Excavating Women: The Archaeology of Leaders in Early Christianity

Modern readers often look at the past with distorted presuppositions about women's participation in early Christianity. However, women had a prominent role in society and in religious leadership in the Greco-Roman world. Excavating Women investigates the leadership of women in Christian churches during the first six centuries of the common era through a study of the archaeological remains.

Carina Prestes surveys the role of women in Greco-Roman society, highlighting their importance for Greek and Roman cults and examining funerary remains of the first centuries of the common era to better understand the role of women in Christian communities. The archaeological evidence is placed in historical and sociocultural context to avoid characteristic biases of certain media and to allow a nuanced perspective of the history. Excavating Women also investigates some of the early Christian mosaics in their contexts based on the study of semiotics, the hierarchy of spaces, and biblical passages portrayed in them. These sources reveal a strong participation of women in the clerical leadership of early Christianity, in agreement with the funerary remains.

Excavating Women impacts the perception of women today, not only in Christian circles but also in society at large.