Parchments of Gender forms an important source of inter-disciplinary information for the study of gender and the body in ancient history. The central and unifying theme of the collection is the body's relation to gender. With essays covering the ancient communities of Greece, Rome and Judaea, the volume argues that ancient bodies are 'parchments of gender'. They are textual skins on which gender is inscribed and on which can be traced other interconnecting matrices of knowledge and power that give ancient bodies their seemingly legible contours. The volume also demonstrates the central role of antiquity in developing the cultural formation of the gendered body as a concept and a practice which is still prevalent in society today.