Worlds in Miniature
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Worlds in Miniature Worlds in Miniature Contemplating Miniaturisation in Global Material Culture Edited by Jack Davy and Charlotte Dixon First published in 2019 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.uclpress.co.uk Text © Contributors, 2019 Images © Contributors and copyright holders named in the captions, 2019 The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. This book is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Davy, J. and Dixon, C. (eds.). 2019. Worlds in Miniature: Contemplating Miniaturisation in Global Material Culture. London: UCL Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111. 9781787356481 Further details about Creative Commons licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in the credit line to the material. If you would like to re-use any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons license, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. ISBN: 978-1-78735-650-4 (Hbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-649-8 (Pbk.) ISBN: 978-1-78735-648-1 (PDF) ISBN: 978-1-78735-651-1 (epub) ISBN: 978-1-78735-652-8 (mobi) ISBN: 978-1-78735-653-5 (html) DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787356481 Contents List of figures vi List of tables x Contributors xi Acknowledgements xiv 1. What makes a miniature? 1 Jack Davy and Charlotte Dixon 2. Exmoor’s minilithic enigma 18 Douglas James Mitcham 3. Miniaturisation in early Egypt 39 Grazia A. Di Pietro 4. Miniaturisation among the Makah 61 Jack Davy 5. Interview with boat model-makers, Cliff Swallow and Pat Howard 82 Cliff Swallow, Pat Howard and Charlotte Dixon 6. Miniaturising boats: the case of the Indian masula surf boat 99 Charlotte Dixon 7. Composing Warao indigeneity and miniatures 119 Christian Sørhaug 8. A sense of scale 139 James Lyon Fenner 9. Interview with Henry Milner, architectural model-maker 158 Henry Milner and Jack Davy 10. Some thoughts on the measure of objects 176 Susanne Küchler Index 189 v List of figures Figure 2.1 Stone F of East Pinford stone setting with a 30cm scale. Photo Douglas James Mitcham. 19 Figure 2.2 Longstone Barrow, a Bronze Age burial mound on Challacombe Common. Photo Douglas James Mitcham. 20 Figure 2.3 Plan of Porlock Allotment II stone setting. Produced by Douglas James Mitcham. 32 Figure 2.4 Stone C of Porlock Allotment II stone setting. Photo Douglas James Mitcham. 32 Figure 3.1 Sites mentioned in the text. Compiled by G.A. Di Pietro. 42 Figure 3.2 Selection of miniature vessels found at the settlement of Zawaydah, Naqada (field inv. nos 24, 25, 81, 26; photo G.A. Di Pietro). 44 Figure 3.3 Selection of miniature boats found at the settlement of Zawaydah, Naqada (field inv. nos 28, 532a; drawings G.A. Di Pietro and Nadia Sergio). 45 Figure 3.4 Terracotta figurine of a cow from Hierakon- polis (10 x 5.8 x 17cm; Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 09.889.323. Creative Commons-BY). 49 Figure 4.1 Makah canoe miniature, 93.IV.39 (Ozette Collection), Makah Cultural and Research Centre. 64 Figure 4.2 Makah canoe miniature, c.1905, Young Doctor, National Museum of the American Indian, 068874. 69 Figure 4.3 Alex McCarty, miniature canoe on sale at the Makah Culture and Research Center. Photo Jack Davy, 2015. 71 vi Figure 4.4 Alex McCarty demonstrating carving tech- niques on a miniature canoe, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, 2015. Photo by Jack Davy. 75 Figure 5.1 Model of the Flying 15 made by Cliff Swallow with a model of HMS Bounty in the back- ground. Photo Charlotte Dixon. 84 Figure 5.2 Half-model of a Yarmouth lugger made by Pat Howard. Photo Charlotte Dixon. 85 Figure 5.3 Model-making kit of HMS Pickle. Photo Charlotte Dixon. 86 Figure 5.4 Cliff Swallow’s model of the sailing boat Curlew. Some of the planking on one side has been omitted to show how the boat was made with a series of frames. Photo Charlotte Dixon. 95 Figure 5.5 The full-size Curlew under sail in Falmouth in 2005. © National Maritime Museum Cornwall. 96 Figure 5.6 Cliff and Pat holding models they have made in the boat-building workshop at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Photo Charlotte Dixon. 97 Figure 6.1 Photograph of a masula boat at Madras (Chennai), Tamil Nadu, taken by Nicholas & Company during the 1880s. © The British Library Board. Photo 406/2(40). 102 Figure 6.2 Model of a masula boat used in the surf in India, c.1890. It is a flat-bottomed boat made from wooden planks stitched together. Approximate length is 625 mm. National Maritime Museum collection (inventory number AAE0046 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London). 104 Figure 6.3 Model of a masula boat from Madras (Chennai), India, acquired in 1869. It has been painted red, has a number ‘3’ painted on either end, contains oars and an awning and seating area that has been dismantled. It measures 640 mm in length. British Museum collection (inventory number As.5869.a © The Trustees of the British Museum). 105 LIST OF FIGURES vii Figure 6.4 Earliest recorded dates the masula models were made, collected or acquired into museums. Compiled by Charlotte Dixon. 106 Figure 7.1 Young man with model balahoo. Photo Christian Sørhaug. 120 Figure 7.2 Coloured hau fabric drying on a line. Photo Christian Sørhaug. 132 Figure 7.3 Warao boy with a miniature boat. Photo Christian Sørhaug. 134 Figure 7.4 Miniature Warao baskets and other ephemera. Photo Christian Sørhaug. 135 Figure 8.1 Portland Lerret in its 1963 showcase in the Shipping Gallery. Inventory 1938–461. Scale 1:16 (© Science Museum/SSPL). 140 Figure 8.2 Raphael Roussel touching up his Medieval Ploughing diorama in 1953. It was classified by Insley as a ‘modelled painting’ (Insley 2008) (© Science Museum/SSPL). 145 Figure 8.3 Jenny Clements and Gordon Whatman making the cardboard mock-ups for each of the displays of the Sailings Ships Gal- lery dated in the early 1960s. Notice the variety of display mock-ups already con- structed above them on the shelves and also the advertising poster for the gallery in the background. Image courtesy of the Science Museum curator Jane Insley. (© Science Museum/SSPL). 148 Figure 8.4 The Medway Doble model in its modelled landscape foreground scene complete with fisherman and gull. When creating such scenes, scale was just as much a difficulty as when manufacturing the models themselves. (© Science Museum/SSPL). 150 Figure 8.5 Still from the virtual tour of the Shipping Gallery showing the whole of the exhibition space in intricate detail. The gallery was laser scanned before the 1,800 objects were removed, making a digital video tour record of one of the Science Museum’s longest-serv- ing exhibition spaces. See http://www. viii LIST OF FIGURES digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/motion- graphics/science-museum-reveals- 3d-model-of-shuttered-gallery/, 2013. (© Science Museum/SSPL). 154 Figure 9.1 Henry Milner in his workshop, 2018. © Henry Milner. 159 Figure 9.2 Comparison of Shukhov Tower, Moscow, with Milner’s miniature. © Henry Milner. 165 Figure 9.3 Thames miniature for Henley River and Rowing Museum. © Henry Milner. 167 Figure 9.4 Comparison of British Telecom Tower, London, with Milner’s miniature. © Henry Milner. 172 LIST OF FIGURES ix List of tables Table 2.1 The potential impacts of miniaturisation. Originally from Mitcham 2017: 188, with sources indicated. 30 Table 2.2 Stone size data for Porlock Allotment II. From Mitcham 2017: 186; Quinnell and Dunn 1992: 60. 31 x Contributors Dr Douglas James Mitcham is the Community Heritage Officer for York- shire Dales National Park Authority. He is an archaeologist with particu- lar interests in prehistoric landscapes and monuments, lithic technology, archaeological theory and applied GIS in archaeology. He has worked in commercial archaeology and previously held a PhD studentship funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Exmoor National Park Authority at the University of Leicester. His thesis produced a detailed synthesis of Exmoor’s Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes. Dr Grazia A. Di Pietro’s research centres on the prehistoric cultures of the lower Nile Valley, especially in the period that witnesses the emergence of social complexity and the state (c. fourth millennium BC), and on the various social, economic, political and cultural transforma- tions that accompanied the process of state formation. She obtained her PhD in African Studies/Archaeology and Prehistory of Africa at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ in Italy (2011). Having conducted a major postdoctoral project at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, UK (2013–15), she is currently preparing the results of archaeological investigations carried out by the Italian Archaeological Mission of the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, at the site of Naqada, Egypt, in 1977–86 for final publication, a project hosted by the Oriental Museum ‘Umberto Scerrato’, University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Italy.