The Essential Body: Mesopotamian Conceptions of the Gendered Body | Zendy

AsherGreve Julia M. | Zendy

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The Essential Body: Mesopotamian Conceptions of the Gendered Body

Author(s) -

AsherGreve Julia M.

Publication year - 1997

Publication title -

gender and history

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153

H-Index - 30

eISSN - 1468-0424

pISSN - 0953-5233

DOI - 10.1111/1468-0424.00070

Subject(s) - sumerian , humanity , metaphor , mesopotamia , inscribed figure , ideology , mythology , sociology , normative , ambiguity , soteriology , gender studies , aesthetics , literature , philosophy , epistemology , history , art , linguistics , ancient history , law , politics , theology , political science , geometry , mathematics

Linguistic, art historical, hermeneutic, gender and intercultural analyses clarify body and gender concepts in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, literature and visual arts. The body was a fundamental point of reference in ancient Mesopotamia, metaphor for the total self, royal ideology, cities, humanity and deities. Humanity was created without gender; sex, gender and social status were subsequently inscribed on the body. Gender taxonomy tolerated ambiguity beyond the ‘normative’ masculine/feminine. Body and mind were an inseparable unity and denoted by the same Sumerian word. Mind/body and male/female dichotomy were unknown.

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