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.
