Mar 3: Megan Daniels on Reconceiving Athena: The History of a Warrior Goddess

Pensive Athena relief from the Acropolis Museum (credit: Niko Kitsakis)

Join us March 3, 2025, at 7:30pm, at 4500 Arbutus Street - Upper Hall.

Athena is well known as the goddess of wisdom, crafts, and, above all, warfare among the Greeks. She was the most excellent daughter of Zeus, who sprung fully-formed from his head, and came to be the foremost protector of the polis. But where did this idea of a female warrior deity come from within the Greek world? This talk will examine the early origins of the Greek warrior goddess, going back to the Bronze Age and tracing her emergence, piece by piece, into the Iron Age and later periods. Alongside this deeper history, comparisons will be made to warrior goddesses from the Levant and Mesopotamia to make sense of Athena's character, and her remarkable transformation over the centuries into the illustrious protector of the Greek polis.

With Professor Megan Daniels, University of British Columbia