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Toys for little girls

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Ancient girls played with dolls just like our little daughters. The most ancient of those toys date back to the 2000 B.C. and have been located in Aegypt, where they were found near the remains of a little girl. They were very simple ragdolls shaped as grown up girls and as them dressed. Their hair, made up by a mass of big threads of black wool, fell down the cheeks and framed their little flat faces, just the kind of flat faces that all stuffed ragdolls have. Eyes, nose and mouth, roughly sketched were not perfect, but it is a sure thing that to the eye of their little mistress they were one of the most beautiful things of her short life.
Changing places and times many other kind of dolls were made. Some of the more ancient found in Greece were clay ones made in Beotia (fig.2) around the VIII cent. B.C.. Some of them were 0.50 m high with a large bell-shaped gown adorned with drawings of fishes, birds and geometrical designs. Their legs, separately done and mobiles were fixed to the doll’s body with wires. Nevertheless those giant dummies, more like clay statues, were probably used in funerary ceremonies or as offerings to the temples: heavy as they were, it would have been very difficult for a child to play with them.
What is interesting is that all those ancient dolls, starting from the Aegyptian ragdolls, going on with the clay ones and ending with the later models molded in precious wood or in ivory, were always shaped as marriageable girls. Evidently the idea to have a baby doll and to mother it never passed the minds of ancient times little girls. They prefered to have grown up girl with splendid trousseau, clothes that any of their little mistresses would have been more than happy to wear themselves. In short ancient dolls were a kind of glorified Barbies, and as this ultramodern doll, they had gowns, dresses, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. The only difference between them and Barbie was that, also if this modern doll looks stunning, her elegance is only a pretense and all her wardrobe is a great waste of rayon and plastic, while the wearing apparels of the ancient “pupae” were made with precious cloth and they paraded real jewels made with pearl and gold.
In Greece, during the Dedalean celebrations, these dolls dressed as bride were brought in a public procession. However very often, notwithstanding the richness and luxury of their attire they were made of simple clay because the first ones to produce them in ancient Greece were the modest ceramists, the ones that Plato included in the potters’s and bricks makers category. However Plato is not the only one to say that most of the ancient dolls were made with the same slurry with which also jugs and tiles were made.
As a matter of fact Lucianus, speaking of his writings declared that the fine words he used in them were for him like the clay with which the potters fashioned the red and blue colored dolls that were sold in the Agora, the same dolls that would share their little mistress destiny, and that, in the case of the child premature death, would accompany her in the life to come. Thus girls with their dolls are found in all the cemeteries. One of those poor souls appears in the basrelief of a funerary stele where she is represented holding one of those cheap ceramists’s dolls, a small clay friend that the little one is bringing with her in her last journey (fig.3).
Usually those ancient “pupae” are found in the coffins of little girls, but surprisingly in ancient Rome dolls were also found in grown up women graves. This depended from the fact that, while all boys consecrated their toys to the gods at a well fixed age on which they were supposed to have reached their maturity, young girls did it only when they were marrying. Thus if they remained single they kept their dolls for all the time of their life.
However when they married the girls gave all their toys to the gods and changed dolls for babies. Marriage was the act that marked the limit between a girl carefree youth, and her position as a mother of the family with all her responsibility and cares and, of course, babies. It was an important moment of her life and to mark it there was a ceremony in which the young bride brought her most beloved toys to a goddess under whose protection she puts herself.
“ As she is marrying, Timareta is consecrating to you, o Limnes’ goddess, her drums, her ball, the net which held her hairs and all her dolls. Thus, virgin as she is, she is consecrating to you, virgin goddess, those little virgins with all their clothes. In exchange for it, you, Leto’s daughter, put your hand on Timareto’s daughter and piously take care of this pious girl”
As we have seen also Roman girls, when marrying, parted from their dolls. In the more ancient times they used to offer them to the Lares and Penates and, just as their brothers did, consecrated them to their home’s altar, but, later on, they adopted the Hellenic custom.
There are some proof of this in a Lactantius accusation, in which this rhetor compared the god’s statues to very big puppets, saying that if it was possible to excuse young girls who consecrated their dolls to the temples, the same thing was not pardonable to bearded men. With this declaration Lactantius clears to us that in his times, young Roman girls had ceased to offer their toys at the altar of their household gods and choose to accomplish the ceremony in a temple, where, with their elegant dolls and all their rich jewels, they also brought all the furniture necessary to the everyday’s life of these small “pupae.
Many of all this small scale objects have been found in tombs and in temples. Some were discovered in the tomb of a girl called Graphis, who died when she was 15 years, 2 months and 11 days old. She was born as a slave but her masters, a couple from Aquileia, became so fond of her that they raised the child as if she had been their own daughter, and, when her real mother passed away, adopted her and gave her a patrician name. But Graphis died and they deeply grieved for her, their “carissima” (dearest) girl represented on her tomb as a rose between two dry cones: a reminder of the beauty and youth of the girl between her two aged foster parents. In this tomb then they deposed all her toys, thus mixed with her ashes and bones, 13 little lead miniaturized objects of a small scale furniture were found. Among them there was a chair high 4 cm, a three legged “mensa” high 3 cm, a cilindric box to contain all the crockery 2.5 cm high, then an “olla” 2,7 cm high. In the tomb there were also a pail, a covered basket, a pan with its handle, an oil lamp, two round trays, an oval one with a fish in it, another oval simple plate and a bowl shaped like a shell. On top of all this there was also a real oil lamp all black and shaped like a cone. In short the complete furniture for a doll’s house. Clearly the poor Graphis did never marry and therefore she was buried with all her toys.
A similar collection of furniture for a doll’s house was found in the temple of Venus at Anxur (Terracina). They are part of the offerings that a girl brought to the goddess just before marrying. As in Aquileia we found a series of small lead objects, and we find a similar three legged “mensa”, an easy chair, two stools,a bench, a rectangular table a candle holder, even the image of a slave that holds a tray (figg.4 and 5). Also if those objects were done four centuries before Graphis death, they are very similar to the ones foumd in her tomb.
Furniture, then, small scale furniture. Thus we see that dolls did not only have luxurious clothes and jewels, but they had all the necessary to arrange comfortable homes. Moreover from the very ancient times they even had some servants. Thus from Corinth came a slave doll, a charming cook of the V cent B.C., now in London’s British Museum, a toy that must have made very happy the child to whom it was given. It represents the upper part of a young woman, rotating on a pivot, and pushing a rolling-pin on the dough to prepare lasagnas.
Thus servants and slaves where part of the noble “pupae” household. It is clear that those splendid ancestresses of our modern Barbie would never consent to occupy themselves in menial tasks, and as a matter of fact it is really difficult to imagine, that also if perfectly supple and flexible, the exceedingly beautiful doll found in the tomb of the young Crepereia would accept to bend in two on a table and make lasagnas. At most she could accept to change dresses and jewels three time a day and sit down adored by Crepereia. her mistress, an unfortunate girl. whose tomb was discovered on the Tiber’s banks during the works for the Justice Palace of Rome.
The year was 1899, and it was in May when her coffin was discovered. The Tiber had permeated and filled it, and when his covering was removed, the people looking inside had the impression that the girl’s head was still covered by long black hairs flowing all around her in the water. The new appeared on newspapers and emotioned the town but ulterior examinations proved that the black threads were only algae implanted on poor Crepereia’s skull. The body of the unfortunate girl, as Lanciani told us, was laying in the coffin with her head still turned on the left shoulder as if she was still looking at her splendid doll (fig.6). A very beautiful but also very dark skinned doll
At first the color of the splendid “pupa” made archaeologist think that she had been molded in oak tree’s or even in ebony’s wood, now hardened and nearly petrified for the long period they had been immersed in water, but, some time after, the laboratory examinations recognized it as ivory. In the ancient times her perfect snowy whiteness must have been lightly coloured. Probably a veil of incarnate gave her cheeks a light pink, her lips were certainly a brilliant red and brown or blue gave a natural hue to her so sweet eyes.
With the doll the archaeologist found in the coffin a very small jewel-case all covered by ivory panels. It was broken but it still contained two miniature comb and two small spy-glass for the doll’s toilette. Probably also the little jewels that had ornate the “pupa” and were found scattered in the sarcophage had been kept in the jewel-case.
When the doll was found she still wore one of them, a ring with a key (8) which was set on her right hand’s thumb. Her ears were pierced proving that she wore ear-rings probably decorated by two perforated pearls that were found in the grave. Furthermore, always pertaining to the doll, must have been two small golden circlets kept together by a golden ring: probably a light armlet. Smal prisms of pierced green paste and little golden spirals were probably what was left of her rings.
Her hairdressing was beautiful, but it could never have been arranged combing her hairs with the two little combs contained in the jewel-case, one of which had even lost some tooths. The fact is that the dolls’ hairs had been sculpted in solid ivory and colored in the color favoured by the girls of those time: a golden blond. It is evident that it was not possible to break comb’s tooths arranging solid ivory hairs. Of course we cannot exclude that the poor girl didn’t have other dolls. Ragdolls, maybe, with wigs made by threads that could have been very amusing to comb; simple “pupae” that were certainly reduced to dust in the coffin.
Of course the Crepereia splendid doll’s coiffure was in perfect order and was the latest in fashion, an hair arrangement half way between the one adopted by Faustina Maior, the handsome wife of Antoninus Pius, and the one used by her dissolute daughter, wife of the too much sensible and too much philosophic Marcus Aurelius. In short Crepereia’s doll was a real lady, always following the fashion’s law in their more little nuances, just as a real elegant lady should have done.
Moreover she was also extremely well made. The artisan who molded her was very careful to give her the best verisimilitude to life. Thus he divided the doll in all its part so that she can move with the greatest naturalness. Also its trunk was divided by the head. So that she could turn her head. Moreover arms and legs were divided in two parts each. Later on all those parts had been connected by ivory pins and those pins, set perfectly so to not protrude from the surface, gave the impression that the perfectly supple the “pupa” had also the smooth body of a beautiful woman.
Obviously besides Crepereia’s doll, others existed as beautiful and some of them had real jewels. As an example we have the one which was found in the tomb of the Vestal Cossinia, today kept in the National Roman Museum, a precious doll. As Cossinia lived from the end of the II cent. A.D. her doll was shaped as a girl of those time, and her model was Septimius Severus wife, Giulia Domna. Great was the responsibility of empresses in the hairdressing field: also if they didn’t spend time in charitable works or in other activities proper to important men wives, they could be sure to leave an aeternal imprint in hairdressing’s history.
Very in fashion was Cossinia’s doll and also very rich and supplied of all that was necessary to cut a fine figure. She had been furnished with of a pink jewel box in which she could keep all her jewels: a golden necklace shaped like a double chain and a certain number of golden bracelets some for the arms and some for the ankles.
After this we have all the toys found in the tomb of Maria, the very young bride of the emperor Onorius, a girl who died in the 398 A.D. and brought with her all her dolls. She was married but her “pupae” were in her tomb. Why? Probably, due to the very young age of the couple, the marriage was never consummated. However on this unsuccessful consummatio there had been many gossips. People did not accept the age pretense as an excuse. Many were the Roman couples who married very young, and they never had any trouble to make their marriage work, a fact soon confirmed by many babies arrivals. Other people insinuated that the reason of the dead empress keeping her toys was due to the very young emperor’s impotence. Some other courtiers, who were good friends of Onorius and didn’t want to humiliate him with an impotence accusation, attributed to him an excessive continence. However many were the ones who gave all the faults to Maria’s mother in law, a woman defamed through the centuries. They whispered to each other that the marriage was never consummated because Serena, Onorius’ mother, was against it, and had persuaded her son not to make it effective.However, either this union didn’t work for one of this reasons or for something else, poor Maria died a virgin and brought all her dolls with her. Not a nice happy ending.

Bybliography
Scientific popularization
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Dossier Giocare nel mondo antico in Archeo (Anno IX, nº 6 (112)) June 1994, pp. 40-85

Scientific works
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Giochi e giocattoli, Casa editrice Quasar, Roma 1995