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Document Details :

Title: Religious Citizenship in Classical Athens
Subtitle: Men and Women in Religious Representations on Athenian Vase-Painting
Author(s): BORGERS, Olaf
Journal: BABESCH
Volume: 83    Date: 2008   
Pages: 73-97
DOI: 10.2143/BAB.83.0.2033099

Abstract :
In the first half of the 5th century, the number of representations of religious activities on Attic painted pottery increases significantly, not only in absolute numbers, but also in proportion to overall developments in this material. Taking the importance of religious participation in the concept of Athenian citizenship for a starting point, systematic analysis of women’s and men’s roles in these vase scenes reveals interesting patterns. Women and men perform identical roles in the main categories of animal sacrifice, libation, procession, and offerings at an altar, but the degree of participation of each sex in different types of activity is quite different. Conventional means of explaining various types of representation, such as the distinction between public and private occasions, turn out to be contradicted by the evidence, as do prevalent views on women’s (non-)participation in specific types of sacrifice. The analysis includes issues of provenance, chronology and the influence of individual painters and workshops.

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