RT Article
T1 Women’s Agency in the Cults of the Greco-Egyptian Deities in Hellenistic Athens
JF Religion & gender
VO 14
IS 1/2
SP 56
OP 80
A1 Neumann, Sabine
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2024
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1885000790
AB Cults for Greco-Egyptian gods such as Isis, Sarapis, Anubis, and Harpocrates enjoyed great interest in the Greek world of the Hellenistic period. This article analyses the agency of women in these cults in Hellenistic Athens and Delos. It poses the question whether the agency of women can be directly compared to the agency of men. It identifies, first, reservations in modern scholarship about women in positions of religious power, and, second, institutional boundaries that excluded women from official priestly positions. It demonstrates the ways in which women nonetheless held agency within family networks, and, third, possessed ritual competencies beyond formal offices and a relationship to deities on a personal level.
K1 women’s agency
K1 Sarapis
K1 Isis
K1 Greco-Egyptian Gods
K1 Delos
K1 Athens
DO 10.1163/18785417-01401004