Excavating Women - by Carina Oliveira Prestes (Hardcover)

About the Book

Excavating Women investigates the leadership of women in Christian churches in the first six centuries CE through a study of archaeological remains. Carina Prestes surveys the role of women in Greco-Roman society and examines funerary remains of the first Christian centuries to understand the role of women in Christian communities.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Exquisitely researched and thoroughly reasoned, Excavating Women examines markers used to honor women leaders in ancient artwork. After women converted to Christianity, their leadership as deacons, priests, elders, and bishops reflects the same archaeological symbols. The parallels are impossible to miss! From the Christian catacombs to early church mosaics, women leaders were stunningly prominent--a reality now impossible to ignore. --Mimi Haddad, president, CBE International

There has been a lot written on the role of women in the early Christian church. Typically, information on their role is obtained from interpreting certain New Testament passages and, later, various early church documents. Archaeology, on the hand, provides a contemporary window into what women were actually doing in the early Church. While there have been previous studies that attempted to utilize archaeological finds to illuminate the role of women, Carina Prestes has done an admirable job of going beyond these earlier studies, not only by reinterpreting some earlier finds, but by bringing many new discoveries to the discussion that open that window into the past more broadly. This is a must-read for anyone who wants a new additional perspective on how important women were to the rise of the Christian church. --Randall W. Younker, professor of archaeology and history of antiquity, Andrews University

Excavating Women explores evidence from material culture of Christian women's leadership in Late Antiquity. Prestes contributes a careful analysis of burial inscriptions, frescoes, and mosaics, adding to the now substantial evidence that many ancient churches had women clergy. Her clear description and sage analysis of the evidence makes this material available in new ways for students of ancient Christianity. --Susan E. Hylen, Almar H. Shatford Professor of New Testament, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

During this time when many Christian churches are struggling with the issue of women in ministry, here comes a study persuasively demonstrating that in the early centuries after Christ, women were not only in positions of leadership in the church but were even ordained for their ministries. The contribution of this book is primarily its presentation of the archaeological evidence, shared within its Greco-Roman historical and cultural background. --Lawrence T. Geraty, president emeritus and professor of Hebrew Bible and Syro-Palestinian archaeology, La Sierra University

In her new book, Excavating Women, Dr. Prestes carefully takes a new look at old archaeological reports to identify previously overlooked (or ignored) evidence of women clergy during Late Antiquity, and she contextualizes her new evidence with other known material remains that depict women church leaders, creating a magnificent compendium. She is one of the leaders of a group of scholars doing groundbreaking work in this field. Excavating Women is remarkably readable and beautifully illustrated. I thoroughly recommend it. --Ally Kateusz, senior research associate, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research