Sex, gender and power in the ancient Near East

This unit explores the tension between sex, gender and power as it played out in the literature and art of the Ancient Near East through such artefacts as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the love poems of the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites, coupling images from Babylon, texts detailing the intimate domestic life of the inhabitants of an ancient Egyptian town, and the records of the female Egyptian king Hatshepsut. We examine accounts of female and male sexuality -as well as the ambiguously gendered images of eunuchs- and attempt to untangle the cultural mesh that is formed by the intersection of sexuality and power. We explore how our own assumptions about sexuality, gender and power might be challenged by a close examination of the different perspectives encountered in the ancient world.