Progetto WInX (Women in Intellectual conteXts: self-promotion and gender interactions in the eastern Roman Empire). PI: Ada Caruso

With an approach based on the examination of material evidence (mostly statues and inscriptions), the WinX project aims to detect the female presence in buildings intended for education and other intellectual activities in the Hellenophone provinces of the Roman Empire, from Achaia to Arabia Petrea. The idea stems from
The buildings I considered were those intended for the purposes of Greek education (paideia), namely gymnasia, odeia and theatres. Three are the main research objectives:

1. Contributing to the historical reconstruction of the processes of women social integration and self-definition from a completely new prospective.
2. Detecting women presence and forms of representation in public buildings intended for intellectual activities.
3. Increasing our knowledge of the intellectual dimension of ancient women.

The strategy of investigation focuses on odeia, gymnasia and theatres, wherein women are attested with different functions (preliminary results). I consider 47 odeia, 48 theatres, 23 gymnasia in the provinces of Achaia, Epirus, Macedonia, Thracia, Creta et Cyrene, Bithynia, Asia, Iudaea and Arabia. For each building, I will collect archaeological and epigraphic evidence of female presence, mainly through:

• Statues and reliefs representing women.
• Inscriptions referring to women's identity and role.

Data will be progressively added to an open access database and GIS-based map of “women in intellectual venues”. Through detecting female presence in odeia, gymnasia and theatres this project will contribute to understand how women presented their own identity to the city and, by extension, how they contributed to the construction of the identity of ‘woman’.

Finanziato da Next Generation EU - PNRR Missione 4 Componente 2 Investimento 1.2 - Finanziamento di progetti presentati da Giovani Ricercatori DM 247/2022 - Progetto LiDo-BIP - CUP B83C22006480001