What Was Life Like For Ancient Greek Women? A New Exhibition Sheds Some Light

The Venus de Milo, a celebrated ancient statue found on the Greek island of Milos and displayed at the Louvre since 1821, is one of the most famous artworks in the world. Yet relatively little is known about the many centuries of artistic output on Milos and its surrounding islands, known as the Cyclades. In bringing to light this veritable treasure trove of antiquities and artifacts, the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens is also spearheading new research into the rich historical insights these objects have to offer.

This is certainly the case of a new exhibition “Kyladitisses: Untold Stories of Women in the Cyclades,” currently on view until May 4, which uses art as a lens through which to learn more about the lives of the women who, over many generations, inhabited the sunny Cyclades, an archipelago of hundreds of islands including Mykonos, Thera (Santorini), and Ios. Some 180 statues and figurines dating from prehistory to the middle ages represent women in many guises, from goddesses, religious icons, mothers, entrepreneurs, and sex workers, all bonded by their resilience within a deeply patriarchal society.

“We were disappointed,” one of the show’s curators Panagiotis Iossif said of researching for the exhibition. “Women’s positions never improved dramatically, they were never unmarginalized. Ideas like feminism and equality are very modern.” However, despite laws and social norms that severely limited women’s autonomy, “Kyladitisses” shows that they still found ways to be influential in ancient Greek society.

The idea that women were inferior to men was a widely held belief in ancient Greek society, and one that would go on to influence Western culture for many centuries thanks in large part to the musings of Aristotle, who wrote in , “the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.” Women were excluded from public life in ancient Greece, including all formal political positions. However, there is evidence that through their close familial ties to men in power, elite women were able to exert some influence behind the scenes.

Despite these restrictions, women were permitted to participate in religious ceremonies and festivals. This was particularly true for those designated as priestesses within cults of female deities, like Athena, Demeter, or Artemis. These women organized and oversaw important public events, a huge civic responsibility.

Particularly popular in the Cyclades was the Thesmorphoria, a three-day festival celebrated by the cult of Demeter and her daughter Persephone. It was an opportunity to leave the domestic sphere, with women coming together to fill communal spaces in this celebration of fertility and renewal. At festivals dedicated to Artemis, young girls underwent rituals intended to commemorate their transition to womanhood. For example, those participating in the arkteia rite would dance around the altar and sometimes imitate bears to appease Artemis, who was thought to oversee a young woman’s journey through puberty to first childbirth.

Outside of these ceremonies, women were principally charged with managing the home, which might include supervising household slaves and budgeting to ensure the house is well stocked. In ancient Greek, women were severely restricted from participating in the economy by law, but there is some evidence of exceptions when it comes to working-class women. While textile production was a common pastime for all women, as evidenced by depictions on vases and spindle-whorls and loom weights unearthed by archaeologists, working-class women would sometimes support their families by selling their wares. There are surviving accounts from the Cyclades that record women selling perfumes and textiles, most often in the late Hellenistic and Roman period.

So how did life change for women living in the Cyclades over the centuries? The exhibition contains Neolithic Cycladic figurines, of which the vast majority depict the female rather than male body, often in an abstracted or stylized manner. They are generally understood as reinforcing the association between women and fertility, survival, and the cyclic nature of life. It is not known whether they are by men or women, but either or both may be possible since society at this time was less organized and stratified.

By the Bronze Age, Cycladic marble figurines were often found buried in tombs, perhaps intended to provide protection in the afterlife. A rare glimpse into the role of women during this time is provided by the frescoes of Akrotiri, which were preserved under volcanic ash. We can make out several female figures apparently participating in a rite-of-passage ceremony in a particularly notable fresco know as “Adorants,” which is included in the show. This reflects the important role that women would continue to play in ancient Greek religious festivals.

“To the degree that our sources allow us to catch glimpses of the life of women in the Cyclades, we observe a progressive visibility of women from the Hellenistic period onwards,” said Greek and Roman antiquities expert Sophia Zoumbaki in an essay for the exhibition’s catalogue. “Gender barriers were present throughout antiquity, but the women took advantage of every opportunity they were given in order to participate in the events of the community—mainly in the religious sphere–but also to make ends meet in financial affairs, to manage property, to cope with the unstinting daily work at home, and on the estates.”

At the exhibition’s opening last month, Greece’s culture minister Lina Mendoni praised how it “brings together two very timely issues – one is women’s position internationally and through time and civilizations, the second is an island identity. Island identity is the one that defines – and defined from prehistoric times to our time – the progress and historical development of these specific islands.”

The exhibition is the first initiative to emerge from a landmark deal signed last year by the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Cyclades, a regional office of the Greek ministry of culture, with the aim of promoting Cycladic art at home and internationally.

Sandra Mariopoulou, museum’s president and CEO, noted to local press that it is “the first pan-Cycladic show that has ever been set up: a historic exhibition, as it is the first time it collects so many outstanding works of the Cycladic Islands in one place.”

Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com