THE RE-CONTEXTUALIZATION OF FEMALE COMMEMORATION IN THE CIVIC AND RELIGIOUS SPACES OF CYRENE

This dissertation examines the statues and inscriptions which represented women in the city of Cyrene, located in eastern Libya from the fourth century BCE to the third century CE. This examination builds on more traditional approaches to the study of women in the Greco-Roman past by analyzing how inscriptions and statues could create carefully cultivated and visually identifiable group identities. Treating these objects as collectives tied to one another and to discrete places, this project considers how women and their monuments interacted in communally-minded patterns while negotiating intricate social systems. By focusing on assemblages of monuments and not just the most well-preserved examples, this dissertation demonstrates the necessity of re-contextualizing statues and inscriptions previously treated as decontextualized and relation-less objects. This project maintains that women’s statues and inscriptions were designed to co-exist and were integrated into the built landscapes in ways that reflected not only preexisting structures, but also the social relationships that they embodied. To understand how women’s monuments reflected not only personal concerns but could also communicate ideas about group identities, this dissertation balances its focus between the examination of specific monuments within their localized contexts and their relationships with other dedications in the same bounded area. This study primarily focuses on two sanctuaries, the sanctuary of Apollo and the extramural sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. These two sanctuaries act as defined places in which to consider how women presented themselves as individuals, as members of larger groups, and as participants in cultic activities. These sanctuaries act as the frames through which ideas of place and identities associated with those places were defined. In particular, women’s monuments in the sanctuary of Apollo demonstrated that serving as a priestess was not only an individual identity, but also a way in which to demonstrate wider connections. In the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, women’s identities were less often centered on the role of priestess, but close connections with the cult and other women were prioritized. Evidence from these sanctuaries suggests that women’s representation—when recontextualized—reflected associations with specific groups within single city, particular places and the cults they housed.