Brigitte Lion

Les crevettes dans la documentation du Proche-Orient ancien

La documentation cuneiforme du Proche-Orient ancien atteste la consommation des crevettes, ainsi que leur transport sur des distances parfois longues. Les sources datent essentiellement de la premiere moitie du IIe millenaire av. J.-C. Deux textes medicaux du premier millenaire indiquent l’emploi de ces crustaces dans la pharmacopee. Il ne semble pas exister d’iconographie pour ces animaux. Apres avoir fait l’inventaire des sources disponibles, nous nous proposons d’etudier la terminologie relative aux crevettes, puis la circulation de ces crustaces, et leurs usages culinaires et medicaux.

The Job of Sex: The social and economic role of prostitutes in ancient Mesopotamia

Prostitution certainly cannot be shown to be Mesopotamia’s “oldest profession,” but it is attested quite early, from at least the mid-third millennium.1 It is an occupation that, in its practice, as Brigitte Lion has noted (2013: 398), “has left practically no written trace,” and involved, again in her words, a “transaction (...) payable in cash, which made it unnecessary to document on a tablet.” Of course, as Lion implies, this lack of documentation is not a peculiar feature of prostitution, but rather is just one example of the absence of documentation for all small-scale private transactions. People bought vegetables, had their shoes repaired, got haircuts, and satisfied their sexual needs, all without leaving a trace in the great mountain of cuneiform documentation.2 In their call for papers, the conference organizers reminded us that most women’s work was in and around the home, and thus unmentioned and unremunerated. When women worked outside the home, in the great institutions, palace or temple, they were most likely to be found in the textile or grain mills, that is, working in sectors that specialized in just one of the tasks that were part of the traditional chores women did in the home. Might prostitution also be so considered? Was the prostitute earning her livelihood by merely commodifying a single task that other women performed only at home with their husbands? Can we speak of sex workers in ancient Mesopotamia? I ask this question knowing that the terms “sex work” and “sex worker” have become controversial among feminist theorists and activists (Howell 2008). Some seek to support and protect women who satisfy sexual desire for money, and understand the term “sex worker” to be more dignified than “prostitute.” Others are outraged at any attempt to dignify activity that involves the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies, and insist that such activity be called prostitution, with all of the opprobrium that the term connotes. A more academic version of this dispute exists in the field of classics, where some scholars

The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ebla Kingdom (Syria, 24th century BC)

Maria-Giovanna Biga (Università di Roma – Sapienza, Italy) Women at work at the Ebla court (a Syrian court of third millennium BC.) All Eblaite women, including the most important ladies of the court, span and wove and made their own clothes and those for the family. To do this they received wool from the central administration. The ladies of the court, the queen mother, the queen, the women of the kings harem, the princesses received, also on important occasions, textiles from central administration. Some important ladies of the court were responsible for workshops in which hundreds of anonymous women and their children worked to produce textiles which were the most precious products of Ebla. Many other female workers, all anonymous, are attested at the Ebla court: women milling flour, baking bread, cooking, working in the kitchens of the palace, preparing vegetables, carrying water etc. Female dancers and singers are attested too, quoted by their personal names. Wet-nurses, some referred to by the personal name, some anonymous are quoted too. Many anonymous women prepared lotions and perfumed oils for the most important ladies of the court. Also some women physicians are attested. All these workers received rations of food and wool as payment and frequency of these rations will be examined.

The Role of Women in Work and Society in the Ancient Near East

Economic history is well documented in Assyriology thanks to the good preservation of numerous private and offi cial archives; however, the contribution of women has seldom been addressed. This volume examines the many aspects of women as economic agents, inside and outside of the family structure over the three millennia of Near Eastern history. Papers address issues from historical and archaeological points of view and with a gender perspective.