Images of woman and child from the Bronze age : reconsidering fertility maternity and gender in the ancient world This book is a study of the woman and child motif as it appeared in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean focusing on Egypt the Levant Anatolia Mesopotamia Iran Cyprus and the Aegean. Rather than being a universal symbol of maternity or a depiction of a mother goddess the woman and child motif called by the technical name kourotrophos was relatively rare in comparison wtih other images of women in antiquity and served a number of different symbolic functions ranging from honoring the king of Egypt to giving extra oomph to magical spells