Prospects in engendering Classical Greece: towards the construction of culturally created engendered bodies and identities through an interdisciplinary approach

Vannet, Malo;Solomou, Anastasia
(2023) European Association for Archaeologists (EAA) Annual Meeting ‘Weaving Narratives’, 2023 — Location: Belfast, United Kingdom (30.August.2023)

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With the development of gender and feminist theory bringing the complex and culturally determined nature of biological sex and gender to the fore (Butler 2004; Lorber 1996), archaeologists have been urged to reconsider the way in which past identities are interpreted (Jordan 2016; Harrell 2014; Arnold 2012; Costin 1996). Within the funerary arena, the spotlight has been placed on osteologists, which are considered to be the most capable in providing information regarding the sex and gender of the deceased. However, the theoretical and practical limitations of the sex-estimation methods used by osteologist and their subsequent interpretation and conflation with gender have begun to problematise researchers (Geller, 2005). This paper aims to highlight these limitations and re-formulate the questions asked by and to osteologists concerning the social identities of the deceased. Through this prism, a practical demonstration of prospective research pathways for the exploration of gender in Ancient Greece will be attempted, provided it is a greatly understudied context both with regards to osteological analyses and gender studies. This primarily includes the overview of engendered activities and lived experienced in Classical Greece. Focus will be drawn on the potential of the combination of this textual and contextual data with osteological and genetic data, with a view to creating a holistic approach to the identity and specifically the gender of the deceased, also exploring the way gender relates to and is connected to other aspects of identity, such as status, age, or ethnicity (Sofaer, 2013). This paper will also highlight deviant cases with a view to challenging the strict binary notion of gender portrayed onto Classical Greece.
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Vannet, M., & Solomou, A. (2023). Prospects in engendering Classical Greece: towards the construction of culturally created engendered bodies and identities through an interdisciplinary approach. European Association for Archaeologists (EAA) Annual Meeting ‘Weaving Narratives’, 2023, Belfast, United Kingdom. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/271084