In order to get the idea of women’s role in Ancient Greece it will be the best to review the way they where portrayed in art. Ordinary Greek women very often had the portrayals of goddesses and sometimes even mythological creatures.
Women as well as men were displayed as sex objects. For instance statues of Aphrodite fell under this peculiarity. At the same time some people were identified with their name, and no doubt it diminished their object status. While goddesses were depicted with their attributes and symbols, it reduced their object status as well. There were much less portrayals of nude women than men before the sculpture of the nude Aphrodite of Cnidos was created by Praxiteles. After him more and more women’s images were shown as sex objects.
Nowadays Greek statues of nude women are displayed without heads and it does not decrease our view of the statues as sex objects. But the Greeks reduced such view putting the heads on. In this regard it is also very interesting to pay attention to the portrayals of the Amazons. An Amazon can not be a sex object when it concerns its role as an enemy of the state. But when we think about the Amazons as about the forceful superiority of women then surely they are sex objects. But actually the subject of a great debate is what an Amazon woman personifies.
The goddess Athena seemed to have a great power over men. It might be a reflection of time when women were thought to be the most important deities. To study archaic Greek Art we have to depend more on the myths and archeology. But we may maintain the fact that women played if not the most then not the least important role in it. The investigation of women in Greek Art is priceless.
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