Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a study on women in Greco-Roman Egypt and, in particular, is aimed at investigating the social and legal status of women through the lens of women’s reproduction. It focuses on three phases of a woman’s reproductive cycle: coming of age at puberty, menstruation and childbirth. The book relates some of Husson’s Greek terms to the Demotic terms found in papyri. It shows how many of the votive female figurines produced in Greco-Roman Egypt originated from types already produced in the Dynastic Period. The book explains the social and legal status of women. The social status of women is presented according to their life-cycle, in order to show how women’s status changed according to their age. The book focuses on birth rituals and on the evolution of midwifery from Dynastic through into Greco-Roman Egypt, with comparisons from the ancient Near East.