Hierarchy, Agency and Gender: Princesses in Mari and Hatti

LUCIANA URBANO; EMANUEL PFOH

La Valletta

Congreso; Gender, Methodology and the Ancient Near East (GeMANE) 6; 2024

This paper addresses the issue of the political agency of the Mariote and Hittite princesses in the courts of the kingdoms of Mari (ca. 18th cent. BCE) and of Ḫatti (ca. 14th-13th cent. BCE) or in associate courts under the suzerainty of these polities. We assess factors like kinship and hierarchy, in order to explore the dynamics of personal dependence of the princesses within their own courts, but also how these dynamics were reversed when the princesses were married to subordinated kings: the forging of interdynastic alliances meant also a new position of authority for the princesses. Being the daughters of a sovereign king, the princesses married to subordinated kings most probably enacted a particular situation of empowerment transcending other limitations at their original courts. This created a peculiar situation. The princesses were subordinated to their father, as part of the operating logic of a patriarchal society, and in principle also to their husbands. Yet, a princess could also be seen as an intermediary, perhaps an officer, between her father and the subordinate king, her husband. Their political agency in the city of their matrimonial residence was therefore shaped by their dynastic affiliation. A princess could thus come to relate to her husband as a political subordinate, acting as a patron (in this case, a matron) towards a client, or better as a broker between the Mariote or Hittite king and the subordinated king. This created a network of tensions and conflicts that can certainly be detected in the sources and can also be interpreted through anthropological models of gender and political performance.