State of the matter. A brief reflection on feminist historiography.
The purpose of this article is to establish some general guidelines that are concrete and rigorous enough to cover the gaps that an initiate in women’s issues in the Phoenician-Punic religious field may have. All those already introduced to the subject may find it an article that is perhaps too superficial, however, they will be able to find concrete and much more specific bibliography.
To begin, we would like to make a brief review of the historiography feminist and the causes of its appearance.
Despite finding previous studies, 1960 is the year in which feminist studies found their methodological basis with the Gender Studiesstudies specially developed in the centers of the University of Berkeley (United States) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
In this sense, it is important to reflect on the date and place of origin. In 1929, the Annales school was born in France, one of the historiographic currents that has had the greatest impact in the 20th century and whose influence we continue to perceive today.
Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch founded the school as a critique of the practices of their ancestors: Historicism and Positivism, a history built and directed from power. The criticism they make of the historiography that had been written until then did not imply that they wanted to destroy it, rather they opt for a transformation, an idea of transformation that will be complemented by Fernand Braudel with the concept of History Total. And we speak of a concept, because its definition was established by Pierre Vilar, a French Hispanist, at the International Congress of Historical Sciences in 1960 (Stockholm).
This relationship is of vital importance, because from the total history, the concept of history I know expand almost unlimited. The historical construction suffers a turnaround. Political, social and economic history, which until then had been the center of studies (and biased studies) became a history of the human being, in the attempt of total history.
New historical genres begin to appear with the aim of progressively building a more conscientious, methodical-scientific and explanatory history for humanity. It is precisely here where the women’s history or feminist historyconsidering women as a historical subject in itself, participatory and active.
It was not trivial that Pierre Vilar set the end of Braudel’s concept the same year in which feminist history began to walk. Women are one of the marginal groups that history had deliberately ignored, and that thanks to the Annals school and its historiographic renewal, we are beginning to recover.
And we say beginning, because despite the fact that the parameters were set since 1960, the first great work in the history of women did not appear until 1991: History of women. A story of its own, the work of Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser (Barcelona, Crítica.).
In any case, there are not a few researchers who today carry out tremendous research work to recover the female role in history, in Spain we have excellent researchers such as; Josué J. Justel, Cristina Segura Graiño and Rita Rios de la Llave. More specifically, for the presence of women in Phoenician-Punic contexts, the Religio Antiqua research group of the University of Seville, directed until recently by the recently deceased Dr. D. Manuel Pellicer, is of capital importance.
The Phoenician-Punic religion; an attempt at contextualization.
Carrying out a detailed study of the Phoenician-Punic religious cult is a tremendously complicated task that we will not cover in this work, however, we consider it necessary to clarify some concepts contextual or praxis that facilitate the understanding of the women’s participation in the Phoenician-Punic religious framework.
The Phoenician and Punic cultures were civilizations with a marked sense of religion, they had polytheistic and flexible pantheons. They consider the gods as guides of the world, guardians of the city, dispensers of fertility and protectors of man during life and after death.
Starting from these general conceptions within their religious structures, it would be fallacious for us to establish the same parameters for both cultures, for various reasons. The first of them is that not even within the Canaanite-Phoenician realm there was a homogeneous cult, each city had its own protective divinity. Although it is true that they started from a common root (Semitic), even sharing a pantheon, it is also true that they advocated granting different values and rites to their gods.
While in Byblos the protective goddess of the city was Balaat Gebal, along with his complementary partner; Baal Shamem (Lady of the city, -main cult to a female deity-), in Tire we find Melqart (king of the city, of commerce and of the monarchy). As for Sidon, the original cult resides in the figure of Ashmun together with Astarte. A series of differences that allude to the political and economic interests of the Phoenician cities.
This Phoenician variability is transferred to the Punic area. Carthage adapted the Phoenician pantheon: Baal, Baal Hammon, Melqart, Astarte, Ashmun, Tanit, Anat, Elat etc. And just like the Phoenician cities, it will give them a different value and ritual than the metropolis of origin.
In the first moments since its foundation (814 BC) the divinities will retain the Tyrian treatment, however, as Tire ceases to exercise power and influence over Carthage and the Mediterranean, the African city will develop its own ritual. In this way, secondary deities in Tire such as Baal Hammon or Tanit will reach a preponderant role.
Similarly, around the V-IV century a. C. takes place in the Punic religion what Werner Huss has called “the spiritualization of the Carthaginian religion”, based on an abstraction of the gods towards simple forms, a new theological current with an abstract concept of the divinity of tremendous scope, supposing to go against the Greek models, favoring past practices. This new current does nothing more than show that the roots of Carthage are intertwined between a protohistoric African or Libyan influence and a Phoenician influence immersed in history and civilization.
Likewise, we must take into account that the Phoenician-Punic religious world draws from similar but different traditions. While Tire looks at mainly Mesopotamian models, although also Egyptian, Carthage receives the Phoenician, Greco-Hellenic, Egyptian and Libyan influence, something that will be reflected in the adherence of certain divinities such as Apollo, customs, clothing, etc.
Finally, we would like to clarify the concept of control of the religious sphere in the Phoenician world and in the Punic world.
The ritual in Threw was strongly linked to the figure of the monarch, who served as High Priest, being above the High Priest of the temple. The king was linked with Melqart, a theological exaltation of the king, a correspondence with the idealized ancestor founder of the city. This type of idealization and identification of the monarchy with the divinity deeply irritated the prophets of the kingdom of Judah, reflected in the biblical texts.
The divinization of the monarch, or his ascription to the figure of God, is extrapolated to the members of his family, especially his wife, as we will see.
Meanwhile in carthage was assigned to a series of positions public elected by the senate: “the ten men who are put in charge of sacred questions”. A series of intendants who inspected the construction and restoration of religious buildings. Some officials who did not belong to the intrinsic group of the clergy.
These forms of organization and control derive from the respective monarchical and republican forms of government, but in their conceptual origin, religious issues are in the public sphere, for this reason the monarch in Tire is the representative of the community and the senate in Carthage is depositories. of the community authorities.
In conclusion, we do not want to carry out an analysis of the Phoenician-Punic religion, but we do want to establish that they start from a root primalwith a cultural, religious and universal conception commonbut that in practice they have notorious differences.
The Phoenician-Carthaginian clergy.
When we talk about Clergy or Phoenician-Punic priesthood, does not have the same definition and concept that we handle in our societies, very predetermined by our cultural heritage. It is a type of hierarchical religious structure, where the highest priest has much broader capabilities.
The priest is conceived as a mediator appointed by the inhabitants of the city, representative of the people before the divinity, an intermediary who guarantees that God and man are in contact.
As for the priesthood, there was a type of priestly or clergy college (Kohanim), a prototype of a religious structure. According to the sources and archaeological data, the high positions could only be occupied by members of the aristocracy, maintaining a very nested within the clergy, being instituted on certain occasions as hereditary positions within these important families. The priestly college was responsible for the worship and administration of the temple.
Despite the prestige enjoyed by the clergy, it does not seem that they had an important role in the political sphere, except for the high priest or chief of priests (Rab Kohanim) who had important political and economic powers.
Apart from these high positions, there are others below this religious leadership, positions such as: diviners, servants, bakers, barbers, singers, music players, acolytes, doormen, scribes, mourners, artisans, sacred prostitutes etc.
Therefore, the group priestly comes as a set nested, specialized Y aristocratic. Outside the priestly college but with functions related to divinity and cult attributions, we would find the diviners or seers, for which we would speak of a “technical religious group”.
Female aristocracy within the Phoenician-Punic clergy. The controversial case of Elissa.
within the clergy phoenicianthe female activity of greatest importance was that of extreme priestess del Baal, an activity that, if occupied by a woman, could only be accessed by a member of the Royal familyespecially the queen.
The activities of the Phoenician queens are documented especially in the figure of Jezebel, daughter of Ithobaal of Tyre. She promoting the construction of temples, the activity of offerings, carrying out cults and exercising the priesthood of feminine tutelary divinities. It was common for royal women to hold the title of great…