“Little women”: Gender, performance, and gesture in Mycenaean female figurines

Abstract

This paper examines Mycenaean female figurines, focusing on their gesture, posture, and dress as evidence for somatic messages of Mycenaean female personhood and identity and what this might tell us about women’s lives in Late Bronze Age Greece. The primary focus is on the corporeal messages encoded in the figurines, with reference to Butler’s understanding of gender performativity and Connerton’s notion of incorporated body knowledges, to better understand how the figurines were embedded in Mycenaean habitus. This includes an experiential study of the gestures and posture of the figurines, to explore ancient embodied experiences, and analysis of the painted and applied details of clothing of the three main female types. The aim of the paper is to explore becoming a Mycenaean woman through the medium of sculpted clay.