Between Deity and Dedicator: The Life and Agency of Greek Votive Terracotta Figurines by Sanne Hoffmann (review)

Reviewed by: Between Deity and Dedicator: The Life and Agency of Greek Votive Terracotta Figurines by Sanne Hoffmann Sarah Murray Between Deity and Dedicator: The Life and Agency of Greek Votive Terracotta Figurines. By Sanne Hoffmann. Berlin: De Gruyter (Image and Context 23). 2023. Pp. xi, 347. Research on ancient Greek and Roman art has not always been evenly applied across categories of material or artifact. Ancient products judged to be of superior aesthetic quality or characterized by an impressive monumental scale occupied an outsized proportion of art historical attention during most of the twentieth century and remain staunchly entrenched in both popular perceptions of the Greco-Roman world and textbook accounts of ancient art. They nonetheless represent a tiny fraction of the rich material cultural output of Greek and Roman artists and craftspeople, which included a vast array of smaller and less immediately prepossessing objects that were long relegated to storage basements and summary catalogs in excavation reports. This book, a revised version of the author's 2019 PhD thesis, joins a growing body of research turning scholars' attention to these previously neglected categories of artifacts, in this case, Greek votive terracotta figurines. Terracotta figurines in a wide variety of shapes and sizes are commonly found in historical Greek ritual contexts. While many are characterized by "mass production" and therefore not considered to be amongst the most beautiful artifacts recovered from Greek ritual contexts, they constitute a quantitatively formidable and spatially widespread source of information for interrogating material characteristics of Greek ritual practice. The book under review endeavors to extract such information through the systematic analysis of relevant assemblages and contexts, structured through the theoretical lens of the chaîne opératoire (the "operational sequence"). This approach to understanding material objects was first articulated by the anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan in the 1960s1 and widely adopted in archaeological case studies throughout the later twentieth century, before more recently trickling into the realm of classical archaeology. Most [End Page 190] studies adopting a chaîne opératoire framework focus on the individual choices and cultural traditions that concern craft production. However, Hoffmann follows a few recent studies in expanding the framework to encompass "the entire life history or life cycle" of figurines, from manufacture through use to disposal (26–27). The book's structure straightforwardly reflects this scope. An introductory chapter reviews basic characteristics of research on Greek terracotta votive figurines and justifies the choice of analytical method. Four substantial chapters discuss evidence for the figurines' production, circulation, dedication, and deposition, as well as the ultimate decline in their use in votive practices. A brief final chapter reviews conclusions resulting from the study. The book is handsomely produced and richly illustrated, with well-placed (often color) photographs that reinforce the author's observations and archaeological plans that are helpful in making clear the figurines' depositional context. The author's comprehensive approach serves to bring out numerous heretofore unappreciated characteristics of the material at the heart of analysis. Chapter Two's discussion of production and circulation emphasizes that terracotta votive figurines were transported across long distances in large numbers. As the author observes, such a distributional pattern is suggestive of a sophisticated logistical system encompassing both manufacturing and circulation, the nature of which has not been dealt with in research on Greek or Mediterranean exchange economies (66–68). It is intriguing that these terracotta figurines were in such demand that they merited the development of a complex and far-reaching system. Hoffmann suggests that the uniformity of the figurines was particularly appealing insofar as it supported diasporic efforts to embrace "Greekness," an idea that one could imagine being developed more thoroughly in future publications. A related and equally compelling observation is that the types identified by Hoffmann appear to be reasonably generic in that they are not restricted to certain periods, regions, or target deities (145). This might indicate that the dedication of votive figurines was more closely linked to spatial variation in the practice of votive-centered rituals rather than to the tailoring of ritual action to the stereotypical attributes or concerns of Olympian...

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