Fascination with the tiny: social negotiation through miniatures in Hellenistic Babylonia

Abstract

The tremendous diversity and variety of miniature objects in Hellenistic Babylonia reflects a social environment of intensive cross-cultural interaction and widespread change. Considering the aspect of miniaturization itself reveals how tiny things participated in this social transformation. Through their appealing and non-threatening materiality, miniatures established an intimate connection with their users that encouraged identity sharing and illusions of power over the outside world. Miniatures of performing bodies, such as musicians and theatrical masks, induced users to experiment with new enactments of Greek cultural identities. Soldiers, deities and other powerful bodies in miniature enabled fantasies of control over the wars and political upheavals endemic to Hellenistic Babylonia. Display-oriented figurines depicting interpersonal relationships encouraged self-identification and shaped new ideals of social behaviour. The miniature objects of Hellenistic Babylonia were more than just witnesses to social change; they were also participants in the processes of negotiating new identity norms for this multicultural society.

Keywords:

• Terracotta figurines
• miniaturization theory
• Hellenistic Babylonia
• cross-cultural interaction
• hybridity

Notes

1 Abbreviations used before museum numbers in this article are as follows: BM (British Museum, London), FM (Field Museum, Chicago), KM (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), PM (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia) and TM (Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; objects with this designation are currently held in loan-to-transfer agreement by the Kelsey Museum).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper

Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper is the Assistant Professor and Karl Kilinski II Endowed Chair in Hellenic Visual Culture in the Department of Art History at Southern Methodist University. Her research investigates the terracotta figurines and other miniature objects of Hellenistic Babylonia, with a focus on cross-cultural interaction and multicultural hybridity. She earned her PhD in 2011 from the University of California Berkeley, her MPhil in 2005 from the University of Oxford and her BA in 2003 from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty at SMU, she was Assistant Professor of Ancient Art History at Bowling Green State University.