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Chapter 3 - Women’s Veiling Practices in Late Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2025

Susanna Drake
Affiliation:
Macalaster College
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Summary

Visual and textual evidence from the Mediterranean region indicates the continued significance, complexity, opacity, and versatility of veiling practices among the late ancients. For women of this era (including Christians and Jews), veiling was entwined with performances of social status, honor, shame, deference, and obligations to others and the gods. Veiling was part and parcel of the formation of religious and liturgical subjects in the late ancient imaginary.

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