ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the female body—both naked and dressed—in ancient and late Syro-Palestine, beginning with the biblical figures of Adam and Eve and a brief survey of the relevant Talmudic texts. It investigates how recent scholarship has increasingly focused on Judaism's corporealities as prime indicators of religious identity in relation to both pagan and Christian communities, and more importantly, as defining gender and sexuality. Complemented by and complicated through an analysis of the surviving material evidence from Roman and Byzantine Syro-Palestine, it studies iconographic images mostly from Jewish burial sites and synagogues, as well as archaeological remains of actual clothes from domestic contexts. These include numerous organic artifacts from the Judaean and Syrian deserts, such as tunics, mantles, footwear, hair covers, and jewelry.
