This edited collection examines concepts and realities of motherhood in the ancient world. The collection uses essays on the Roman Empire, Mesoamerica, the Philippines, Egypt, and India to emphasize the concept of motherhood as a worldwide phenomenon and experience. While covering a wide geographical range, the editors arranged the collection thematically to explore themes including the relationship between the mother, particularly ruling mothers, and children and the mother in real life and legend. Some essays explore related issues, such as adaptation and child custody after divorce in ancient Egypt and the mother in religious culture of late antiquity and the ancient Buddhist Indian world. The contributors utilize a variety of methodologies and approaches including textual analysis and archaeological analysis in addition to traditional historical methodology.

1. Introduction.- I. Motherhood and Religion.- 2. ‘I Arose a Mother in Israel:’ Motherhood as a Liberating Power in the Biblical Stories of Miriam and Deborah.- 3. Models of Devotion?: The Rhetoric of Ambivalence and Admonition in Late Antique and Early Christian Discourse on Women and Motherhood.- 4. Motherhood in the Ancient Indian Buddhist World: A Soteriological Path.- II. Motherhood and Politics.- 5. Mother knows Best: Motherhood and Succession in the Seleucid Realm.- 6. Mamaea’s Little Man: Alexander Severus, His Mother, and the Germanic War.- 7. Jingû: Narratives of Motherhood and Imperial Rule in Early Japan.- III. Motherhood and Identity.- 8. Earthly and Divine Mothers in Ancient Egypt.- 9. Bronze Age Beginnings: The Conceptualization of Motherhood in Prehistoric Europe.- 10. From Cybele to Artemis: Motherhood and Great Mothers of Ancient Anatolia.- 11. Motherhood, Personhood, Identity, and Place-making in Ancient Mesoamerica