ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to present a status quaestionis of certain aspects of women in Elam and raise hitherto unprecedented questions, hoping to open new avenues for future research into Elamite women. In the case of Elam, discourses have centered on royal lineages, elite and divine residences, sumptuous statuary, and monumental rock reliefs, and they have generally failed to speak of the participation of women in society. The earlier hand-made images of naked women were tubular, meant to stand upright, and received detailing recto and verso. It appears that the shaping of a "female concept" was more important in the production of these figurines than the rendering of a realistic "femininity", if such a concept had existed. The Middle Elamite period is a golden age for portraiture of royal and elite women, who had never before appeared so sumptuously attired. The roles taken up by women in Elamite society can be deduced in explicit and implicit ways.
