Children in Antiquity: Perspectives and Experiences of Childhood in the Ancient Mediterranean

657 Pages·2020·120.704 MB·English

by  Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon, Nicola Harrington

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“I applaud the editors of this volume! They have successfully put a spotlight on the importance
of studying the roles children played in the ancient world. Through this new lens, they show that
innovative observations can be made concerning ancient religion, funerary practices, the family,
women and gender, and the value systems of ancient societies. In addition to covering a range
of Mediterranean time periods and cultures, the editors provide us with essays that investigate a
single time period from different angles; the reader will thereby be able to acquire the most hol-
istic understanding of the subject possible. Perhaps most precious of all, these essays show that
studying children can offer rather moving glimpses of the lived emotions of ancient individuals.”
—Susan Lupack, Macquarie University, Australia
“Childhood in Antiquity is the most broadly based study of ancient Mediterranean children to
date, employing the most diverse set of sources to understand them. It is the most chronologic-
ally and geographically diverse set of essays about children from the ancient Mediterranean, and
is a very useful and broad contribution to the study of ancient children.”
—John H. Oakley, The College of William and Mary, USA
“This informative volume, immersive in range and depth, represents a stellar effort to synthesize
and advance our knowledge of ancient childhood in the eastern Mediterranean. Its emphasis
on variability in the experience, conceptualization and representation of childhood, its cross-
cultural perspectives, and its attention to both certainties and gaps in our understanding are
salutary. Lucid and engaging, all essays offer glimpses into distinct but interrelated sets of issues
and will stimulate scholarly interest and further research.”
—Ada Cohen, Dartmouth College, USA
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CHILDREN IN ANTIQUITY
This collection employs a multi-d isciplinary approach treating ancient childhood in a holistic
manner according to diachronic, regional and thematic perspectives. This multi-d isciplinary
approach encompasses classical studies, Egyptology, ancient history and the broad spectrum of
archaeology, including iconography and bioarchaeology.
With a chronological range of the Bronze Age to Byzantium and regional coverage of Egypt,
Greece and Italy, this is the largest survey of childhood yet undertaken for the ancient world.
Within this chronological and regional framework both the social construction of childhood
and the child’s life experience are explored through the key topics of the definition of childhood,
daily life, religion and ritual, death, and the information provided by bioarchaeology. No other
volume to date provides such a comprehensive, systematic and cross-c ultural study of childhood
in the ancient Mediterranean world. In particular, its focus on the identification of society-
specific definitions of childhood and the incorporation of the bioarchaeological perspective
makes this work a unique and innovative study.
Children in Antiquity provides an invaluable and unrivalled resource for anyone working on all
aspects of the lives and deaths of children in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Lesley A. Beaumont is Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of
Sydney. Her many publications on children in classical antiquity include Childhood in Ancient
Athens: Iconography and Social History (Routledge 2012). She co-o rganised the 2015 international
conference on “Children in Antiquity” at the University of Sydney and co- curated the accom-
panying Nicholson Museum exhibition.
Matthew Dillon is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of New England,
Armidale, Australia. He has written extensively on Greek religion and society.
Nicola Harrington is an Egyptologist and Honorary Research Associate of the University of
Sydney. She received her DPhil from the University of Oxford, and her doctoral thesis formed
the basis of the monograph Living with the Dead: Ancestor Worship and Mortuary Cult in Ancient
Egypt (2012). Her research interests include religion, childhood and mental illness in antiquity.
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Rewriting Antiquity

Rewriting Antiquity provides a platform to examine major themes of the ancient world in a
broad, holistic and inclusive fashion. Coverage is broad both in time and space, allowing a full
appreciation of the selected topic rather than an exclusive view bound by a relatively short
timescale and place. Each volume examines a key theme from the Ancient Near East to Late
Antiquity, and often beyond, to break down the boundaries habitually created by focusing on
one region or time period.
Volumes within the series highlight the latest research, current developments and innova-
tive approaches, situating this with existing scholarship. Individual case studies and analysis held
within sections build to form a comprehensive and comparative overview of the subject enab-
ling readers to view matters in the round and establish interconnections and resonance across a
wide spectrum. In this way the volumes allow new directions of study to be defined and provide
differing perspectives to stimulate fresh approaches to the theme examined.
Titles in the series:
Sex in Antiquity
Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World
Edited by Mark Masterson, Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, James Robson
Women in Antiquity
Real Women Across the Ancient World
Edited by Stephanie Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh Turfa
Disability in Antiquity
Edited by Christian Laes
Children in Antiquity
Perspectives and Experiences of Childhood in the Ancient Mediterranean
Edited by Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon and Nicola Harrington
www.routledge.com/ Rewriting- Antiquity/ book- series/ REWRITEANT
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CHILDREN IN ANTIQUITY

Perspectives and Experiences of Childhood
in the Ancient Mediterranean
Edited by Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon
and Nicola Harrington
vi
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon
and Nicola Harrington; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon and Nicola Harrington to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Beaumont, Lesley A., editor. | Dillon, Matthew, 1963– editor. | Harrington, Nicola, editor.
Title: Children in antiquity : perspectives and experiences of childhood in
the ancient Mediterranean / edited by Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon and Nicola Harrington.
Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. |
Series: Rewriting Antiquity | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020026744 (print) | LCCN 2020026745 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138780866 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315542812 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Children–Mediterranean Region–History–To 1500. |
Children–Mediterranean Region–Social conditions. |
Social archaeology–Mediterranean Region. | Mediterranean Region–Antiquities.
Classification: LCC DE61.C4 C45 2021 (print) |
LCC DE61.C4 (ebook) | DDC 305.230937–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026744
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020026745
ISBN: 978-1-138-78086-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54281-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
vii
For our beloved children and the other special young people in our lives.
And in memory of Mark Golden, a pioneer of childhood studies in classical antiquity.
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CONTENTS

List of figures xiv

List of tables xix

List of contributors xx

List of abbreviations xxvi

Introduction: investigating the ancient Mediterranean ‘childscape’ 1

Lesley A. Beaumont, Matthew Dillon and Nicola Harrington
PART I
What is a child? 9
1 The ancient Egyptian conception of children and childhood 11

Nicola Harrington
2 What is a child in Aegean prehistory? 26

Anne P. Chapin
3 Ideological constructions of childhood in Bronze and Early Iron Age
Italy: personhood between marginality and social inclusion 42

Elisa Perego
4 Defining childhood and youth: a regional approach to Archaic and
Classical Greece: the case of Athens and Sparta 60

Lesley A. Beaumont
5 The child in Etruscan Italy 78

Marjatta Nielsen
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