Category: History

Mayan Dwarf Liminality

February 23, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

Short-statured people, dwarfs and people with achondroplasia play a significant role in Maya mythology because it is believed that dwarfs lived together with the gods before humans even existed. This presumed divine proximity and intimacy with the unknown gave small-statured status. They knew something the…

The Devil’s Dwarfs

June 4, 2015 By arne hendriks 0

During WWI the British Army made it perfectly clear that no man under the height of 160cm (5 ft 3 inches) was deemed strong enough to fight and serve their country. But as the war dragged into the second year, with the enormous losses in men’s…

Tall Tales: The Well-Heeled Wobble

November 16, 2013 By arne hendriks Off

Tall Tales investigate signs, stories and tropes on how our obsession with tallness became so culturally embedded that we experience it as natural, normal and inevitable. One of the most accepted and visible products of our desire to be taller are high heels. Throughout history men,…

Tall Tales: Langen Kerls

October 10, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Tall Tales is a new series of stories that investigate our obsession with height. Throughout history there have been iconic moments, stories and situations that shaped the fundamental yet unfounded belief that taller is better. First up; the Potsdam Giants. The Potsdam Giants was a Prussian infantry regiment composed…

Abundance Fantasies: The Grapes of Canaan

April 15, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Our desire for abundance represents both the cause for the planet’s perilous condition and the incentive for a possible solution. If (despite Earth’s dwindling resources) we want to continue our present lifestyles, and the desire for abundance is stronger than the desire for being tall, eventually…

Hourglass, Banana, or Spoon?

March 31, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Even within a speculative research such as The Incredible Shrinking Man it is difficult to imagine what the average human body will look like if we decide to shrink to 50 centimetres. However, based on the specific physical adaptations to environment and our various diets…

Counterfactual History

September 22, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

If we consider contemporary human size as just one possible outcome of different evolutionary possibilities then perhaps it becomes easier to envision a different, short-sized, future. What if human evolution had developed differently? Counterfactual history tries to answer what-if questions. It explores history by means…

Trijntje Keever / Groote Meidt

February 13, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

At 260cm Trijntje Keever from The Netherlands may well be the tallest woman known in history. Although she lived in the 17th century, when records were scarce and giants often exaggerated height for financial gains at the funfair, there is evidence that she was indeed that…

(Mad) Scientist Fiction

October 24, 2011 By arne hendriks 1

Mankind seems so indoctrinated to think bigger that sometimes the mere suggestion that we should become smaller is thoughtlessly rejected as mad science. Ever since the 20th century our relationship with science, vacillating between science as the salvation of society or its doom, has been personified by…

Court Dwarfs: Seneb & Bes

September 26, 2011 By arne hendriks 1

In ancient Egypt a remarkable number of dwarfs gained prestigious roles within the dynasty. This can be concluded from the remains of their lavish burials. Egypt’s best known dwarf was Seneb, which means healthy. His career is documented on the false door and the plinths of…

Anthropology of Small Mythological Characters

July 11, 2011 By arne hendriks 1

Undoubtedly myths have some responsibility for how we define our relationship with the small. Mythical explanations of the world often present small beings as metaphors for the unexplainable. The small have become a space to project human desires, fears, ideals and ideas. Knowledge of this vast…

7 Billion

January 1, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

In 2011 the world population will reach 7 billion.  To put this into perspective; around 8000 BC at the dawn of agriculture, the Earth’s population was only 5 million. At the beginning of our calendar (0 AD) this had increased to around 200 million. During the Industrial…

Dwarf Worship

June 27, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

At the end of the 19th century R.G. Haliburton ‘hunted’ for a secret dwarf tribe he believed to live somewhere in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. It aroused quite some interest as this article in The New York Times dated 27 september 1891 shows. The…

Shrink Mankind, Stop Working.

June 2, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

According to this article in TIME Magazine children with unemployed fathers are shorter. This is probably the result of what auxologists call environmental insults like an unhealthy living situation and low quality food. The article also states that taller people are healthier people. Or to…

History of Height

May 11, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Anthropometric history explains trends, cycles, and patterns caused by changes in the social, economic and epidemiological environment. In times of hardship people tend to grow smaller. But the reason for this is maybe not as straight forward as it may seem. A smaller person is more…

From Macro to Micro

April 28, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

As people start shrinking, Earth and everything on it will proportionally, grow in size. This growth of space and resources is actually one of the main reasons to consider shrinking as a sustainable way of inhabiting the earth. At the same time it holds the…

Napoleon Complex Myth

April 27, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

Napoleon complex (also, Napoleon syndrome or Small Man syndrome) is a colloquial pejorative term used to describe a type of inferiority complex which is said to affect people who are short. The term is also used more generally to describe people who are driven by…