Fear, Favor, or Thanks? Interpreting Figurines
Dedicated to Greek Deities of Childbirth and Childcare

Susan J. Wise (Earlham College)

Literary and epigraphical sources indicate that private childbirth rituals were a common and important part of ancient Greek life. Votive offerings, especially figurines, represent the most tangible evidence for childbirth rituals, but are notoriously difficult to interpret, since the processes behind their purchase and dedication as votives are largely unknown, and their iconography is frequently ambiguous. As a result of these difficulties there is often no attempt in the scholarly record to distinguish between votives left as a request for pregnancy, as a thank offering after the birth of the child, or as a petition for the child's safe-keeping. In this paper, I articulate the difficulties involved in trying to understand the use of these figurines within the ritual context and suggest that an approach that combines archaeological context with semiotic analysis of the iconography presents a solution to many of these issues. Using this combined approach, I analyze four figurine types:  pregnant figures, childbirth groups, kourotrophos groups, and children figures and draw conclusions about their use as votives connected with childbirth. In particular, I suggest that ancient worshippers were aware of the iconographical and cultic ambiguities of certain types of figurines and may well have taken advantage of the polyvalency of those figurines when dedicating them to deities of childbirth and childcare.