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In this volume, Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper investigates the impact of Greek art on the miniature figure sculptures produced in Babylonia after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Figurines in Hellenistic Babylonia were used as agents of social change, by visually expressing and negotiating cultural differences. The scaled-down quality of figurines encouraged both visual and tactile engagement, enabling them to effectively work as non-threatening instruments of cultural blending. Reconstructing the embodied experience of miniaturization in detailed case studies, Langin-Hooper illuminates the dynamic process of combining Greek and Babylonian sculpture forms, social customs, and viewing habits into new, hybrid works of art. Her innovative focus on figurines as instruments of both personal encounter and global cultural shifts has important implications for the study of tiny objects in art history, anthropology, classics, and other disciplines.

Terra-cotta figurines, Hellenistic --- Hellenistic terra-cotta figurines --- Art and society --- History --- Iraq --- Civilization --- Art --- Art and sociology --- Society and art --- Sociology and art --- Social aspects

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"This book is a material culture study, with strong roots in both anthropology (particularly theories of miniaturization and human engagement, as well as the reconstruction of embodied subjectivities) and art history (with focus on iconography, formal properties, and visual engagement). Evidence of archaeological context, beyond the broad contextual information of city/site of discovery, is not taken heavily into account. The reason for this is, simply, that contextual information for these figurines is often problematic. Many were unearthed in the early twentieth century, when archaeological context was not well documented. Small finds from the late periods of Mesopotamian history, a category that includes Hellenistic-era figurines, were not particularly valued or well recorded. Due to their presence in some of the last levels of occupation prior to site abandonment, many were surface finds. Even when meticulous archaeological investigation took place, as in the recent Italian excavations at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, difficulties with determining context or precise chronology were still common. Primary among those difficulties is that most figurines seem not to have been considered particularly valuable or sacred by their ancient users, and so could be disposed of in domestic refuse or reused - thus the final deposition context of a figurine is often not where it was originally used as a figural object. Other scholars have made valiant attempts to grapple with these archaeological issues; for instance, Roberta Menegazzi's 2014 catalogue of the Seleucia-on-the-Tigris figurines deftly explores these complexities and offers many valuable interpretations"--

Terra-cotta figurines, Hellenistic --- Art and society --- History --- Iraq --- Civilization

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'The Tiny and the Fragmented' demands a reconsideration of the social and contextual nature of miniaturization, fragmentation, and incompleteness, making the case that it was because of, rather than in spite of, their small or partial state that these objects were valued parts of the personal and social worlds they inhabited.

Miniature art. --- Material culture. --- Art, Ancient.