From Mesopotamia to Central Asia, regions in central Eurasia in the
Hellenistic period are often viewed, presented, and imbued with meaning
as 'places in between' - cultural melting pots, resulting from a fusion
of Eastern and Western cultures after Alexander the Great. Milinda Hoo
critically explores scholarly understandings of cultural inbetweenness
in the regions of Baktria, Parthia, and Babylonia in the third to first
centuries BCE, focusing on the diverse ways in which the model of
Hellenism has been used to make historical meaning out of eclectic
material culture. The sites of Ai Khanum, Takht-i Sangin, Old Nisa,
Seleukeia on the Tigris, and Babylon serve as core case studies to
investigate perceptions of Hellenism in places that are considered
culturally 'inbetween'. These form the foundation for a new translocal
approach, based on globalization concepts, to better and more critically
understand what we consider as Hellenism and localism in the East.