While the art of reduction holds endless fascination, its power is not easily explained. Lévi-Strauss famously said that scale reduction allows one to see the whole at once, rather than one part at a time. Are there some basic processes at work that crosscut the staggering diversity in reduced-scale objects over space and time? Figurines, miniatures and models have attracted quite diverse approaches across archaeology, art history, and anthropology, though similar themes do recur. Using examples principally drawn from the ancient Aegean, I will offer some thoughts on how scale reduction operates in relation to time and creativity.

Carl Knappett is the Walter Graham/ Homer Thompson Chair in Aegean Prehistory at the University of Toronto. His  main research interests are networks and materiality. His publications include Thinking Through Material Culture (2005) and An Archaeology of Interaction (2011), while his current book project is called Meaning in the Making: Creativity in Aegean Bronze Age Art. He has studied and published pottery from various Bronze Age sites across the east Mediterranean and directs the new excavations at the Bronze Age town of Palaikastro in east Crete.