Silvia Schroer (ed.)

      This miscellaneous volume collects contributions about the topic of the interpretation of Near Eastern visual art, mostly for what concerns the study of the gender. It is subdivided into four sections, briefly summarized below.
      Section 1 (“Setting the Field”) presents contributions about status and gender in Sumerian and Akkadian art (J.M. Asher–Greve), women in Theban tombs of the New Kingdom (S. Bickel), gender and iconography within a biblical perspective (S. Schroer).
      Section 2 (“Gender, Nakedness, Nudity”) offers papers about nakedness and nudity in Egyptian and Mesopotamian art (J.M. Asher–Greve and D. Sweeney), analysing nudity in Old Babylonian art (J. Assante), nudity in Greece (A. Stähli), female nudity in classical Athens (U. Kreilinger), hysteria and metaphors of uterus in classical antiquity (V. Dasen and S. Ducaté–Paarmann).
      Section 3 (“Status and Power: Royal Women”) includes topics such as representation of queens in Ur III period (F. Weiershäuser), images of queens of Kush (A. Lohwasser), depictions of Roman empresses (T.S. Scheer).
      Section 4 (“Status and Power: Mothers and Priestesses”) presents themes related to mothers and caregivers on Neo–Assyrian reliefs (I. Schwyn), mothers and sons in Athens and Pergamon (R. Linder), Greek grave stelas of priestesses (A.B. Sánchez).
Urkesh is directly mentioned in the following occurrences:
      – on p. 57, where it is said that texts from Tello, Ur, Ebla and Urkesh testify a special status for (wet)nurses;
      – on p. 65–65, the author recalls the importance of Zamena at the court of Urkesh, presenting some of her sealings (quoting Buccellati and Kelly–Buccellati 1995–1996, for their images, and Buccellati and Kelly–Buccellati 2002, pp. 11–13, for their dating [this two works are also quoted on p. 62, about sealings of women]).

[M. De Pietri – November 2019]