Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia.

• Author: Harris, Rivkah
• Position: Book Review

By ZAINAB BAHRANI. London: ROUTLEDGE, 2001. Pp. xii + 212. $75.

Women of Babylon is a sophisticated, stimulating, and provocative study which challenges previous works on Mesopotamian views and attitudes toward women and their artistic representations. A brief review cannot do justice to the depth of Bahrani's analyses and the richness of her insights.

In her introduction, she outlines the topics she will cover in her eight chapters, noting that although recent feminist scholarship has focused on sexual differences in visual and textual representations, material from the ancient Near East has largely been neglected. Nor have specialists in the area, with a few exceptions, treated the subject of sex and gender. (The 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, held in Helsinki in 2001, perhaps marks a significant change in attitude.)

Bahrani believes that contemporary "theories of gender, semiotics, reconstruction, psychoanalytic and historical criticism ..." (p. 4), and the works of such thinkers as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan, among others, can provide insights to help better understand Mesopotamian art history. At the same time, she is cognizant of the limitations of their applicability.

In chapter one, "Women/Sex/Gender," Bahrani deals with the question of "What is women's history?" She discusses in detail the different emphases and concerns of the three so-called waves of feminist scholarship, from the '60s to the present time. But she observes that the study of ancient societies presents a different set of problems than are found in contemporary societies, the focus of most feminist scholars.

In "Envisioning Difference" (chapter 2), the question of how woman, gender, and femininity in a past culture are accessed through the visual record is tackled. Bahrani is critical of the application of "art for art's sake," a view that is European and modern. She concludes that "ideologies of gender are inherent in various representations, and it is here that an engendered reading can enrich and diversify the standard focus on a coercive state ideology still preferred by Near Eastern scholarship" (p. 39).

"The Metaphorics of the Body" (chapter 3) is an impressive analysis of "nudity, the goddess, and the Gaze." In Bahrani's opinion, "It is necessary to study the body in art as a representational sign, and not as a simple reflection of real and living bodies in antiquity" (p. 40). Bahrani makes many significant observations...