Votive Statuettes of Adult/s and Infant/s in Ancient Italy From the end of the 7th to 1st c. BCE : A New Reading - Volume II Campania, Magna Graecia and Sicily - Giulia Pedrucci (IRAW 9 **)

In 4°, bross. editoriale, 428 pp., ill.ni b/n e coll.

The main object of this two-volume book is votive statuettes of adults with infants from ancient Italy (Etruria, ancient Latium, Campania, Magna Graecia, and
Sicily). Some of the votives represent a woman breastfeeding, or holding an infant, others a pair, either a man and a woman or two women. Through the functional analysis of this material, my research offers a range of possibilities on who and/or what lies behind the offering of votives representing adult/s
with infant/s. The main focus is the use of these particular ex-votos (votive statuettes of adults with infant/s) to communicate with human and trans-human entities for religious and social purposes; the religious agency probably goes beyond the purely biological mother-child link. The investigation takes numerous variables into account: biological links; social status and other cultural factors; place of provenance (urban and non-urban spaces); public vs. private sphere; types of deity and, if applicable, the rituals performed to honor these last; inscriptions or other kinds of votive linked to the statuettes. The findings clearly reveal both the importance of
offspring for families and communities and the multivocal nature of child-rearing. Gender boundaries in Antiquity seem, in fact, to have been much thinner than we used to think.

Giulia Pedrucci is an adjunct professor for History of Religions at the University of Verona. She was a Marie Skłodowska Curie Cofund Fellow at the Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien (University of Erfurt) and she is currently a Gerda Henkel postdoctoral scholar.

Vol. 1: Votive Statuettes of Adult/s and Infant/s in Ancient Italy. From the End of 7th to 1st c. BCEbce: A New Reading - Vol. 1°: Acient Latium and Etruria - Giulia Pedrucci (IRAW, 9)