 Exhibit debunks role of women in ancient Greece
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-22 07:45
A woman's place has never been just in the home - not even in ancient Greece. The proof is in an exhibit titled Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens - a collection of artifacts that correct the cliched idea of Athenian women as passive, homebound nurturers of men and children. In the display covering Greek life, art and religion, women play important, vibrant roles, as do their goddesses - from lover to priestess to political peacemaker to protagonist of public festivals. "Today's woman has more in common with the woman of ancient Athens than one imagines," said curator Stella Chryssoulaki. She pointed to a vase showing a group of women who escaped city life, getting together in the countryside for a three-day festival honoring their god Dionysius. They talked and shared lots of wine, leaving their husbands behind. Contrary to the popular perception of the Athenian female rituals as wild orgies, "there was no sex". It was a religious rite, but also "a way to get out of the house and talk and exchange feelings", Chryssoulaki said. "It was like group therapy - and then they went home and readied for the stresses of daily life." While women in Athens could not vote and were told whom to marry, the exhibit is packed with objects that attest to their vital roles in everything from food and sex to birth and death. Women were part of both politics and religion, which in those days overlapped. A key depicted on a vase was kept only by a woman who opened the door to the treasures in the temple of the priestesses. A small bronze statuette of Athena shows her as armed and dangerous, leading Athens' warriors against Troy. And on a black vase, she's a thinker, etching words onto the waxen surface of a notebook with a sharp wooden stick that served as a writing tool. A tiny vase to be filled with wine for ritual tastings could be carried by a girl. Agencies
(China Daily 12/22/2008 page6) |
