 Hello and welcome to today's lecture in the Women and Gender Performance in the Phoenician Homeland and Diaspora lecture series, which is co-sponsored by the Badae Museum of Archaeology, the Archaeological Research Facility at UC Berkeley, and East Carolina University. My name is Brooke Norton, I'm the Associate Curator of the Badae Museum, and before we get started today, I would like to begin by reading a brief statement on behalf of the Badae Museum. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the Hu Chiun, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenye alone. We respect the land and the people who have studied it throughout many generations, and we honor their elders and their ancestors. We're living in a moment that warrants deep reflection on our past and present. As a museum dedicated to advancing knowledge of the archaeology and history of the ancient Levant, the Badae Museum welcomes scholarly discussions across boundaries of nationality, religion, and gender identity. In many global contexts, equal access to health care, education, bare wages, and human rights is contested on the basis of sex, gender, and other identity categories. In an effort to bring light to these timely issues, to serve a broader public audience online, and to connect to the local community that serves, the museum is taking action to become a more inclusive, welcoming, and equitable institution that practices the philosophy of radical inclusion adopted by its parent institution, Pacific School of Religion. One of these steps is the continued creation of public programming. Through this lecture series, we hope to highlight new and established scholars who are engaging with risky and marginalized topics concerning women, gender performance, and sexuality in the past. We invite you to participate in these programs so that together we can listen, learn, and work towards creating a more inclusive museum community. Thank you so much for joining us today. I would like to now invite my colleague, Dr. Helen Dixon, to the floor to introduce today's speaker. Thank you so much, Brooke. It is my deep pleasure to introduce again, lucky for us, second time in the series, Maria Lopez-Bretron, who is Associate Professor at the Department of Art History of the Universitat de Valencia in Spain. She received her PhD degree in history from the Universitat Pampofabra in 2007. Between 2010 and 2012, she was postdoctoral researcher at the Foundation for Education and Culture, Vecit, in Spain, and she worked as an honorary research fellow at the Archaeology Unit of the University of Glasgow. She was appointed Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Universitat Pampofabra in Barcelona between 2014 and 2016, and she's participated in various national and international research projects that have allowed her to excavate in Phoenician and Punic sites like the Tarrell Bass Cemetery in Lebanon, with elixus colonies in La Rache, Morocco, Cerro de Villar, and Malaga, Spain, or the site of Sulqui or St. Antiocho in Sardinia. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Tübingen, Brown University, and at the Getty Research Institute. Currently, she's working on the art and iconography of the Iron Age Mediterranean from an embodied and gendered perspective, and more specifically, she's specialized in chloroplastic art from a material culture perspective. In fact, she's currently co-editing a book entitled Art as Material Culture to be published by Ritledge in 2024. I can't wait to learn and teach from that book. So, today, we invite her to speak on Punic women as ritual agents, evidence for material and visual culture. Maria, thank you so much for joining us, and the floor is yours. Thank you, Helen, for this kind of presentation. I share my screen. Okay, so can you see? Yes? Okay. So, good morning, or good afternoon, or good evening, and first of all, I would like to begin by thanking the organizers of this lecture, series, organized by the Baden Museum at the Pacific School of Religion, the Archaeological Research Facility at Berkeley, and the East Carolina University. I really appreciate they allowed me to participate twice, and I hope to leave out this double invitation. So, as you can see from the title of my presentation, I will concentrate on the role of women as active participants in different kinds of rights that can be traced at two sides of the Western Mediterranean. The two case studies where I have tried to identify the female agency are the Opener Shrine of Laudaida, located on the south coast of Iberia, and the case shrine of Asquiaran, on the island of Ibiza. But first of all, I want to share with you the outline of this lecture. Initially, I will present briefly the two sides. After that, I will concentrate on sharing some light with the participation of women. And finally, I would like to finish by showing an example of how to disseminate the results of your research to a wider audience. This topic is being highly encouraged by the Spanish and European policies, especially with the research financed by public funds, as it is the case I'm presenting you today. So, let's begin with the first point, and I will present you now the Al Gaida Shrine, located at San Lucas de Barrameda, a small town in the province of Cadi, south of Iberia. It is located, the Al Gaida, on the Guadalquivir story, an area that has changed significantly over time. When Laudaida was used as a rural shrine, that is, between roughly the 7th and the 1st centuries BCE, the area was first a big barrier, as you can see here I'm showing you, and later an island on the eastern bank of the story. The site was excavated between 1978 and 1984, and it has been partially looted, but an aesthetography of four levels has been identified. Layer four contains the Punic and late Punic materials, dated between the 4th and the 2nd centuries BCE, when the site presented several constructions. However, an early religious use has been suggested on the strength of some of the materials, dated to the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. The main ritual space was an open shrine, was an open area around which several constructions, you can see here the layout, have been identified together with a well, which is located here. The constructions between 3 and 5 meters long were built from masonry and pebbles, and were used for different purposes. Two of them have been defined as storerooms to store the votive offerings, and another one has been defined as the living quarters for the workers at the shrine. The objects are buried and abandoned, cooking and serving pottery, oil lamps, with traces of burning, coins, decorative objects for the body, clay figurines, and movable bronze artworks. These materials suggest a panorama similar to Asquiarán, the other case of study, a place where people prepare and consume food, cremated mason substances, and deposited a variety of body offerings. As I have just said, La Lgaida is located on a landscape that has undergone rapid geographical changes, some of them in the course of individual lifetimes. In fact, its location in the stuary has been argued as a reason for its sacralization. It would have had a strategic position in the maritime route that connected the settlements around the former stuary, defining its role as both as a sanctuary and a depot for sailors and traders. In addition, in spite of its relatively low height, the shrine was located at the end of the speed barrier, 200 meters away from the water, and at the highest point between 8.5 and 10 meters above the sea level. The environment of La Lgaida could have been a key component in the sacred perception of the site. It is agreed that La Lgaida was the sanctuary mentioned by Estrago dedicated to a goddess of the Luxduvia or Phosphorus. Phosphorus means bringer of the line and is the morning star, the planet Venus in its morning appearance. Luxduvia can refer to both the twilight or the downward or the first line, but in this case it is associated with the morning light due to its association with Phosphorus, and it has been discussed whether the goddess of this sanctuary was a starter or a tinnate or tannate. The perception of the morning light would have elicited an emotional response and participated actively in the creation of a cosmological world will. Moreover, various kinds of oil lines with traces of burning have been identified. In addition, their presence has been related to nocturnal rites, which are well documented in other areas of the Mediterranean, in connection with the goddesses, especially the meto, and with the rites of fecundity, marriage, and well-being. I will come back later to this topic. Moving to the other case study, Asquiaram, is a cave sanctuary on the southern hillside of the San Vicente valley, near the stream of Sacada. San Vicente is a fluvial valley with terraces formed by limestone and maul, and a good hydrological features that create natural springs. The cave is oriented to the southeast and is 150 meters above the sea level, and only one and a half kilometers from the beach, and offers an excellent view of the sea. The cave has a total surface area of 200 square meters, and it was induced from the 4th century to the 2nd century BCE, reaching its peak of activity during the 3rd century when pottery, bones, and especially clay figurines were deposited there. The handmade pottery, however, suggests that the cave was also frequented in the Bronze Age. In addition, there is no agreement on the date of the abandonment of the cave in the Roman period. The scarcity of the materials has been attributed either to looting or to the fact that the occupation was temporal, or to the possibility that the Romans frequented the site until the 2nd century AD. The cave is divided especially into three parts. The first is an artificial quadrangular hole created by two walls built into the stone and which may have had a roof made of clay and cane. The natural cave is formed by two main galleries. The first is a large area with a low ceiling between one meter and two meters high, covered by a partially destroyed stone vault, which comprises four different areas or rooms presenting an irregular profile and a large number of stalagmites that make it difficult to move freely inside this part. This area has been defined as the possible entrance to the cave and would have received some natural light. The second one is an oval room five meters high and 80 square meters, which has been defined as the holly of hollies due to the vast number of materials recovered. It also presents an irregular layout and has a clear open space because the spheriothems are located along each site. This is a reconstruction we have done of this artificial entrance, you can see here I am showing you, according to the layout of the cave and its section. You can see also a rectangular cistern at the entrance of the cave, that directly into the rock which collects grain water. The cave was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century. Unfortunately, no information whatsoever was recorded concerning their context. Significant amounts of pottery were found, in particular cooking, eating and drinking vessels as well as some amphora. Many of these vases are smaller than usual and can be considered as miniatures. The presence of large quantities of animal bones almost exclusively sheep and goats shows that eating was also a regular activity in or outside the cave and suggests that sacrificial meals were the significant features of the rituals performed at the square app. Careful analysis of the faunal remains has also shown that most of the animal skulls were barred and that the animals had been slaughtered in the cave itself. Other finds include coins mint in Ibiza, two stones that may have been vietics to choose from their conic section. You can see here one and two gold medallions. I am showing you one of these two gold medallions. Also remarkable is a small altar, approximately of 10 centimeters high. But the most impressive materials are the terracotta figurines, including more than 1,000 terracotta fragments that have recently published in 2022 in an excellent book I am showing you here, edited by Marie-Cruz Marín Ceballos, Maria Belén and Ana Maria Jiménez Flores. In this publication, they have made a classification of the figurines into two main types. The winged or bell shaped figurines representing the images of Tani or Ortini and a group called barred types, including from more to less numerous figurines with torch and animals as the one you see here. Female head incense barnards and throne figurines, terracotta with multiple necklaces, musicians, figurines with encalators or bells, busts and address and a small number of masculine heads and also a big amount of undetermined types. The winged figurines which are unique to the Spigarum cave, the big females wearing a calatus. The presence of wings too, as you can see here or here, and the decorative elements like caduceus, the solar discs, lotus flowers or mandrake relate these objects to the goddess in emphasizing her astral features and the ones related with safe travels and fertility. Another evidence that showed the connection between Tini and the cave is the bronze plate with a double inscription engraved at different moments. First, in the 5th century BCE, the inscription mentions a male divinity, most probably the god Rechef Meltat. The recent one, which is the one I am showing you on this slide, is dated at the 2nd century BCE, written in Neopunic, which mentions the goddess Tini together with the epithet Gat, which means good luck or happiness. Jose Angel Zamora has just published an exhausted study in condeneration of the centenary of its discovery of this bronze inscription and has advocated that the second inscription was written by a scribe who was a relevant priest in charge of rebuilding the cave. In contrast to La Raida, which is an opener shrine, the morphological features of Aspulleram suggest that water would have been widely used in the rituals performed there. In the Nearby Stream and in the adjacent mountains, there are three springs, all within 500 meters of the cave, so the area would have had a sufficient water supply. This data is relevant because many Phoenician and Punic sanctuaries perform a water cult linked to divinities such as Astarte or Adonis, and so the abundance of water may well have been a factor in the choice of the cave as a site of worship. The existence of water resources is also essential to explain the human occupation of the valley. According to the Surveys carried out in the stream, the first evidence of Punic inhabitants is dated to the beginning of the 4th century. From that time, two rural areas with a large concentration of amphorae were documented. During the 3rd and the 2nd centuries we see when precisely the activity in the cave was at its peak the rural settlement exploiting the resources of the valley increased in number from 8 to 14. So these farmsteads were located along the central stream of the valley and were close to each other, and probably the people who lived in these farmsteads were the users and the visitors to Asqueara. The caves also contain what has been formed by the White House and I quote, abnormal water and end of the quote, understood as an extraordinary form such as stalactites, stalagmites, and water forms, which would have made the cave a particular attractive site for worship. In the cave water is also clearly attested by the rectangular cistern built at its entrance, attributed to use for lustrous cleaning of the devotees before entering. The abnormal water of Asqueara has been mainly identified in the inner room, the so-called holly of hollies, with traces of speleothems and with the identification of shallow pools of water, resembling mirrors. This gives the impression that the devotees choose this inner part because according to their worldview view it was the ideal place to commune with the supernatural forces, a place where their sensorial and emotional experiences would have been most intense. Before moving to the third point of the lecture, I want to highlight a joint idea of the two shrines, which is the topic that I have already published about the kinetic rituals, pilgrimage, or sacred jolts. Both Asquiaram and Largaida are commonly defined as rural shrines, related to agriculture, fertility, and navigation. It has been highlighted that ritual performances should be understood in a wide perspective, focusing not just on the rites performed at the site, but on the journeys made by the worshipers. Thus, people began to perform their rites when their voyages began. As a consequence, Asquiaram and Largaida are particular destinations visited repeatedly over the course of a few centuries in what have been termed pilgrimages or kinetic rituals, religiously motivated journeys to sanctuaries or sacred spaces, either with or without architecture. In the present case study, people visited their shrines either on foot or by sea and may have carried out other bodily movements like processions or dances. At Asquiaram, for example, two female figurines of dancers and musician figurines also have been recorded, and in the Algaida, rings bearing images of musicians have also been found. Pilgrimages often coincide with the movement of celestial bodies and the passing of time, for example, specific dates or holidays, and there is evidence of this at Asquiaram. The presence of tooth marks on animals suggests that animals were sacrificed during the month of February and March, maybe to celebrate the rebirth of nature and the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring. At Largaida, pilgrimages either on foot or across the water would have been a natural practice given its location. However, it is purely speculative to relate the visits with the specific moments of time, the tides, the passing of fish, or even seasonal celebration. What seems clear is the connection with celestial movements, especially with Venus, the keep planet using the same navigation. So, moving to the second point of this lecture, it seems clear that the main divinities of the two sacred areas are gualeses of fertility, understood in a wide sense. I aim to shed more light on the meaning of the fertility in this particular context and engender the visitors of the cult places by focusing on their material culture, especially their codoplastic artworks and body ornaments. I begin with the Albaida, and scholars have already suggested a female character for the shrine, arguing that women visited this place to celebrate weddings, to pray for wood labor, or to protect their offspring. The maternal element has also been linked to phosphorus, because morning light was believed to be connected to labor and birth. Certainly, the site's visual repertoire suggests the performance of protective and maternal rights. The Albaida contains significant codoplastic artworks. Two figurines of the corophora type, with a woman holding a baby in her arms, may depict women presenting their children to divinities for their well-being. Another small fragment I am showing you represents a baby's torso, arms and legs, although it has been tentatively ascribed to the corophora type, its corporality with a chubby appearance and corset legs and apparent nakedness recall to the temple boy iconography. Another figurine that may exemplify the role of modeling practices, especially breastfeeding, is a fragment of a naked torso with two plate buttons representing the breast, and also a triangular position representing a necklace holding another plate button, possibly a pendant, interpreted as an amulet. In my view, this specimen highlights the close connection between women and healing practices. The importance of breast is also attested by the 72 small glass breast-like pendants, the one you see here, and I apologize for the quality of the picture. These small breasts are called mamelas. These objects are rarely found in the Iberian peninsula, and in fact, they are specific to rituals at the Albaida. They have been identified as amulets in connection to fertility and model home. I think that these objects may also materialize the role of breast milk in curative practices. Other objects connected to healing practices are 27 eyeglasses beads, interpreted as powerful means for expelling bad luck and exerting magical powers. Or two silver plates, I'm showing you only one of the silver plates with embossed eyes, suggesting perhaps that these eyes were amulets from protecting from diseases or bad luck. In fact, the female terracotta figurines I'm showing you here are lavishly decorated with different kinds of amulets, and some of them are defined as small boxes, possibly containing oils with magical properties. And in fact, Pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, complained that men were wearing rings, as if they were ornaments typical of women. So there is an association between ornamentation, magic, and women. Another case study very interesting are the otoliths of Corvina, small bones located inside the head of the fish with an alabaster appearance, I'm showing you here, which has been found in a number of ironaceous sites on the Atlantic coast. In Albaida, precisely, 49 specimens of otoliths has been identified as votive offerings. And otoliths, interestingly, had to be deliberately separated from the rest of the head, so it is likely that they were selected on purpose. Why they were selected on purpose? Because probably these bones were used as charms and amulets because of their curative properties. In fact, again, Pliny the Elder attributes marvelous virtues to these small bones. We have more materials, like the terracotta poppy, this is an image of a terracotta poppy that could indicate the use of this plant in curative rights. The Smith and Evers papyri show medical application of poppy plants to cure breast abscesses, to calm crying babies, or as eye drops and ointments. Composite of many grains, poppy capsules, were also believed to have an aphrodisiac properties and were a symbol of fertility. Representations of poppies have been found in the Levan, and proof of their consumption has been recovered in cycles, with the identification of pipes to smoke opium at the temple of Chiton associated with the cult of Astarte. In the Greek Coroplastic productions, poppies are also associated with piment faults, such as the worship of Vemeter, and the achievement of altering the state of consciousness in rites of passage preparing women for marriage. In addition, in the written sources, women offer poppy seeds in different religious festivals. The large amount of oil lines in the Algaida may indicate the cremation of poppy seed oil and other substances that may also have therapeutic properties. Another plant that may have been used in the Algaida is mistletoe, a piece from Aldo, which Ramon Corzo, the archaeologist of the site, considers to be depicted on the calatose of the head-shaped incense bar. I'm showing you here this representation of mistletoe. The plant is represented with three clay globules, as you can see here, and at the center of the calatose. And again, Pliny the Elder speaks of its powerful curative capacities, and especially its ability to prevent sterility. The materials of the Algaida also open up the possibility of the presence of children in the shrine. Some of the rings and the posited there are very small. There's less than one centimeter of diameter and maximum of two centimeters, and would only have been worn by children who were profusely protected with amulets. We remember that the temple was not full of amulets. The presence of a small body offerings, like the one I'm showing you here, this small pot, may also indicate the participation of children in rituals, as miniature pots and similar objects are usually interpreted as tools used to socialize children and involve them in daily activities, as teaching guides for the impulsuration of crops. So moving to the second case study, as Kuyaram, although the big amount of figurines are related to Tini, to the goddess Tini, other figurines have been defined as images of women or devotees that can be linked to female rights. For instance, baylet figurines, as the one I'm showing you here, have been identified by Marie Cruz Bernice de Dios with the gesture of anacalipsis or unveiling with the right hand. So you can see with the right hand, he's opening the veil, and with the left hand, the terracotta is holding a tray. As explained by the authors, the gesture of unveiling is a very iconographical feature and can be connected either with wedding rights or with the status of married women. Another type of figurine that is related to the same idea are the ones I'm showing you here that presents a veil. As you can see in the left side of this slide, the figurine is unveil, and it has been suggested that this type could make reference to unmarried women because of the lack of veil and the presence of the veil that according to Greek tradition is an adequate object for young women. Be as it may be, I'm not suggesting that there was any transposition of this gesture of right to the Punica square, only that these iconographies fit well in the creation of the local female activities performed in the caves, which is why people choose to introduce these images, but they are not facing a goddess or a Greek tradition. The two figurines holding the tray with food are significant at this point. You can see here that he's opening the veil but also has this tray with food because food are significant because the tray carries round pieces of clay that has been interpreted as bread or cakes in the light of the evidence from the Old Testament and Near Eastern archaeology. These cakes or bread were food offerings to liabilities, mainly female ones, and some of them probably were decorated using a stamp with images related to fertility and well-being like lotus flowers or rosettes. No stamps like the ones I'm showing you here have been found in Spudera, but in other areas of Ibiza, especially in the main cemetery in Puchesmulins, many stamps have been found. Thus, it is probably that the inhabitants of San Vicente Valley and the visitors to Escoyaram Cave may have been familiar with this ritual practice of presenting bread and a specific bread decorated with these stamps. In addition, another agricultural re-enactment could take place in Escoyaram, which is the offering of first fruits at the beginning or at the end of the harvest. Thus, not only creating a sense of time through seasonal celebrations, but also legitimizing the possession of land by different families. This is certainly the case of Ibiza, where small shrines proliferate all over the island, precisely at the sites where there were farmsteads. Another element to highlight is the presence of calatoes in many of these figurines, and I think that the calatoes are meaningful objects that embody the ritual agency of the local inhabitants who choose to decorate a highly significant object, as it is a terracotta figurine locally made with this basket, with these calatoes in relation to their daily tasks, because this basket, that is calatoes, was used for women to hold wool, fabrics, fruits, flowers, or food. So this case study, the case study of Escoyaram demonstrates how women were involved in the rights performed there, and how human fertility, especially female, and land fertility are interrelated. This association can also be seen clearly in ancient Mesopotamia, for instance, where the vocabulary of reproduction of human reproduction is based on agricultural concepts that reflect the connection between sexuality and reproduction. So in this final part of the talk, I want to present a transfer action that I developed together with other colleagues as a member of the Ars Maya research group, based mainly at the Department of Art History of my University, the Universitat de Valenci. These groups, the Ars Maya, brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, specializing in the study of pre-Hispanic and Mediterranean cultures, who are engaged in various lines of research. One of them is the study of ancient art and archaeology from a gender's perspective, in order to reassess the assumptions that inform early discourses on the society of the past, in which the participation of women in economic, artistic, or intellectual activities in complex societies has been largely ignored. With this in mind in recent years, our research group has disseminated the results of our research through the creation of images in which the women of the past appeared as protagonists of important economic and creative tasks that were traditionally attributed exclusively to men. In many cases, in spite of evidence that no such gender inequality actually existed, we collaborate with the artist Erika Mejida Hansen. The creative process is highly enriching, thanks to the use of a variety of methodologies. In the preparatory phase of these drawings, we create a dossier of objects and suggestions for our artists, Erika, in which through images, objects, texts, and conversations, we explain the architectural features, the shape and decoratives, patterns of the pottery, the colors of the clothes, the body decoration, etc. After presenting these materials, we began a fruit-fruit dialogue with Erika regarding the composition of the scene, discussing what elements should be included, and what perspective should be used to best communicate the artist's message. During this intense process of continuous communication, several black and white sketches were produced. One of the images we have created was, of course, the Skuyeram Cave. In this drawing, we wanted to reinforce some ideas that they have just presented. First, instead of focusing on the rights performed inside the cave, especially keeping in mind the difficulties in trying to reproduce shadowed actions, we put the emphasis on the idea of pilgrimage and community, and that is why we are facing the artificial entrance, so the main action is in these artificial entrances I showed you before. That way, we have related the shrub in its landscape, reinforcing the farms on the slopes of the mountain and the seascape with the arrival of two ships, importing the ships and these farmsteads that I have already mentioned. You can see also how crowded is the path to the shrine, referring to these possible agricultural rights of the state that we have already mentioned. The drawing also shows the multivocality of shrines. Following the material and visual culture, two female musicians are performing music, accompanied by a man carrying a goat, an animal, which is also perhaps you. In a prominent place of the drawing, we have recreated an adult woman carrying a characteristic body of tannin or tinnin, accompanied by an adult man with an incense burner. We have also included two kids, as they are normally absent from the narrative. And behind them, we see a man, an elder man, carrying an amphora with a shape documented in this site, and another adult man with carrying a sheep. All of them, as you can see, wear necklaces with amulets, especially the children, which normally are overprotected. You can also see the concentration of the houses, as we show you here, on the slope, mentioning these farm houses that I've just mentioned. We have also been inspired by the body decor, the decoration of the local figurines, like the you see in this slide, for reproducing the hairdressers or the jewellery that the woman is wearing. In the background, there are also men and women of different ages, the current offerings of food or trays, and as the one you can see here, probably with this bread, or semi-leaked inside serving pottery and cooking pottery. We have tried to recreate the multivocality of ritual agents, visualizing especially the female know-how, and also different agents, ages from kids to elderly, and different ethnic origins, in order to highlight the heterogeneity of people. Most recently, and I come back to this image I showed you in the previous conference, most recently we have recreated a trade of the Carthaginian princess of Formisva, who lived during the Second Punic War and was the daughter of Astruva. She helped, as you know, influence over the media and political landscape, and she was very famous and became legendary because she poised on herself rather than be humiliated in a Roman tree. This, in fact, this episode, in fact, is the most represented in the European paintings. We always see women semi-naked in the act of killing herself. On the contrary, with this imaginary trade we have made with the Ars Maya group, we want to reinforce another dimension of Formisva's life. The young age, it is believed that she died between when she was 13 and 15 years old, and her talent as a musical performer, thus focusing on her life and not on her death. So, to finish, thanks to contextual analysis of the material and visual culture of the two shrines devoted to Odysseus, I have tried to demonstrate how communities, including the preeminence of women and possibly children, too, appear to have been essential ritual agents at both shrines in the performance of agricultural, marital, purative, and caregiving practices. Thanks for your attention. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. These reconstructions are so juicy, so rich, so wonderful. I can't imagine a better way of drawing people into this sort of niche research topic that we're all interested in. Thank you so much for showing us some of those artist's renditions. Could we actually start there with a couple of questions about the details? I'm wondering what was the most difficult one to explain or to communicate to the artist and where you really realize the limits of your knowledge, what we can know. I put the general drawing, okay? Yes, any of the drawings, whichever you are talking about, this dialogue back and forth where you're explaining the colors, you're explaining the fabrics, the materials, but then where do you realize we can't even, I don't know how to explain this one to you? No, it's a very intensive working process because the artist, she's an excellent artist, but she knows a lot about preyspanic because we also make drawings of preyspanic, especially Maya, but she's not used to Phoenician or Mediterranean archaeology. So it's very interesting because we have to explain everything. We have to give her extra literature and because she loves archaeology and history, she does research on her own, which is also dangerous because sometimes she ended up with information which is not correct and you have always to be careful to inform her that, look, Erika, this is okay, this is not okay. So it's exhausting. I mean, for preparing this school year and recreation, we spend almost two months with our almost everyday dialogue of WhatsApps, emails, and PowerPoints and everything. Yeah, I can completely imagine this and maybe even having to answer questions you've never thought of before, like what are the hats made of and what are the, I don't know. I also noticed, I think that there was no sort of formal priest, priestess, religious official in the reconstructions or did I miss one? No, there's no official priest. Although I have to say that in the book of Jose Angel Tamora, which is 2000, well it was published now, he really advocates for a priest, for a regular priest in charge of the case. Well, I think it's not opposite, that it can be a priest, but you can go also on your own. I mean, it's not exclusive. Right, right. Yeah, I think that's very plausible. Well, we have a million questions already in here and we have someone looking on YouTube for new ones. So if you're watching on YouTube, please feel free to write in a question in the chat there. But I wanted to start sort of back at the beginning, you mentioned for La Rida that you have these nocturnal, potentially nocturnal rituals, and they may seem similar to some we know from the cult of Demeter with oil barley. For those of us who, you know, some of our watchers are not from the classical side of things, could you explain a little bit more about what you're imagining there with nocturnal rituals at these open-air sanctuaries? Yes, what they said is that nocturnal rites were in relation of the incubatio, which is like a healing process where you get safe or you get in good health, whereas you are sleeping because you receive the goddess or the god is visiting you when you are sleeping. So that's why you need to be there at night and sleep because sleep is a therapy, it's therapeutic. Beautiful. Yeah, so incubating a dream that might have instructions or even a visit that might bring some healing, something like that. Is that right? Yeah. What about the iconography? I know the figurine corpus is newly published from Escurum, but what about this medallion that you showed briefly on the slide, which seems like a slightly different set of iconography from the figurine corpus. Do you see any interesting evocations in that medallion? Do you think it's sort of a one-off or do you actually see some parallels with the figurine corpus? Well, especially with the tinnitus representation, they have decorations on the body, which is similar to the one medallion, you know, with these caduceus or... Yeah. Maybe you raise or something. Yeah. And it's also, you can see the same patterns in the mold, this mold, bread, but I also put you on one of the slides. Really? It's the same iconography. Could I impose and ask you to bring that slide up again and we could look at the bread mold images just for fun? Let me see. I'm sharing now, no. I'm not sharing, no? No, you're not sharing now. Okay, but let me see. So I'm sharing now, yes. Beautiful, yes. And these are the, oh man, you can see, oh well, with the rosettes, palms, and it's more or less the same iconography, rosettes. You have rosettes also in the tinnitus figurines, too, so well, it's all the iconography revolved on the same topics. Right, right. And that medallion, could we go back to the medallion image and just see the... Yeah, so some of those same patterns, but the central figure, do you see it as a winged figure? Is that what those, or you said caduqueas? I said caduqueas, but I would have to check what Marissa is saying, because I cannot remember. Yeah, sorry to make you summarize all of this literature on the spot. That was very helpful. Okay, so we have a couple of questions from YouTube, so I will interrupt my own, our own internal questions here. So actually Agnes is in the chat here on YouTube. She says thank you for this amazing lecture, Mireya. I was going to ask you, as Helen did, to expand a bit more on the challenges of working with the artists. Are there any other challenges besides the dialogue that you wanted to highlight here, limitations of the software, or captioning these, anything else I can, that you want to add to that discussion? Well, more limitations. With one of us, we know, because we have plenty of information, but for instance, with the portrait of Sir Paulista, it's quite challenging, because it's a portrait of a unique person. How can you imagine the face of a unique princess? What is the main source? That was a really big challenge, because the artists were looking at ancient photographs of the end of the 19th century, the end of the 10th century in Tunisia, to make some kind of connection. But the portraits are exhausting. Well, I admit when you were talking about getting artists involved, I was getting excited that one day I might be able to purchase for myself one of these crowns, or one of these pieces of fabric. So this is another step you could bring these reconstructions to life, and we can all do our reenactments we were scheming about last time. Okay, so returning a little bit to your narrative about Escularam, you mentioned the rebuilding of the cave, this second century inscription might point to. Can you say more about what rebuilding means in this context? How do you imagine renovations to this cave sanctuary in that kind of language? The rebuilding also is what I've read, because this is fresh. It's related to the artificial hole I mentioned to you. So they said that the inscription was put on the wall, was hanging on the wall, and the reconstruction of the cave only affected this artificial area, the artificial entrance. And they didn't refer to the inner side of the cave, not the proper natural cave. So we don't know if perhaps you are thinking about cleaning the cave with the votive offerings. The inscription only mentions that they reconstruct and they, Jose Angel Zamora, no thought that he's referring exclusively to this artificial room at the entrance of the cave. That's helpful, yeah. It feels like so many of our, like at Amrit, you know, you have the natural bedrock emphasized, but then built upon, right, to put a portico over it. That seems very similar here, yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's see, let's see. Next question, trying to get to as many of these as possible. Can you say anything more about the small fragment of the temple boy type figurine? It sounded like it was the only one from the corpus of that type. Do you see that object as always associated with children's healing rituals or are there other possible interpretations that have been convincing for you? Well, this is a very small fragment and I don't think it's a temple boy, with the size of a temple boy, not just smaller. And probably it's well, it's connected to, we have published with Meneche for the idea of winning, a winning ritual. I mean, once you stop sucking and the beginning, you change your age, it's a ritual of passage, and you introduce solid food. And I think in the ancient testament, it's mentioned this idea of the winning festival. So probably, why not? If we see the presence of children in Langaida, these children could go there with their families, especially with their mothers, to celebrate this right of passage, the beginning of the winning process. I love this idea. And I hadn't been thinking of it in terms of women's agency before this clear argument you made in this paper. I'm wondering too, in Wissam and Karim's contribution to this series, they talk about women visiting a cave shrine in Lebanon where they're actually probably bathing in water, or at least, you know, doing ritual ablutions as part of the sort of fertility or right of passage, maybe into marriage. Do you see any of the pools of water you were talking about this mirrored surface? Does any of that seem feasible for throwing water? No, they are small. And even the cistern outside the cave, it's relatively small. I don't think you can put all your body inside the water. Perhaps you can put some parts. But in Langaida, there's plenty of water. I mean, it was an island, so you can put inside the river or the water of the ocean. So why not? Yes, good point. Good point. Well, I know we're almost out of time, but I did realize I skipped part of Agnes' second question. Were there any research questions you or your group developed after working with the artists? In other words, are there things you now want to know because of the questions you got about this reconstruction? Yeah, well, yeah, we have a lot of questions, especially with the Skuyeran. One of the questions we were thinking about is, who is everybody entering to the cave? Or is someone, I mean, if there is a priest or a priesthood, everyone is allowed to go to the Holy of Holies or what are the main rights for form? Great question. So, yeah, that's something we keep thinking on. Yeah. Yeah, good luck with that one. And I know if you're willing to answer maybe one more, we have a few. I think that there will be some curiosity about these silver embossed plaques with the eyes. Can you give us a little more sense of the size of these? It looked like maybe they were punctured at the bottoms. Are they sort of the size that could cover human eyes or are they too small? They are smaller. I'm sorry, I didn't put those. No problem. They are three centimeters or so. They are really small. Yeah. So, I'm not, you are thinking of a kind of mask, a performative aspect, no? I don't think it doesn't work like this because of the size and also because it's bronze and it's quite hard, no? It's not knowledgeable, no? It's not easy to add that into your face. Are they bronze or they're silver on bronze? Is that what you're saying? That's one silver and one bronze. Oh, okay. One silver, one bronze. Yeah, you're right. Sorry, sorry. Well, and you can't see through them. So, it would be a strange ceremony anyway. Yeah. So, do you see these as something like, did your artist want to incorporate these in some way? Did you see them as something you could bring in or did she leave them out on purpose? Well, it's because we were thinking of, I would like to make a drawing of La Llaida, but it's very difficult because the landscape has changed significantly from that period to now and the structures I show you are not well polished and I'm not really sure about how to face this reconstruction and how to put the material. I don't know. I have other... We need another ERC grants and archaeobotanical and yeah, it's going to be a lot of work. Erin is cheering you on for the ERC idea, but... Well, we do have an ERC. We have another kind of project, but it's not an ERC because it's quite... And in fact, we also receive funding from... We have a university, we have a quality unit that works for quality, gender equality, diversity and everything and we ask for a small grant and every year we got it. Amazing. Yeah. So, telling the stories of the past in an equal way as well. That's great. Yeah. Well, congratulations. We use it, sorry. No, please. We use it for a teaching date in our class, in our lectures, you know, and you could be able to work with students and it's very useful, because it's a teaching aid, very, very useful and students love to work with these kind of images. Absolutely. I mean, so do I, but also the outreach and dissemination is so much more vivid and possible. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing these with us. This is like something to aspire to. The rest of us are 12 steps behind you all the time, but we know where we're going. Well, we have a couple more announcements for our audience about next talks in this series, but thank you so much, Dr. Lopez Bertrand, for your contribution today. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to thank you again, Dr. Maria Lopez Bertrand for your fascinating talk today. Our next lecture in our Women and Gender in the Phoenician Homeland diaspora lecture series is next Thursday, March 28th at 9.30 a.m. Dr. Maroon Kreech will present Phoenician Women in Textual Documentation, Epigraphical and Literary. So we thank everyone for tuning in today, and we hope that you will join us next time. Thank you very much.