Author: Christiane Sourvinou - Inwood

Publication Date: 1985

Pages: 160 + 8 tables

Book description:

The central focus of this book is a systematic en­quiry into the age of the arktoi, the young girls who served Artemis as “bears” at her sanctuaries at Brauron and Mounichia -an enquiry which is part of a larger and long-term investigation into the institution of the arkteia and related ritual institutions and myths. The investigation into the age of the bears radiates outwards to consider some fundamental questions pertaining to the reading of ancient Greek images -as well as to ancient perceptions of girlhood and wo­manhood. It is conducted within the wider framework of a thorough and radical reexamination of the whole question of how the age of children, girls and young women is represented in classical Greek iconography.

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Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood was born in Greece in 1945 and studied at the Universities of Athens (B.A. 1966) and Oxford (D. Phil. 1974). She has held Re­search Fellowships at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, Col­lege Lectureships at St. Hugh’s and other Colleges and a University Lectureship in Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool. In addition to the book Theseus as son and stepson. A tentative illustration of the Greek mythological mentality (London 1979) she has published many articles on several aspects of the Greek world, especially religion, mythology and ico­nography.

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The cover shows a fragment of a red-figure krateriskos in a private collection. Photo courtesy of Profes­sor Herbert A. Cahn to whom the author is indebted.