Women, Children and the Family in the Late Aegean Bronze Age: Differences in Minoan and

Mycenaean Constructions of Gender

Author(s): Barbara A. Olsen
Reviewed work(s):
Source: World Archaeology, Vol. 29, No. 3, Intimate Relations (Feb., 1998), pp. 380-392
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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Women, children and the family in
the Late
Aegean Bronze Age:
differences in Minoan and
Mycenaean constructions of gender

Barbara A. Olsen

Abstract

This paper discusseshow the relationshipbetween women and childrenis portrayedand under-
stood in the societies of the Mycenaean(Greek) mainlandand Late MinoanCrete. Childrearing
has been long assumedto be the primarysocialrole of Aegean women.Yet the art of Late Minoan
Crete reveals almost no interest in idealizingwomen as child-nurturers.The women of Minoan
iconographyare almostuniformlydepictedoutside of domesticcontexts.In contrast,Mycenaean
imageryprovidesa systematic,iconographicreinforcementof women'stask as child-rearersand
suggestsa muchgreaterlevel of investmenton the part of Mycenaeansociety to envisionwomen
withinthe contextof the home. Therefore,while the writtenrecordsof both societiesplace women
as child-caregivers in daily practice,their iconographysuggeststhat the two culturesvalued this
role differentlyand did not invest equallyin placingwomenprimarilywithinthe familystructure.

Keywords

Aegean BronzeAge; figurines;gender;kourotrophoi;Minoan;Mycenaean;children.

Introduction

Motherhood and the tending of children has long been assumed as the primary social role
of the women of the Late Bronze Age Aegean Minoan and Mycenaean societies. This
assumption, however, has been more based on ethnographic analogies or contemporary
ideologies than on examinations of relevant archaeological material. Evidence for
Minoan and Mycenaean child-care practices derives from two sources: the administrative
records written in the Linear B script and artistic depictions of women and children. The
Mycenaean texts attest that women of Mycenaean Crete and the Mycenaean mainland
were the primary tenders of children. Iconographic sources, however, reveal distinct
differences among Minoan and Mycenaean depictions of child-care scenes. Child-bearing,

World Archaeology Vol. 29(3): 380-392 Intimate Relations

?CRoutledge 1998 0043-8243
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 381

or kourotrophos, scenes are only a trope in Mycenaean iconography; Minoan art evinces
no interest in portraying women with children.

Background

The Late Bronze Age in the Aegean Basin (1600-1100 BC) witnessed the rise of two
interdependent civilizations, the Minoans on Crete and the Mycenaeans on the Greek
mainland. While the Mycenaean Greeks spoke the same language and worshipped many
of the same gods as their historical period descendants, the identity of the Minoans is
less apparent. Their language, written in the Linear A script, is untranslated, and their
relationship to known ethnic groups in the Mediterranean remains uncertain. The
Cretan civilization, designated Minoan after the legendary Cretan king Minos, held
primacy first. It culminated in the Second Palace period which lasted from Middle
Minoan III to Late Minoan IB (c. 1700-1450 BC; for abbreviations and chronology see
Table 1). This period witnessed the rebuilding of the Cretan palaces following earth-
quake damage, the emergence of Cretan syllabic writing in the Linear A script, a flour-
ishing of Minoan art in such diverse media as fresco, glyptic, figurines, and ceramics, a
highly-developed system of internal and external trade, and a dominant cultural role in
the Aegean which in turn heavily influenced the Mycenaean mainland in art, architec-
ture, and possibly in more direct political mechanisms. This cultural hegemony lasted
until the Late Minoan IB period (c. 1450 BC). L(ate) M(inoan) IB marks the destruction
by fire of nearly all the primary and secondary sites of the Minoan administration. This
destruction has generally been attributed to the Mycenaean Greeks from the mainland
and has been traditionally understood as a Mycenaean military conquest of Crete. (A
minority of scholars have proposed less directly military explanations for the Mycenaean
domination of Crete in the Third Palace Period (LM II-LM IIIB).) In any case, My-
cenaean presence and Mycenaean administration are securely attested on Crete in this
period. The most compelling evidence for the Mycenaean administration of Crete is that
the language and script of the palatial administrative records changes from the Minoan

Table I Late Bronze Age Aegean chronology, following Dickinson 1994; all dates approximate.
Date BC Mainland(LH = LateHelladic) Crete(LM = LateMinoan)
1600 ------------ LMIA,
1500 LH1,IIA 1B

1400 LH JIB, IJIA1 LM II, IJIA1

1300 LH 111A2, LM 111A2,

IIIB1, 111B2 LM IIIB
1200
1100 LH IIIC LM IIIC

1000 Submycenaean Subminoan

382 Barbara A. Olsen

Linear A script to the Mycenaean Linear B script, which records an early version of
Greek. The question of how deeply Mycenaean influence permeates Minoan culture
remains open (see Driessen 1994).

Women and children in the Aegean Bronze Age

The role of women and the nature of gender relations in the Late Bronze Age civilizations
of the Aegean Basin have long attracted both scholarly and popular interest. Ever since
the first modern excavations in the early 1900s at the Minoan administrative centre of
Knossos recovered depictions of powerful and prominent female figures in frescoes, fig-
urines, and glyptic, the gender relations of prehistoric Crete have enjoyed a great deal of
attention. To date, the majority of the focus both in academic circles and the popular press
has largely centred around attempts to posit a Mother Goddess-centred religion (Evans
1932; Gimbutas 1989) or to recover a matriarchal society among the Minoans (Thomas
1973). The Mycenaeans, usually dismissed as the bearers of Indo-European patriarchal
baggage, received much less scholarly attention. Scholarly opinion, however, is by no
means in consensus on these assertions. Recent scholarship has severely questioned read-
ings which allege a goddess-centred prehistory, noting severe methodological flaws in
these analyses as well as essentialist biases (Talalay 1994; Meskell 1995; Conkey and Tring-
ham 1995). At very least, the notion of a pre-Indo-European Great Goddess, especially
a Great Mother Goddess, has been strongly challenged.
In the last decade, scholarship on women in prehistory has become increasingly
sophisticated, beginning with Conkey and Spector's ground-breaking synthesis of femin-
ist and archaeological theory (Conkey and Spector 1984). Much recent work in the
Aegean has focused on the social status of women in the prehistoric societies, particularly
through the analysis of gendered space (Tringham 1994). To date, discussions of the social
positioning of women in Aegean pre- and proto-history have tended toward polarization:
products of two vastly different theoretical and methodological approaches. In analyses
that privilege evidence from Aegean art, where female figures often occupy prominent
spatial positions, women are assigned power and status. They are commonly identified
either as representations of the so-called Minoan Mother Goddess, or, in human contexts,
as high-ranking public officials or priestesses, whose social status is suggested by their jew-
ellery, costume or administrative regalia. In contrast, assessments privileging either ethno-
graphic analogies inspired by modern Mediterranean societies or essentialist models
inspired by hunter-gatherer ethnographies tend to conceptualize women as remaining
close to home, occupied primarily with domestic affairs and the raising of children,
whether in human contexts (N. Marinatos 1995; Dickinson 1994), or in the divine realm
(Evans 1935). Only recently have feminist scholars begun challenging the androcentric
biases of such interpretations, calling instead for a greater awareness of gender as a
culture-specific phenomenon, and for the study of gendered social roles as products of
specific societies. This paper examines more closely one of the primary social roles
scholars have attributed to Bronze Age women, the conflation of woman and the social
role of child-rearer or kourotrophos.
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 383

Womenand childrenin the LinearB tablets

For the Late Aegean BronzeAge, evidencerelevantto women'srole in the raisingof chil-
dren stems from two sources:from the administrativerecordswritten in the Linear B
scriptfromboth Crete and mainlandGreece, and from the evidence of Late Bronze Age
iconography.The LinearB records,writtenon clay tablets and intended for temporary
use, were serendipitouslypreservedwhen the buildingsin which they were stored were
burned,effectivelyfiringthe tablets.The two best textuallyattestedcentres, Pyloson the
mainlandand Knossoson Crete, have between them producednearly5,000 tablets.The
tablets record mattersrelevant to each palace's economy such as counts of personnel,
recordsof rationsallottedto workers,quantitiesof materialsand goods being receivedor
distributedby the administrativecentre, dedicationsto divinities,and records of land
grants,among others. The tablets depict a highly gendered society with clear task dif-
ferentiationbetweenthe sexes, both in domesticandin palatialcontexts.Men andwomen
occupydifferentspheresand performtasksas membersof single-sexworkgroups.Of the
twenty-twooccupationsheld by women at Knossos, only two of these occupationsare
sharedwithmen:those of religiousfunctionariesandslave.The situationis muchthe same
at Pyloswhere,of thirty-fiveoccupationsperformedby women, only four are sharedwith
men: again, religious functionaryand slave with two additionalcategories of leather-
workingand weaving.The texts, however,are clear that, even for these last two shared
professions,men andwomenstill do not workwithinthe sameworkgroupsand theirwork
environmentsremainsegregatedby sex.
The texts also providea fair amountof materialon the complexitiesof domesticsocial
organizationat both Knossosand Pylos.By no meansall familiesgovernedby these poli-
ties are recorded.The only familyunitsdiscerniblein the tabletsare ones that the palaces
have some interest in regulating.This may imply that we may read palatial ideology
reflectedin the organizationalstructuresof these families,for examplein termsof heads
of householdchoicesor, usefulto this study,child-carechoices.At both centres,childcare
is a task performedby women. Approximately200 tabletsfrom these two centresrecord
childrenin the so-calledpersonnelseriestablets;approximately90 tabletsat Knossoswith
an additional110 at Pylos. Childrenappearprimarilyin three contexts:as componentsof
familyunits,as recipientsof rations,andaccompanyingworkgroupsof specializedlabour-
ers. About a dozen or so tabletsrecordwhat appearto be households,listingnumbersof
men, women, girls,and boys, respectively;the remainderrecordchildrenaccompanying
workgroupsof women. At Pylos,in the personnelseries that recordthe workingstrength
of women'sworkgroups,the census and rationstablets consistentlycount boys and girls
with their mothers.At Knossos the process is furtherelaboratedsince the childrenare
differentiatednot only by sex, but also by age with two separateage gradesfor 'older'and
'younger'children.We see, accompanyingthe women of workinggroups,childrendiffer-
entiatedby sex andby age grades:youngergirls,older girls,youngerboys, and older boys.
It is interestingto note that the persons designatedolder boys continue to be grouped
with their mothersratherthan their fathers.There is unfortunatelyno way of knowing
justwhatis meantby 'older'and 'younger'.But it is clearthat once they pass the line from
'older boys' to men, they returnto a rigidlygendered society. In the few tablets where
boys are recordedas accompanyingmen, the texts are explicit that these sons are older
384 Barbara A. Olsen

boys and accompany their fathers for the purpose of instruction in their trade: these are
not young children requiring care. Men are never listed with children unless those chil-
dren are older boys specifically undergoing training in a trade, in contrast to women who
tend children of both sexes until the age when boys leave for professional training. In
short, child care in both the Mycenaean mainland and Mycenaean Crete is clearly a role
assigned to women and receives fairly equal treatment in the tablets of each centre. It is
the manner in which Minoan and Mycenaean societies display women with children and
infants in their iconographic repertoires which is extremely different.

Mycenaean kourotrophoi

While kourotrophoi scenes, or images of women holding children, are well attested in
Neolithic Greece as well as in the Greek historical period (Price 1978), this theme receives
rather differential attention in the Bronze Age Aegean. While Cyprus, for example, has
a continuous tradition of kourotrophoi scenes in all phases of the Bronze Age (Merrilees
1988), on the Greek mainland kourotrophos images appear only in the Late Bronze Age
(termed Late Helladic in this region) and then only within specific genres. Images of
women and children are absent from Mycenaean frescoes, glyptic, pictorial painted
pottery, and metalwork; Mycenaean depictions of nurturing scenes are limited to figurines
where female figures are depicted cradling infants. The corpus of kourotrophoi consists
of approximately seventy terracottas, a small but significant subset of Mycenaean terra-
cotta figurines, and one ivory group. They derive from at least eighteen sites: seventeen
on the Mycenaean mainland (Fig. 1) and one on Cyprus. Two sites have produced large
clusters of figurines: a votive deposit at Aphaia on Aegina produced twenty-seven groups,
and at least twenty were excavated at the site of Mycenae. These figurines are not without
methodological difficulties. French (1971), in her valuable and exhaustive study of the
development of the Mycenaean terracotta figurines, points out that these figurines often
survive in highly fragmentary condition, were often not recorded by earlier excavators
unless they were found in tombs, and most have not been thoroughly published.
I will use French's (1971) typology to outline the chronological development of these
figurines. Mycenaean terracotta figurines begin to appear during the Late Helladic II
period and are found in large numbers during all phases of Late Helladic III. As Mylonas
(1956) observed, the figurines appear suddenly and their types are fully developed.
Although the figurines employ a variety of compositional forms, there are three major
types, designated the Phi, Tau, Psi figurine types after the letters of the Greek alphabet
they resemble. They tend to be rather small, typically between 10 and 20 cm in height.
They depict single female forms, often with articulated breasts; they are also typically cur-
sorily painted, with curvo-linear lines on the body to suggest decorated clothing. The fig-
urines' legs are covered by their garments. All have articulated arms. Phi figurines have
their hands resting on the hips with the elbows bending outwards resembling the Greek
letter (. (The Phi type is preceded by the Proto-Phi type, introduced in LH II, which is
very similar to the standard type but has not quite reached the canonical proportions.)
Tau figurines hold their elbows straight out, parallel to the ground reminiscent of the letter
T. And Psi figurines hold both arms extended over the head at diagonal angles resembling
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 385

) y
4) ~~~~~~~~~~BOEOTIA

6~~~~~ PHLOCINSE ( G L ,l

Palaiopolis

Figure1 Mainland sites where kourotrophosfigurines were excavated.

386 Barbara A. Olsen

the letter T. In terms of chronological development, the earliest type to appear is the Phi,
followed by the Tau and Psi types, respectively. Both of the earlier forms continue to
persist with the introduction of the later variants.
A subset of Mycenaean terracotta figurines adds a child to the woman; these figurines
are termed kourotrophoi figurines from the Greek for 'child-nurturer'. Kourotrophoi vari-
ants of each of the three standard types are to be found. The majority of these figurines
follow a canonical form: a single female figurine of the Phi, Tau or Psi types nestles a single
child against its mother's left breast, either clasped in the left arm (in the Phi and Tau fig-
urines) or unclasped as in the Psi figurines. The child faces forward and may be rather
stylized or may be rendered with greater detail.
The earliest known Mycenaean kourotrophos dates to LH II and was discovered in the
Aidonia cemetery excavations at Nemea in the Argolid (Demakopoulou 1996). Found in
a chamber tomb which contained the secondary burial of a child, it is a highly naturalis-
tic figurine of Proto-Phi type with a long, ellipsoidal torso and a short thick stem. The
infant nurses at one breast and rests its hand on the other. Even in this figurine, the ear-
liest, all the canonical features are present - the child is clasped in front over the left breast
of a standing woman of the popular figurine type.
In the following LHIIIA period, Mycenaean figurines become dramatically more
numerous on the mainland. Kourotrophoi occur at many sites and are found in a variety
of excavation contexts, including graves, settlements, and votive deposits. Kourotrophoi
groups of LH IIIA include several typological forms, but the majority follow the develop-
ment of single figure Proto-Phi and Phi types as identified by French (1971). Three Proto-
Phi kourotrophoi figurines dating to LHIIIA1 have been found: one from the Mycenaean
cemetery of Deiras near Argos (Deshayes 1966) and a second group from the Atreus
Bothros at Mycenae. Another Proto-Phi group of uncertain provenance is on display in
Geneva (Price 1978). LHIIIA2 contexts have produced six kourotrophos groups, all of
the Phi type. Of these one was found at Berbati in a tomb containing six adults and a child
(Saflund 1965), three were found at Mycenae - two from the Petsas house excavations
and a third from a chamber tomb - and one came from Palaiopolis on Kythera (Water-
house and Hope Simpson 1961; Coldstream and Huxley 1972). The Kythera group war-
rants further comment as it displays a number of unusual features: the female figure has
pierced breasts and holds a remarkably large child who sits upright and wears a polos-cap.
It has been suggested that this figure may be a local imitation of a better made example
from the mainland. (It has been suggested that Kythera began as a Minoan colony or fell
under heavy Minoan influence but, by the LHIII period, the material culture of Kythera
reflects Mycenaean and not Minoan traits.)
Contemporaneous with the above is a Phi group from chamber tomb 41 at Mycenae
(Tsountas 1888; French 1971) of a more unusual composition. Instead of the more typical
one-woman, one-child convention, this figure carries two children and a parasol-like
object. One child is nestled against her left breast in the usual formula but, on her back,
below the parasol projecting from the left shoulder, is a second child partially hidden
beneath the parasol. Two other triplet groups have been excavated, one from the votive
deposit at Aegina, and the other from chamber tomb 80 at Mycenae.
The most frequently cited Mycenaean scene portraying the interaction of women and
children - the Ivory Trio from the citadel of the site of Mycenae (Wace 1949; S. Marinatos
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 387

1973; etc.) - also dates to LH IIIA. This group differs from the rest of the Mycenaean
kourotrophoi in that it is the one depiction of child-rearing rendered in a luxury material
- imported ivory rather than native clay. This group depicts two female seated figures
accompanied by a male child. It has often been read as having religious overtones, with
the participants identified as goddesses with a young god (Wace 1949) or divine nurses
caring for a human child after death (Mylonas 1956).
Additionally, three kourotrophoi figurines are attested from the transition from LH
IIIA to IIIB: one from tomb 35 at Prosymna, which was a cist with no extant bones, a
second from tomb 1 at Dendra which contained five skeletons, and the third from the
Petsas house excavations at Mycenae.
LHI IIB introduces two new types of kourotrophos figurines to the corpus. Here, the
original Phi type is supplemented by child-carrying Tau and Psi figurines. Canonical Psi
kourotrophos groups are attested at Aegina, Mycenae, and by another group of uncertain
origin, now on display at the Alte Museum in Berlin. None of the Tau kourotrophoi are
well preserved; French (1971) publishes one highly fragmentary group from Mycenae and
mentions the existence of an additional six unpublished groups.
Two terracotta triple groups depicting two women with a single child also appear in LH
IIIB. From chamber tomb 79 at Mycenae was excavated a group of two female Phi fig-
urines, attached at the body, carrying a child between them on their shoulders (S. Mari-
natos 1933; Mylonas 1956). A similar figure was found at chamber tomb 6 at Voula by
Papademetriou and Theochares. The interpretation of these groups has given rise to much
speculation. French (1971) argues that they should be read as related to the triple ivory
group from Mycenae, in which the child wears similar clothing and jewellery.
A final compositional type, differing from the canonical type, is the seated kouro-
trophos type, attested by two figurines, one from the Louvre, reportedly from Mycenae
(Mollard-Besques 1954), and the other from grave A at Voula. In both groups, the child
rests on the lap of a seated Phi figurine, otherwise of canonical proportions.
Furthermore, we have several kourotrophoi for which no date more specific than LH
III can be assigned. These figurines remain undatable for several reasons: because of their
extremely fragmentary condition, because they derive from excavations very early in this
century, or because their excavation contexts are no longer known. Among the latter cat-
egory is the group in Brussels which is the only published wheel-made kourotrophos
(Price 1978). While this figurine is unique in its production technique, it otherwise closely
follows traditional compositional conventions; the figure's small plastic arms curve over
her chest, and the child is held in the left arm as usual. Other undatable groups include
the Phi figurines from Priphtiani, Eleusis, Zygouries, Aegina, and Mycenae, as well as the
group from Cyprus, the sole Mycenaean kourotrophos figurine found outside of mainland
Greece. French (1971) reports additional kourotrophoi from the sites of Eutresis and
Thebes in Boeotia, but there is some doubt as to whether the Eutresis figurine is actually
carrying a child rather than a snake (Goldman 1931) and I have been unable to verify the
existence of the latter group.
Finally, Rutter reports a possible kourotrophos of Late Psi type from Korakou dating to
the LH IIIC period, following the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial system (Rutter 1974).
A variety of explanations for the function of these groups has been proposed. Most of
these explanations focus only on one type of findspot, namely tombs, to the exclusion of
388 Barbara A. Olsen

the others. Explanations based on groups found in tombs tend to identify the female figure
as a goddess (Mylonas 1956; S. Marinatos 1933) or, similarly, as a divine nurse who pro-
tects the child after its death (Demakopoulou 1996). Mylonas (1956), following S. Mari-
natos (1933), argues that Psi figurines especially were divinities to be placed in graves,
presumably graves of children. It should be emphasized, however, that many of the graves
where kourotrophoi figurines were found show no evidence of containing child burials.
Others propose that these figurines were deposited in graves to ensure health and fertil-
ity (Van Leuven 1994). Finally, figurines from intra-settlement findspots have been sug-
gested to be children's playthings (Blegen 1937). It is again necessary to note that the
largest cache of kourotrophoi figurines, namely the twenty-seven kourotrophos figurines
from Aegina, was not found in either necropolis or a settlement, but came from a votive
deposit. The most judicious reading might then be that the meaning of these figures varies
according to context. They may be votives, grave offerings, and/or household objects.
What is significant here is that all three of these contexts are loci where the placement of
women with infants is emphasized.

Minoan and Mycenaean Crete

In contrast to the numerous kourotrophoi from the Mycenaean mainland, images placing
women with young children are virtually absent from Minoan art before the LMIB
destructions which herald the Mycenaean presence on Crete. Excavations have recovered
no Cretan Middle Minoan or LMI kourotrophos scenes in any medium; not in terracotta,
metalwork, frescoes, stone work, glyptic, or faience. The closest associated image is the
Minoan-inspired fresco from the West House at Akrotiri on the island of Thera where an
older child stands near to a woman (LMIA) (Immerwahr 1983), but this depiction is not
an image from a Cretan context. Minoan art from Cretan contexts does show an interest
in the depiction of children. For example, there are two LMI ivory children from the town
of Palaikastro and an LMI bronze infant from the cave of Psychro. Furthermore, Minoan
art depicts in high numbers figurines of individual women, especially as votives at Minoan
peak sanctuaries. We also see a few group compositions involving women. Yet nowhere
in all of Minoan art do these elements combine to produce scenes where women nurture
children.
Nurturing scenes do occur in Minoan (pre-LMIB) iconography, but they are never
anthropomorphic. Animal mothers and young are depicted in ivory, glyptic, and on the
two Middle Minoan III faience plaques from the Temple Repositories at Knossos which
depict a cow and her calf and a goat with her young. The nearest nurturing image in an
anthropomorphic setting is substantially earlier - the Early Bronze Age Goddess of
Myrtos (EM II), a terracotta figurine who reserves the space in her arms not for children
but for a miniature terracotta juglet resembling those found in excavations at Myrtos
(Plate 1).
Kourotrophos imagery in Mycenaean Crete is equally sparse. Following the LM IB
destructions, kourotrophoi remain extremely rare. The sole representation depicts an
anthropomorphic mother and child - the so-called goddess from the Mavrospelio ceme-
tery near Knossos (Forsdyke 1926-7). This figurine, of the LM III cylindrical-skirted
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean BronzeAge 389

Plate1 'The Goddess of

Myrtos.' (Reprinted by
permission of Editions
Hannibal.)

goddess type, is rendered in terracotta and holds a small male child. This child is not
cradled against her left breast as per the Phi, Tau, and Psi figurines of the Mycenaean
mainland but rather is held face-forward, at arms' length as if in presentation. While the
cylindrical-skirted goddess is a frequent Late Minoan type, attested at numerous Cretan
sites, the Mavrospelio example is unique among the cylindrical-skirted 'goddesses', on two
grounds. First, she alone holds something in her arms (all other cylindrical-skirted 'god-
desses' raise their arms above their heads) and, second, she was placed in a burial whereas
the others of this type most commonly come from shrine areas within settlements. I
contend that she is problematic as a source for Minoan conceptualizations of child care
for the following reasons. Her late date of LM IIIA, roughly contemporaneous with the
Knossos Linear B tablets, places her well into the Mycenaean period. Her pose is repeated
nowhere else in Minoan iconography. And her findspot in a burial is highly atypical since
Cretan figurines are more commonly found in peak sanctuaries, sacred enclosures, or
domestic shrines. Very infrequently are they found in graves. Additionally, several of the
cemeteries near Knossos in this period, Mavrospelio included, have unusual features that
have prompted suggestions that they were used by an intrusive Mycenaean population.
Since burial of figurines is a more common Mycenaean practice, and given her marked
390 Barbara A. Olsen

differences from other Cretan figurines, it is plausible that this figurine may have been
produced by a Minoan artist commissioned by a Mycenaean mourner. Regardless,
nothing about her appearance or function implies her use by a 'Hellenized' Minoan rather
than by a mainlander on Crete. It is also interesting to note that, while Mycenaean Phi
and Psi figurines have been found on Crete, none has been a kourotrophos. Finally, it is
not until the eighth century BC that child-rearing scenes are to be found as a regular motif
on Crete when they begin to appear at the cave of Cave of Eileithyia, the goddess of child-
birth.

Conclusion

Merrilees (1988) in discussing Cypriot terracotta kourotrophoi refers to mother and child
scenes as variations on an eternal theme. While this 'eternal theme' is certainly resonant
with Mycenaean cultural ideology, it is at best a flimsy one for the Minoans. In contrast
to previous scholars who have asserted the centrality of mother-child imagery in Minoan
religion and society (Evans 1935), I argue that nothing in Minoan iconographic depictions
of divine or human life promotes or even associates women with children. Furthermore,
I argue that this represents, if not a fundamental difference in gender construction
between Minoan and Mycenaean societies, at very least a fundamentally different
approach to a gendered social role.
This study has several implications. First, Crete and the mainland cannot be read as
sharing identical gender ideologies, either in the Minoan or Mycenaean period. Aegean
societies share no standardized investment in depicting motherhood as women's primary
social role. Motherhood occupies a much more central role in Mycenaean cultural ideol-
ogy than it does in Minoan. This might be surprising in light of the allegations of a matri-
archal or goddess-centered Minoan culture and the patriarchal nature of Mycenaean
culture. I suggest, however, that the iconographic record be read as reinforcing cultural-
specific conceptualizations of where women's time and energies should be invested. It may
not be motherhood per se that is being celebrated in Mycenaean society but rather the
locating of women in domestic contexts which is being iconographically reinforced.
In contrast, Minoan society does not invest in idealizing women as mothers. It seems
instead to place them in capacities other than those associated with the care of infants.
We see in Minoan iconography images of women in more public contexts: occupying
prominent spatial positions in outdoor assemblies and processions, interacting with each
other either in conversation or in dance, and acting in religious contexts either as indi-
vidual worshippers or as officials involved in sacrificial rituals. Above all, emphasis is on
the social rather than the biological, the public rather than the domestic.
The second implication of this study is that this difference between Minoan and My-
cenaean iconographic interests persists into the Mycenaean period on Crete. While the
tablets reveal that both Mycenaean women and the women of Mycenaean Crete share the
same social role of child-care provider, their societies are not uniform in their represen-
tations of this role. The art of Mycenaean Crete continues to follow the Minoan traditions
regarding child-rearing scenes rather than adopting the contemporary Mycenaean inter-
est in them, implying the survival of at least some aspects of Minoan child-care ideology.
 Women, children and the family in the late Aegean Bronze Age 391

The final point pertains to Minoan religion. It must be noted that, if one wishes to place
a 'Minoan Mother Goddess' at the centre of the Minoan pantheon, one must take into
account the complete iconographic silence on anthropomorphic motherhood in Minoan
Crete and the near-complete silence even in the period of Mycenaean domination of
Crete. There is simply no evidence for the celebration of motherhood, divine or human,
among the Minoans.

Duke University, USA

and American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece

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