April - 2025

In Daily Life of Women in Ancient Egypt (Greenwood, 2022, 182 pages, $69.99), Lisa K. Sabbahy explores the daily lives of women in ancient Egypt, spanning the predynastic period through the Roman period. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including ancient texts, archaeological artifacts, and artistic representations, the author seeks to reconstruct women’s experience in different aspects of daily life, such as their role in the family, their participation in society and the economy, their religious involvement, their legal rights, and their beauty customs. By exploring the lives of “ordinary” women, the book explores how their agency and economic functions, which ranged from labor in the fields and workshops to managing estates, varied according to their geographic location and legal status.

In Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes. Tome V, Les actes d'affranchissement Vol. 1 (Prêtrises I à IX [n. 1-722]), Vol. 2 (Prêtrises X à XXXV [n. 723-1273] et appendice [n. 1274-1341])) (Athens, École française d'Athènes, 2020-2023, 657+734 pages, €150 each), Dominique Mulliez gathers, organizes, analyzes and translates (partially or completely) inscriptions from the city of Delphi that contained copies of slave manumission contracts. The nearly 1,300 complete inscriptions, which were originally affixed to the walls of the temple of Apollo, were arranged in chronological order and cover a period from 202/1 BCE to the end of the 1st century CE. This rich documentation provides access to thousands of subordinate characters from Delphi and the surrounding area, enabling us to tell the stories of their work relationships, domination and religiosity over the course of nearly three centuries.