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Gendered or Ungendered? The Perception of Children in Ancient Israel

This article incorporates children into the field of gender studies by using mortuary contexts to examine the gendering process of infants and children within the geographical region of ancient Israel during the Middle Bronze II (ca 1900–1550 b.c.e.) and Second Temple (ca 50 b.c.e.-50 c.e.) periods. Such a study is necessary because gender studies of this region have by and large ignored the importance of children. The paper begins with an overview of gender theory and childhood and follows with a discussion of two case studies in mortuary contexts. The data gleaned from the burials reveal a tension in the way the gender of children was represented. It appears that in both time periods children (ages 3–12 years) were in the process of being gendered, while infants (ages birth-2 years) were seen as genderless or “other.”