Maribelisa Gillespie

Agnes Scott College

AIA Anna C. and Oliver C. Colburn Fellow

Research Topic: Figurines, Craft Production, and Social Transformation in Late Bronze Age Greece

When Heinrich Schliemann unearthed hundreds of small clay figurines at Mycenae in 1876, he assumed they were religious icons, humble representations of the goddess Hera. Nearly 150 years later, that interpretation still dictates how we approach them, despite the nuances and challenges several scholars have brought to bear. Belisi is reexamining these clay figurines not as static symbols of worship, but as commodities produced at high-volume and that actively shaped the cultural practices of the communities that used them.

With support from the Colburn Fellowship, she will travel to Greece during the 2026-2027 academic year to study museum collections of Mycenaean terracotta figurines to investigate how these objects were produced, circulated, and used across communities. Her research shifts the focus from what figurines “meant” to what they did: who made them, how production scaled to meet demand, and how they moved through exchange networks alongside pottery, textiles, perfumes, and other goods.