Semiramide e le sue sorelle. Immagini di donne nell'antica Mesopotamia

Over the last thirty years more or less, feminist archaeology, or rather "female" archaeology, has endeavoured to shed some light on the role of women in societies of the past and remove some prejudices that are very deeply rooted. Attention has been given firstly to the field of daily life, family life, matrimony, maternity and the organisation of productive activity that are intrinsically domestic.

Though an extremely intriguing line of research regards female power, which must often be sought behind the wings, a "secret engine" of male action, it is perhaps even more interesting to study how certain rare ascendancies of women to power have been misrepresented and transformed by historical and literary tradition, usually a field dominated by men: thus the women of ancient societies who rose to become queens were almost always seen as usurpers, vindictive and dissolute, blood-thirsty and destined to meet a tragic end, a just punishment for their heinous crimes. From this point of view it goes without saying that their most unforgivable crime was to have seized power, a fact from which all other evil consequences ensued.

The analysis of the role of women seems even more difficult in the ancient near east, because of the lack of material documentation and the lack of objectivity in textual documentation.
Perhaps it has not been possible to produce a portrait of the "Mesopotamian woman", but it is certain that some women of Mesopotamia have certainly been highlighted as active participants in the society of their time and still maintain, in some cases, great evocative charm for us though we approach them with much difficulty and uncertainty.