And they were tomb mates: Conceptualizing gender and sexuality in the Ancient Near East

Feminist and queer archaeology both find their origins in the academic feminist movements of the 1970s and 80s. They opposed the political and academic androcentric climates of the time, and have since achieved legitimacy in academia. Still, we are constantly developing our understanding of gender in ancient cultures. This thesis takes the next step in deconstructing our understanding of gender, namely building our interpretations of gender identities of people in the past with incorporating our modern biases. The main question in this thesis is How can we practically research queer gender identities in the Ancient Near East based on the material evidence? To do this, the author focusses on literature about case studies from across the ancient Near East. In this study, the author analyzes these diverse case studies to pinpoint what methods those researchers used and what evidence they built their arguments about gender constructs and gender identity in the past. This study puts a...Show moreFeminist and queer archaeology both find their origins in the academic feminist movements of the 1970s and 80s. They opposed the political and academic androcentric climates of the time, and have since achieved legitimacy in academia. Still, we are constantly developing our understanding of gender in ancient cultures. This thesis takes the next step in deconstructing our understanding of gender, namely building our interpretations of gender identities of people in the past with incorporating our modern biases. The main question in this thesis is How can we practically research queer gender identities in the Ancient Near East based on the material evidence? To do this, the author focusses on literature about case studies from across the ancient Near East. In this study, the author analyzes these diverse case studies to pinpoint what methods those researchers used and what evidence they built their arguments about gender constructs and gender identity in the past. This study puts a specific emphasis om material, iconographic, and textual evidence. Based on these case studies, the author aims to construct a strategy future researchers can use in their research of gender in the ancient Near East, to reconstruct gender identities without incorporating their own personal biases. This research shows it is especially important to understand that the way people in the past conceptualized gender and the gender identity of themselves and those around them may be very different from the way we think now. This means, we can only ever make reliable claims about gender constructs and anyone’s gender identity with sufficient evidenciary support. The author has found, that the best first step is understanding the context of gender in that time. Usually textual evidence, such as laws, stories, and religious rules, are particularly useful to develop such an understanding. Afterwards, once the researchers has a sufficient understanding of gender in a specific past culture, they can being theorizing over individuals. This should be done based on iconography and textual evidence connected to that individual.Show less

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And they were tomb mates: Conceptualizing gender and sexuality in the Ancient Near East