To understand the ancient world, in particular the Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, is sometimes a difficult process of where and when to start, especially at a time when complex societies are beginning to emerge and current opinions are diverse. To make matters more complex are the various thematic approaches which have made that attempt to contextualize a certain theme within an interpretative past that is extremely regionalized; in this part of the world we are looking at a number of diverse Bronze Ages rather than a definitive Bronze Age per se. In other words, what we are witnessing in terms of the material culture in Cyprus or Crete may be completely different in, say, Egypt or Anatolia. However, depending on one's archaeological and theoretical stance, one can promote the idea that there could be a set of primary rules that are inherent throughout this region of Europe (and beyond) and that idiosyncratic change to the material culture is dependent on local and regional variants of enculturation.
The Images of Woman and Child volume by Stephanie Budin goes a long way to discuss these various traits associated with engendered figurines, in particular imagery associated with the woman and child motif/theme. The book, divided into seven chapters, explores the different variants from a number of core areas of Bronze Age ancient Near East and Mediterranean Europe (including Anatolia, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Aegean and the Levant). The geographic sweep provides the reader with a useful data set from each region, which is supported by good discussion, up-to-date referencing and a comprehensive index (Chapters 2 to 6).
Supporting this geographic approach, Chapter 1 provides the reader with an excellent theoretical account of what women and children in art represent, what is generally referred to in Budin's study area as the kourotrophos (a Greek term meaning ‘nurse of the youths’). In the past female figurines, with or without accompanying child figures, from this period have been conveniently interpreted as symbols of fertility and the mother goddess cult (Gimbutas and Campbell Reference Gimbutas and Campbell2001). Budin quite rightly points out that different practices based not just on symbolic behaviour but including mechanisms associated with a patriarchal system produce different types of iconography whereby woman and child could also be in conflict; here, figurines take on a new guise, becoming signatures of power politics and promoting at least the progression of the male child through patriarchy.
This book is an ideal companion to gender studies and to the iconography of the Bronze Age, albeit from the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Since the dawn of theoretical discourse, gender has become an important subject, sometimes assisting archaeologists with a new way of interpreting the later prehistoric past. Budin incorporates an additional element – the relationship between mother and child and how that is expressed through art. Although the formula of applying a geographic sweep is predictable, but also very useful (Chapters 2 to 6), the opening and closing chapters, which discuss at length the role of the kourotrophos, neatly top and tail the data set. To comprehend this substantial piece of work fully, readers will need to have a reasonable grounding in the numerous entangled religious cults that once occupied this part of later prehistoric Europe. This well-researched piece of work is for the serious reader, providing an up-to-date account of a rarely researched topic.
