB, IIIA1

LH IIIA2,IIIB1, IIIB2

LH IIIC

Submycenaean

LM II, IIIA1

LM IIIA2,LM IIIB

LM IIIC

Subminoan

382 Barbara A. Olsen

Linear A script to the Mycenaean Linear B script, which records an early version ofGreek. The question of how deeply Mycenaean influence permeates Minoan cultureremains open (see Driessen 1994).

Women and children in the Aegean Bronze Age

The role of women and the nature of gender relations in the Late Bronze Age civilizationsof the Aegean Basin have long attracted both scholarly and popular interest. Ever sincethe first modern excavations in the early 1900s at the Minoan administrative centre ofKnossos recovered depictions of powerful and prominent female figures in frescoes, fig-urines, and glyptic, the gender relations of prehistoric Crete have enjoyed a great deal ofattention. To date, the majority of the focus both in academic circles and the popular presshas largely centred around attempts to posit a Mother Goddess-centred religion (Evans1932; Gimbutas 1989) or to recover a matriarchal society among the Minoans (Thomas1973). The Mycenaeans, usually dismissed as the bearers of Indo-European patriarchalbaggage, received much less scholarly attention. Scholarly opinion, however, is by nomeans in consensus on these assertions. Recent scholarship has severely questioned read-ings which allege a goddess-centred prehistory, noting severe methodological flaws inthese analyses as well as essentialist biases (Talalay 1994; Meskell 1995; Conkey and Tring-ham 1995). At very least, the notion of a pre-Indo-European Great Goddess, especiallya Great Mother Goddess, has been strongly challenged.

In the last decade, scholarship on women in prehistory has become increasinglysophisticated, beginning with Conkey and Spector's ground-breaking synthesis of femin-ist and archaeological theory (Conkey and Spector 1984). Much recent work in theAegean has focused on the social status of women in the prehistoric societies, particularlythrough the analysis of gendered space (Tringham 1994). To date, discussions of the socialpositioning of women in Aegean pre- and proto-history have tended toward polarization:products of two vastly different theoretical and methodological approaches. In analysesthat privilege evidence from Aegean art, where female figures often occupy prominentspatial positions, women are assigned power and status. They are commonly identifiedeither as representations of the so-called Minoan Mother Goddess, or, in human contexts,as high-ranking public officials or priestesses, whose social status is suggested by their jew-ellery, costume or administrative regalia. In contrast, assessments privileging either ethno-graphic analogies inspired by modern Mediterranean societies or essentialist modelsinspired by hunter-gatherer ethnographies tend to conceptualize women as remainingclose to home, occupied primarily with domestic affairs and the raising of children,whether in human contexts (N. Marinatos 1995; Dickinson 1994), or in the divine realm(Evans 1935). Only recently have feminist scholars begun challenging the androcentricbiases of such interpretations, calling instead for a greater awareness of gender as aculture-specific phenomenon, and for the study of gendered social roles as products ofspecific societies. This paper examines more closely one of the primary social rolesscholars have attributed to Bronze Age women, the conflation of woman and the socialrole of child-rearer or kourotrophos.


Women and children in the Linear B tablets

For the Late Aegean Bronze Age, evidence relevant to women's role in the raising of chil-dren stems from two sources: from the administrative records written in the Linear Bscript from both Crete and mainland Greece, and from the evidence of Late Bronze Ageiconography. The Linear B records, written on clay tablets and intended for temporaryuse, were serendipitously preserved when the buildings in which they were stored wereburned, effectively firing the tablets. The two best textually attested centres, Pylos on themainland and Knossos on Crete, have between them produced nearly 5,000 tablets. Thetablets record matters relevant to each palace's economy such as counts of personnel,records of rations allotted to workers, quantities of materials and goods being received ordistributed by the administrative centre, dedications to divinities, and records of landgrants, among others. The tablets depict a highly gendered society with clear task dif-ferentiation between the sexes, both in domestic and in palatial contexts. Men and womenoccupy different spheres and perform tasks as members of single-sex workgroups. Of thetwenty-two occupations held by women at Knossos, only two of these occupations areshared with men: those of religious functionaries and slave. The situation is much the sameat Pylos where, of thirty-five occupations performed by women, only four are shared withmen: again, religious functionary and slave with two additional categories of leather-working and weaving. The texts, however, are clear that, even for these last two sharedprofessions, men and women still do not work within the same workgroups and their workenvironments remain segregated by sex.

The texts also provide a fair amount of material on the complexities of domestic socialorganization at both Knossos and Pylos. By no means all families governed by these poli-ties are recorded. The only family units discernible in the tablets are ones that the palaceshave some interest in regulating. This may imply that we may read palatial ideologyreflected in the organizational structures of these families, for example in terms of headsof household choices or, useful to this study, child-care choices. At both centres, child careis a task performed by women. Approximately 200 tablets from these two centres recordchildren in the so-called personnel series tablets; approximately 90 tablets at Knossos withan additional 110 at Pylos. Children appear primarily in three contexts: as components offamily units, as recipients of rations, and accompanying workgroups of specialized labour-ers. About a dozen or so tablets record what appear to be households, listing numbers ofmen, women, girls, and boys, respectively; the remainder record children accompanyingworkgroups of women. At Pylos, in the personnel series that record the working strengthof women's workgroups, the census and rations tablets consistently count boys and girlswith their mothers. At Knossos the process is further elaborated since the children aredifferentiated not only by sex, but also by age with two separate age grades for 'older' and'younger' children. We see, accompanying the women of working groups, children differ-entiated by sex and by age grades: younger girls, older girls, younger boys, and older boys.It is interesting to note that the persons designated older boys continue to be groupedwith their mothers rather than their fathers. There is unfortunately no way of knowingjust what is meant by 'older' and 'younger'. But it is clear that once they pass the line from'older boys' to men, they return to a rigidly gendered society. In the few tablets whereboys are recorded as accompanying men, the texts are explicit that these sons are older


boys and accompany their fathers for the purpose of instruction in their trade: these arenot young children requiring care. Men are never listed with children unless those chil-dren are older boys specifically undergoing training in a trade, in contrast to women whotend children of both sexes until the age when boys leave for professional training. Inshort, child care in both the Mycenaean mainland and Mycenaean Crete is clearly a roleassigned to women and receives fairly equal treatment in the tablets of each centre. It isthe manner in which Minoan and Mycenaean societies display women with children andinfants in their iconographie repertoires which is extremely different.

Mycenaean kourotrophoi

While kourotrophoi scenes, or images of women holding children, are well attested inNeolithic Greece as well as in the Greek historical period (Price 1978), this theme receivesrather differential attention in the Bronze Age Aegean. While Cyprus, for example, hasa continuous tradition of kourotrophoi scenes in all phases of the Bronze Age (Merrilees1988), on the Greek mainland kourotrophos images appear only in the Late Bronze Age(termed Late Helladic in this region) and then only within specific genres. Images ofwomen and children are absent from Mycenaean frescoes, glyptic, pictorial paintedpottery, and metalwork; Mycenaean depictions of nurturing scenes are limited to figurineswhere female figures are depicted cradling infants. The corpus of kourotrophoi consistsof approximately seventy terracottas, a small but significant subset of Mycenaean terra-cotta figurines, and one ivory group. They derive from at least eighteen sites: seventeenon the Mycenaean mainland (Fig. 1) and one on Cyprus. Two sites have produced largeclusters of figurines: a votive deposit at Aphaia on Aegina produced twenty-seven groups,and at least twenty were excavated at the site of Mycenae. These figurines are not withoutmethodological difficulties. French (1971), in her valuable and exhaustive study of thedevelopment of the Mycenaean terracotta figurines, points out that these figurines oftensurvive in highly fragmentary condition, were often not recorded by earlier excavatorsunless they were found in tombs, and most have not been thoroughly published.

I will use French's (1971) typology to outline the chronological development of thesefigurines. Mycenaean terracotta figurines begin to appear during the Late Helladic IIperiod and are found in large numbers during all phases of Late Helladic III. As Mylonas(1956) observed, the figurines appear suddenly and their types are fully developed.Although the figurines employ a variety of compositional forms, there are three majortypes, designated the Phi, Tau, Psi figurine types after the letters of the Greek alphabetthey resemble. They tend to be rather small, typically between 10 and 20 cm in height.They depict single female forms, often with articulated breasts; they are also typically cur-sorily painted, with curvo-linear lines on the body to suggest decorated clothing. The fig-urines' legs are covered by their garments. All have articulated arms. Phi figurines havetheir hands resting on the hips with the elbows bending outwards resembling the Greekletter <ï>. (The Phi type is preceded by the Proto-Phi type, introduced in LHII, which isvery similar to the standard type but has not quite reached the canonical proportions.)Tau figurines hold their elbows straight out, parallel to the ground reminiscent of the letterT. And Psi figurines hold both arms extended over the head at diagonal angles resembling


50kms

\ ^ Palaiopolis

KYTHERA

Figure 1 Mainland sites where kourotrophos figurines were excavated.


the letter W. In terms of chronological development, the earliest type to appear is the Phi,followed by the Tau and Psi types, respectively. Both of the earlier forms continue topersist with the introduction of the later variants.

A subset of Mycenaean terracotta figurines adds a child to the woman; these figurinesare termed kourotrophoi figurines from the Greek for 'child-nurturer'. Kourotrophoi vari-ants of each of the three standard types are to be found. The majority of these figurinesfollow a canonical form: a single female figurine of the Phi, Tau or Psi types nestles a singlechild against its mother's left breast, either clasped in the left arm (in the Phi and Tau fig-urines) or unclasped as in the Psi figurines. The child faces forward and may be ratherstylized or may be rendered with greater detail.

The earliest known Mycenaean kourotrophos dates to LHII and was discovered in theAidonia cemetery excavations at Nemea in the Argolid (Demakopoulou 1996). Found ina chamber tomb which contained the secondary burial of a child, it is a highly naturalis-tic figurine of Proto-Phi type with a long, ellipsoidal torso and a short thick stem. Theinfant nurses at one breast and rests its hand on the other. Even in this figurine, the ear-liest, all the canonical features are present - the child is clasped in front over the left breastof a standing woman of the popular figurine type.

In the following LHIIIA period, Mycenaean figurines become dramatically morenumerous on the mainland. Kourotrophoi occur at many sites and are found in a varietyof excavation contexts, including graves, settlements, and votive deposits. Kourotrophoigroups of LH IIIA include several typological forms, but the majority follow the develop-ment of single figure Proto-Phi and Phi types as identified by French (1971). Three Proto-Phi kourotrophoi figurines dating to LHIIIA1 have been found: one from the Mycenaeancemetery of Deiras near Argos (Deshayes 1966) and a second group from the AtreusBothros at Mycenae. Another Proto-Phi group of uncertain provenance is on display inGeneva (Price 1978). LHIIIA2 contexts have produced six kourotrophos groups, all ofthe Phi type. Of these one was found at Berbati in a tomb containing six adults and a child(Säflund 1965), three were found at Mycenae - two from the Petsas house excavationsand a third from a chamber tomb - and one came from Palaiopolis on Kythera (Water-house and Hope Simpson 1961; Coldstream and Huxley 1972). The Kythera group war-rants further comment as it displays a number of unusual features: the female figure haspierced breasts and holds a remarkably large child who sits upright and wears a polos-cap.It has been suggested that this figure may be a local imitation of a better made examplefrom the mainland. (It has been suggested that Kythera began as a Minoan colony or fellunder heavy Minoan influence but, by the LHIII period, the material culture of Kytherareflects Mycenaean and not Minoan traits.)

Contemporaneous with the above is a Phi group from chamber tomb 41 at Mycenae(Tsountas 1888; French 1971) of a more unusual composition. Instead of the more typicalone-woman, one-child convention, this figure carries two children and a parasol-likeobject. One child is nestled against her left breast in the usual formula but, on her back,below the parasol projecting from the left shoulder, is a second child partially hiddenbeneath the parasol. Two other triplet groups have been excavated, one from the votivedeposit at Aegina, and the other from chamber tomb 80 at Mycenae.

The most frequently cited Mycenaean scene portraying the interaction of women andchildren - the Ivory Trio from the citadel of the site of Mycenae (Wace 1949; S. Marinatos


1973; etc.) - also dates to LH IIIA. This group differs from the rest of the Mycenaeankourotrophoi in that it is the one depiction of child-rearing rendered in a luxury material- imported ivory rather than native clay. This group depicts two female seated figuresaccompanied by a male child. It has often been read as having religious overtones, withthe participants identified as goddesses with a young god (Wace 1949) or divine nursescaring for a human child after death (Mylonas 1956).

Additionally, three kourotrophoi figurines are attested from the transition from LHIIIA to IIIB: one from tomb 35 at Prosymna, which was a cist with no extant bones, asecond from tomb 1 at Dendra which contained five skeletons, and the third from thePetsas house excavations at Mycenae.

LHIIIB introduces two new types of kourotrophos figurines to the corpus. Here, theoriginal Phi type is supplemented by child-carrying Tau and Psi figurines. Canonical Psikourotrophos groups are attested at Aegina, Mycenae, and by another group of uncertainorigin, now on display at the Alte Museum in Berlin. None of the Tau kourotrophoi arewell preserved; French (1971) publishes one highly fragmentary group from Mycenae andmentions the existence of an additional six unpublished groups.

Two terracotta triple groups depicting two women with a single child also appear in LHIIIB. From chamber tomb 79 at Mycenae was excavated a group of two female Phi fig-urines, attached at the body, carrying a child between them on their shoulders (S. Mari-natos 1933; Mylonas 1956). A similar figure was found at chamber tomb 6 at Voula byPapademetriou and Theochares. The interpretation of these groups has given rise to muchspeculation. French (1971) argues that they should be read as related to the triple ivorygroup from Mycenae, in which the child wears similar clothing and jewellery.

A final compositional type, differing from the canonical type, is the seated kouro-trophos type, attested by two figurines, one from the Louvre, reportedly from Mycenae(Mollard-Besques 1954), and the other from grave A at Voula. In both groups, the childrests on the lap of a seated Phi figurine, otherwise of canonical proportions.

Furthermore, we have several kourotrophoi for which no date more specific than LHIII can be assigned. These figurines remain undatable for several reasons: because of theirextremely fragmentary condition, because they derive from excavations very early in thiscentury, or because their excavation contexts are no longer known. Among the latter cat-egory is the group in Brussels which is the only published wheel-made kourotrophos(Price 1978). While this figurine is unique in its production technique, it otherwise closelyfollows traditional compositional conventions; the figure's small plastic arms curve overher chest, and the child is held in the left arm as usual. Other undatable groups includethe Phi figurines from Priphtiani, Eleusis, Zygouries, Aegina, and Mycenae, as well as thegroup from Cyprus, the sole Mycenaean kourotrophos figurine found outside of mainlandGreece. French (1971) reports additional kourotrophoi from the sites of Eutresis andThebes in Boeotia, but there is some doubt as to whether the Eutresis figurine is actuallycarrying a child rather than a snake (Goldman 1931) and I have been unable to verify theexistence of the latter group.

Finally, Rutter reports a possible kourotrophos of Late Psi type from Korakou dating tothe LH IIIC period, following the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial system (Rutter 1974).

A variety of explanations for the function of these groups has been proposed. Most ofthese explanations focus only on one type of findspot, namely tombs, to the exclusion of


the others. Explanations based on groups found in tombs tend to identify the female figureas a goddess (Mylonas 1956; S. Marinatos 1933) or, similarly, as a divine nurse who pro-tects the child after its death (Demakopoulou 1996). Mylonas (1956), following S. Mari-natos (1933), argues that Psi figurines especially were divinities to be placed in graves,presumably graves of children. It should be emphasized, however, that many of the graveswhere kourotrophoi figurines were found show no evidence of containing child burials.Others propose that these figurines were deposited in graves to ensure health and fertil-ity (Van Leuven 1994). Finally, figurines from intra-settlement findspots have been sug-gested to be children's playthings (Biegen 1937). It is again necessary to note that thelargest cache of kourotrophoi figurines, namely the twenty-seven kourotrophos figurinesfrom Aegina, was not found in either necropolis or a settlement, but came from a votivedeposit. The most judicious reading might then be that the meaning of these figures variesaccording to context. They may be votives, grave offerings, and/or household objects.What is significant here is that all three of these contexts are loci where the placement ofwomen with infants is emphasized.

Minoan and Mycenaean Crete

In contrast to the numerous kourotrophoi from the Mycenaean mainland, images placingwomen with young children are virtually absent from Minoan art before the LMIBdestructions which herald the Mycenaean presence on Crete. Excavations have recoveredno Cretan Middle Minoan or LMI kourotrophos scenes in any medium; not in terracotta,metalwork, frescoes, stone work, glyptic, or faience. The closest associated image is theMinoan-inspired fresco from the West House at Akrotiri on the island of Thera where anolder child stands near to a woman (LMIA) (Immerwahr 1983), but this depiction is notan image from a Cretan context. Minoan art from Cretan contexts does show an interestin the depiction of children. For example, there are two LMI ivory children from the townof Palaikastro and an LMI bronze infant from the cave of Psychro. Furthermore, Minoanart depicts in high numbers figurines of individual women, especially as votives at Minoanpeak sanctuaries. We also see a few group compositions involving women. Yet nowherein all of Minoan art do these elements combine to produce scenes where women nurturechildren.

Nurturing scenes do occur in Minoan (pre-LMIB) iconography, but they are neveranthropomorphic. Animal mothers and young are depicted in ivory, glyptic, and on thetwo Middle Minoan III faience plaques from the Temple Repositories at Knossos whichdepict a cow and her calf and a goat with her young. The nearest nurturing image in ananthropomorphic setting is substantially earlier - the Early Bronze Age Goddess ofMyrtos (EM II), a terracotta figurine who reserves the space in her arms not for childrenbut for a miniature terracotta juglet resembling those found in excavations at Myrtos(Plate 1).

Kourotrophos imagery in Mycenaean Crete is equally sparse. Following the LM IBdestructions, kourotrophoi remain extremely rare. The sole representation depicts ananthropomorphic mother and child - the so-called goddess from the Mavrospelio ceme-tery near Knossos (Forsdyke 1926-7). This figurine, of the LM III cylindrical-skirted


Plate 1 The Goddess ofMyrtos.' (Reprinted bypermission of EditionsHannibal.)

goddess type, is rendered in terracotta and holds a small male child. This child is notcradled against her left breast as per the Phi, Tau, and Psi figurines of the Mycenaeanmainland but rather is held face-forward, at arms' length as if in presentation. While thecylindrical-skirted goddess is a frequent Late Minoan type, attested at numerous Cretansites, the Mavrospelio example is unique among the cylindrical-skirted 'goddesses', on twogrounds. First, she alone holds something in her arms (all other cylindrical-skirted 'god-desses' raise their arms above their heads) and, second, she was placed in a burial whereasthe others of this type most commonly come from shrine areas within settlements. Icontend that she is problematic as a source for Minoan conceptualizations of child carefor the following reasons. Her late date of LMIIIA, roughly contemporaneous with theKnossos Linear B tablets, places her well into the Mycenaean period. Her pose is repeatednowhere else in Minoan iconography. And her findspot in a burial is highly atypical sinceCretan figurines are more commonly found in peak sanctuaries, sacred enclosures, ordomestic shrines. Very infrequently are they found in graves. Additionally, several of thecemeteries near Knossos in this period, Mavrospelio included, have unusual features thathave prompted suggestions that they were used by an intrusive Mycenaean population.Since burial of figurines is a more common Mycenaean practice, and given her marked


differences from other Cretan figurines, it is plausible that this figurine may have beenproduced by a Minoan artist commissioned by a Mycenaean mourner. Regardless,nothing about her appearance or function implies her use by a 'Hellenized' Minoan ratherthan by a mainlander on Crete. It is also interesting to note that, while Mycenaean Phiand Psi figurines have been found on Crete, none has been a kourotrophos. Finally, it isnot until the eighth century BC that child-rearing scenes are to be found as a regular motifon Crete when they begin to appear at the cave of Cave of Eileithyia, the goddess of child-birth.

Conclusion

Merrilees (1988) in discussing Cypriot terracotta kourotrophoi refers to mother and childscenes as variations on an eternal theme. While this 'eternal theme' is certainly resonantwith Mycenaean cultural ideology, it is at best a flimsy one for the Minoans. In contrastto previous scholars who have asserted the centrality of mother-child imagery in Minoanreligion and society (Evans 1935), I argue that nothing in Minoan iconographie depictionsof divine or human life promotes or even associates women with children. Furthermore,I argue that this represents, if not a fundamental difference in gender constructionbetween Minoan and Mycenaean societies, at very least a fundamentally differentapproach to a gendered social role.

This study has several implications. First, Crete and the mainland cannot be read assharing identical gender ideologies, either in the Minoan or Mycenaean period. Aegeansocieties share no standardized investment in depicting motherhood as women's primarysocial role. Motherhood occupies a much more central role in Mycenaean cultural ideol-ogy than it does in Minoan. This might be surprising in light of the allegations of a matri-archal or goddess-centered Minoan culture and the patriarchal nature of Mycenaeanculture. I suggest, however, that the iconographie record be read as reinforcing cultural-specific conceptualizations of where women's time and energies should be invested. It maynot be motherhood per se that is being celebrated in Mycenaean society but rather thelocating of women in domestic contexts which is being iconographically reinforced.

In contrast, Minoan society does not invest in idealizing women as mothers. It seemsinstead to place them in capacities other than those associated with the care of infants.We see in Minoan iconography images of women in more public contexts: occupyingprominent spatial positions in outdoor assemblies and processions, interacting with eachother either in conversation or in dance, and acting in religious contexts either as indi-vidual worshippers or as officials involved in sacrificial rituals. Above all, emphasis is onthe social rather than the biological, the public rather than the domestic.

The second implication of this study is that this difference between Minoan and My-cenaean iconographie interests persists into the Mycenaean period on Crete. While thetablets reveal that both Mycenaean women and the women of Mycenaean Crete share thesame social role of child-care provider, their societies are not uniform in their represen-tations of this role. The art of Mycenaean Crete continues to follow the Minoan traditionsregarding child-rearing scenes rather than adopting the contemporary Mycenaean inter-est in them, implying the survival of at least some aspects of Minoan child-care ideology.


The final point pertains to Minoan religion. It must be noted that, if one wishes to placea 'Minoan Mother Goddess' at the centre of the Minoan pantheon, one must take intoaccount the complete iconographie silence on anthropomorphic motherhood in MinoanCrete and the near-complete silence even in the period of Mycenaean domination ofCrete. There is simply no evidence for the celebration of motherhood, divine or human,among the Minoans.

Duke University, USAand American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece

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women, children and the family in the late aegean bronze age: differences in minoan and mycenaean...

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