History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Priestesshoods As Expressions Of Civic Identity, Isabella Kershner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the role of priestesshoods in shaping the civic identity of women in Classical Athens. It challenges the traditional narrative that confines Athenian women to the domestic sphere by highlighting their public and influential roles in religious practices. Through a meticulous analysis of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence, the study traces the journey of Athenian females from childhood rituals to the esteemed positions of the High Priestess of Athena Nike and Athena Polias, revealing how these religious roles served as both a spiritual passage and a civic curriculum.

The thesis argues that these priestesshoods …

Pompeiian Mill-Bakeries: Spatial Organization And Social Interaction, Madeleine Rubin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines bread production and the daily lives of those who worked in mill-bakeries during the first century CE. Bread was the staple food across the ancient Mediterranean; however, there is little textual evidence about those who produced the bread that fed the Roman Empire. The most significant body of evidence relating to the lives of mill-bakers is the archaeological remains of mill-bakeries from the city of Pompeii, preserved by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. This thesis analyzes the spatial organization of bread production within these mill-bakeries and applies the methodologies of spatial syntax – a …

The Cult Of The Nymphs: Identity, Ritual, And Womanhood In Ancient Greece, Ivana Genov

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Examining archeological and epigraphic evidence in its historical context, in this thesis I explore the Cult of the Nymphs venerated across ancient Greek poleis. I analyze the nymph’s profound cultural and historical impact that is often overlooked in the study of ancient Greece. Nymphs were female deities thought to embody ecological sites, such as fountains and springs, and became fundamental to polis identity. Their locations were often central to city plans, and their faces, depicted on coinage, became representative of the city itself. In the community, nymphs were integral to rituals for major life events, most often in the lives …

Comparison Of Female Role In Ritual Cults To Ancient Greek Society, Georgia Thoms

Undergraduate Research Awards

"Ancient Greece from 2000 to 146 BCE maintained a gendered hierarchy, more specifically a patriarchy in which women were closer to the status of a slave than a citizen. In order to dive deeper into the philosophy behind the formation and importance of the patriarchy in the lives of women, three sites will be examined: the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron, the Sanctuary of Demeter at Corinth, and the complicated site of Andania. Each sanctuary houses an important cult that emphasizes the female role, whether that be through leadership or the complete exclusion of men. Each sanctuary provides architectural evidence …

Abraham Hondius's Dog Market: Early Modern Animal Imagery In Transition, Sarah Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Though today animal painting is frequently associated with English painters like George Stubbs and Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, its foundations lie in the earlier work of Dutch and Flemish painters. The work of these earlier artists marks an important (if little recognized) transitional phase in popular attitudes and understandings of animals. By the 1670s, the Rotterdam-born painter Abraham Hondius had immigrated to London, leaving the Dutch Republic and its declining art market for England where the market for paintings was rapidly expanding in the late seventeenth century. Abraham Hondius’s 1677 painting The Dog Market, which entered a museum collection …