Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

an inferiority complex toward the Greeks, whose language, literature, and knowledge of science they considered supe- rior to the ...

became especially prolifi c throughout this period, as did the use of copper and mica ornaments. Hohokam culture emerged from th ...

Owen Lattimore and Eleanor Lattimore, eds., Silks, Spices, and Em- pire: Asia Seen through the Eyes of Its Discoverers (New York ...

493  ▶ gender structures and roles introduction Much of what historians know, or think they know, about gender relationships in ...

noted as well that in some ancient cultures, homosexuality was more widely accepted than it is in modern life. AFRICA BY MICHAEL ...

Women also served an important function in the reli- gious aff airs of ancient African communities. Many of these communities pr ...

related activities. Some of the goddesses were the embodi- ment of powerful elements of the state and universe, such as the thro ...

of a woman was considered the domestic sphere, where she gave birth and raised children; cooked, baked, and brewed; made textile ...

scholars take as evidence of the insignifi cance of women to most men. Confucians believed that in order to maintain social harm ...

cial and marital relationships. Without written descriptions of these roles, historians have to rely on whatever archaeo- logica ...

GREECE BY BRADLEY SKEEN In the earliest period of Greek history, the Minoan civiliza- tion (ca. 2600–ca. 14,500 b.c.e.) on the i ...

Greek-speaking peoples who absorbed Minoan culture. Th is civilization is the background of the Homeric poems the Iliad and the ...

We rarely hear women or other classes speak for themselves, though there is little reason to think that they did not em- brace t ...

of divorce liberated many women from the authority of either father or husband, granting some degree of sexual freedom. Neverthe ...

tilco, in western Mexico, dating to the fi rst or second century b.c.e. Th ese ceramic fi gurines display the desire among early ...

THE VIEWS OF A FEMALE CONFUCIAN I, the unworthy writer, am unsophisticated, unenlightened, and by nature unintelligent, but I am ...

FURTHER READING Ifi Amadiume, Re-Inventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion, and Cul- ture, rpt. (London: Zed Books, 1998). Zainab B ...

Diotima: Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the An- cient World. Available online. URL: http://www.stoa.org/di- otim ...

a number of reasons, including lack of an heir to the throne or conquest by another nation. In some civilizations, power struggl ...

ally given as 309 b.c.e. However, before then it is not clear whether all the rulers came from one family or whether they were s ...