Female Bodies in Sacred Spaces: Re-evaluating Women’s Agency in the Greek World.

Project Information

FemBod

Grant agreement ID: 101108361

DOI

10.3030/101108361

Project closed

EC signature date 8 August 2023

Start date 2 October 2023

End date 1 October 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 210 911,04

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FemBod (Female Bodies in Sacred Spaces: Re-evaluating Women’s Agency in the Greek World.)

Reporting period: 2023-10-02 to 2025-10-01

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The roles of women in Archaic and Classical Greek religion have often been narrowly defined within the confines of fertility and reproduction—domains traditionally and unquestioningly associated with the feminine sphere. Scholarly attention has historically emphasised women as symbolic of life-giving forces, often sidelining their more complex religious functions and ritual authority. However, the contributions gathered in this volume challenge this reductive framing by presenting substantial new evidence that situates the mother goddess and broader expressions of femininity at the centre of ancient Greek religious experience more prominently than previously acknowledged.
This reassessment has been made possible through the adoption of innovative methodologies that bring together cognitive and gendered approaches. These frameworks have facilitated a more critical interrogation of both literary and material sources, revealing longstanding interpretative biases and highlighting significant omissions in previous archaeological analyses. By re-evaluating the evidence through these lenses, the volume demonstrates the multifaceted roles women played in ritual contexts—not merely as passive bearers of fertility, but as active agents in religious practice and belief. Such approaches not only enrich our understanding of ancient Greek religion but also call for a broader reconsideration of the ways in which gender has shaped both ancient realities and modern interpretations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The analysis started from concrete case studies analysed in WP1 and WP2.1. The investigation of single rituals seeked to re-evaluate the role of priestesses in the specific case study and offers insights into women’s agency in sacred spaces through specific examples. The rituals and religious phenomena examined included inspired divination (Case Study 1), the Eleusinian Mysteries (Case Study 2), Maenadism (Case Study 3), and the Heraia, the Brauronia, and the Adonia (Case Study 4). Collectively, these case studies provided compelling evidence for the centrality of female agency within the religious sphere and challenged persistent misconceptions within scholarly narratives surrounding female rituals. Case Study 1 demonstrated that female officials were the preferred intermediaries for inspired divination and argued that this preference was closely linked to culturally significant aspects of the female body. Furthermore, while traditional accounts continued to emphasise the male hierophant as the most important officiant at Eleusis, Case Study 2 offered evidence suggesting a more prominent role for female priestly personnel, particularly in the Archaic period. In addition, whereas prevailing interpretations of maenadism often framed the nocturnal mountain rites as a temporary release from societal norms—ultimately culminating in the women’s symbolic return to domestic roles—Case Study 3 contended that maenads occupied a legitimate and integral position within deme-religion. Finally, Case Study 4 analysed the Heraia, the Brauronia, and the Adonia, demonstrating that women participating in these rituals were not confined to the religious domain but could exert significant influence on broader societal structures.

The case studies presented in this section reveal a consistent set of associations linked to the female body, which endowed it with specific ritual affordances and made women particularly suited to certain religious functions. WP2.2 adopted a more transversal approach, delving deeper into the underlying reasons why specific ritual roles were ascribed to women and exploring the cultural logic that positioned them within particular spheres of religious activity. Confronted with clear evidence of women’s strong presence in ritual life, previous scholarship has often interpreted these instances as temporary inversions of normative gender roles or as subversive acts of resistance. By contrast, this study demonstrated that female officiants were not anomalies but integral to the regular functioning of deme-level religion. In particular, the WP2.2 uncovered a set of behavioural and cognitive associations attached to female nature that help explain why women were not only present and powerful in many institutionalised rituals, but essential in mediating contact with the divine. The results from WP2.2 are presented in Section 2 of the MSCA manuscript. Chapter 6 examines the concept of liminality in relation to women, arguing that although they were often feared as sources of pollution—particularly during childbirth and menstruation—their presence was welcomed in liminal sacred spaces, where their perceived permeability granted them greater religious efficacy. Chapter 7 focuses on specific female bodily features and their potential agency in sacred contexts, while Chapter 8 narrows the discussion to ancient Greek attitudes towards the uterus. Drawing on textual and iconographic sources, it demonstrates that female bodies were conceptualised as vessels, with sexual abstention viewed as a prerequisite for divine inhabitation.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

These findings not only challenge traditional narratives but also raise important questions that have long remained underexplored. Chief among them is why scholarship, until recently, failed to recognise the centrality of women in ancient religious life. This project has shown that new questions demand new tools: the integration of gender theory and cognitive approaches to religion has enabled a reassessment of both the evidence and the assumptions shaping its interpretation. Gender theory, in particular, has exposed the androcentric biases of past historiography, which systematically obscured women’s roles in public and sacred spheres. By focusing on lived experience, embodied practice, and ritual performance, a more nuanced and inclusive picture of ancient religious life emerges. Cognitive approaches further illuminate the mental, emotional, and mnemonic dimensions of ritual, explaining how practices involving female initiates, priestesses, and collective agency functioned as powerful sites of cultural transmission and identity formation. Reinterpreted as cognitively impactful and socially embedded acts, rituals reveal women not merely as participants but as mediators of sacred power. These methodological innovations allow scholars to read familiar data differently, reassess ritual gestures, iconography, and spatial arrangements, and interrogate the ideological functions of religious narratives. The outcome is not simply a correction of the record, but a transformation in our understanding of how ancient religion operated—and who was empowered by it.

In addition to preparing a monograph manuscript that re-evaluates the roles of women within Greek sacred spaces, the outcomes of this research have been, and will continue to be, disseminated and utilised through a variety of channels. Within the framework of the project, I contributed as a panellist to the debate “Ancient Identities, Modern Perspectives: A Discussion about Gender and Sexuality in Antiquity”, where I participated as an expert on the condition of women in ancient Greece. Selected findings were also presented in a Public Lecture, open to a general audience, at the Norwegian Institute at Athens. Moreover, in line with the project’s commitment to challenging the prevailing reliance on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) populations in cognitive science, I undertook a three-week research residency at the University of Tokyo. Working in collaboration with Professor Tadashi Yanai, I was able to submit my findings for critical engagement by scholars from diverse cultural and disciplinary perspectives. During this period, I also presented my research at the UTokyo Cultural Anthropology Colloquium, where I benefitted from constructive feedback from faculty members and postgraduate researchers.

picture-1.jpg