Artifacts of Motherhood: Revisiting the AUB Museum Collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Motherhood" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The AUB Museum collection of motherhood encompasses amulets, infant feeding bottles, and figurines. All these items are connected to the maternal body and specifically to motherhood. However, finding and identifying such artifacts is challenging as they might resemble ordinary objects: Infant feeding bottles could have been used as oil lamp fillers, droppers, or small pitchers. Additionally, figurines could have been used in rituals and as children's toys. As with most donated museum artifacts, we face several challenges related to their provenance and context (mortuary, domestic, etc.). This paper explores a collection of artifacts that could be identified as artifacts of motherhood and understand their function and use. Thus, this paper aims to widen our understanding of women and children’s relationship with each other, health, and death.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Archaeologies of Motherhood

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38141.0