Here are some samples of the wonderful clay toys made by year 3 pupils from Arbury Primary School in Cambridge during my hand-on workshop in June and July 2018!

It was a real pleasure to see their creations come to fruition!

Clay dolls and a clay horse on wheels:

Ways of making: explaining ancient object production to primary school children (outreach)

Two groups of clay objects connected with childhood are often found in ancient Greek sanctuaries or graves. These are:- 1. dolls with movable joints and 2. animals or chariots with two or more wheels.

Both groups of objects were made using a combination of mould-made parts and individual hand-formed parts. The latter was essential in order to generate the movement, which surely was one of the reasons these items were so popular.

In the case of the dolls, the body and head were often mould-made, arm and legs attached by using strings made of plant or metal. This way the figure could not only sit down, but sometimes even be guided to a dancing movement.

Animals or chariots on wheels consisted of an axis from wood or metal and sometimes a hole through the mouth of the animal or otherwise on the items indicates that it could be pulled using by means of a string – very much like modern toys.

Some scholars have argued that these sort of objects found in Greek sanctuaries (i.e. temples and its surroundings) were deposited there by young adults to mark the end of their childhood by dedicating their favourite toys to the gods. When similar objects are found in grave contexts (whether simple burials or cremations), scholars often assume that parents or other close relatives of the deceased child decided to bury their favourite toy(s) with them, accompanying them into the other word. In either case, both types of contexts appear to give us a glimpse of what children in the past loved to play with.

For examples of ancient clay dolls on display in the British Museum London see here: Object 425348 and here: Object 400059

At Arbury Primary School, Cambridge, Year 3 have been studying Ancient Greece as their half-term curriculum, looking especially at themes like daily life, childhood and toys. I was therefore very happy and enthusiastic to share some of my knowledge about the production of objects in the ancient world by running a series of weekly classes at the school.

The first two sessions we just talked about what it is that archaeologist do and how they go about when they try to reconstruct the past. We looked at the types of materials that survive in the soil and then more closely how some of these objects relate to the daily life of children. This was a really stimulating experience as the children at this age (7–8) were genuinely excited and interested, and spent most of the sessions asking some amazingly interesting questions!

In the next session, and to get a better understanding about materials and how the objects in Ancient Greece resemble (or not) modern ones, we looked together at a number of ancient objects more closely using photographs and then handling modern replicas of ancient vessels and toys.

In the final sessions (not yet completed), we then took a hands-on approach to production by getting the children to make their own versions of Ancient Greek toys using clay, string and wooden sticks, after talking about how they were ade and put together. [More information on these toys in a subsequent entry].

I would like to express my warmest thanks to the staff and pupils of Arbury primary school for their warm welcome, to the Year 3 in particular for their enthusiastic participation, and the creativity they shared with me in both their questions and clay works!

AIAC Cologne/Bonn 22 – 26 May 2018

The aim of this panel was to showcase different forms and concepts of trust, examples of commodity branding in the ancient world and the production of fakes in order to address some underlying dynamics of interaction in ancient economic systems. The final line-up included four case studies covering the Archaic to Hellenistic periods, from the Greek mainland and islands as well as modern day Turkey. Presentations were made by three stimulating scholars—Vasiliki Barlou, Simone Killen and Kathleen Garland—from whom I learnt a lot, as well as myself. The concluding panel discussion was excellently steered by Sabine Huy.

— “What’s in a name?” Creating brands and trademarks in ancient Greek sculpture, Vasiliki Barlou (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)

— Trust in tradesman: How poleis protected their consumers, Simone Killen (Universität Wien)

— “Amphoras on amphoras”: diachronic perspectives on trade and the use of the amphora image, Anja Slawisch (Cambridge University)

— Stamps of approval: signalling authenticity in Hellenistic packaging, Kathleen Garland (Cornell University)

To briefly summarize some emerging common themes of the panel:-

Much of the discussion was focussed on the different ways trust was created in antiquity: by the repeated intentional interlinking of personal names (for example the signature of a sculptor) or recognisable objects and symbols (esp. containers for examples amphora) with particular places of origin.

The reputation of excellence for particular products seems, in some cases, to have been enough to allow sustained and augmented demand for them. City symbols (parasema) acted as symbolic guarantors and hence enabled sellers to transfer trust in weight measures to the community as a whole and away from private negotiations. Simultaneously these city images travelled around the ancient world advertising product place of origin. Packaging of the products in connection with the usage of symbols – either by choosing distinctive and easily recognisable shapes for the container; by means of stamping, or a combination of both – could act as a strong visual marker of origin and quality once reputation had been established. While the case-studies confirmed the strong relationship between systems of trust and strategies to create positive reputations, it became clear that the particular ways in which the individual reputation was created and how reputation and trust interact are themes which need further investigation.

I would like to express my thanks to all participants for their enthusiastic participation and discussions, on whose theme we hope to develop further collaboration.

The full programme and all abstracts of the AIAC 2018 can be found here http://www.aiac2018.de/

Panel 5.18 – Trust, Branding and Fakes in the ancient World

On 22nd and 23rd of March 2018 scholars from 5 countries met at the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge to discuss ideascapes and material culture from Ionia during the Greek Archaic period. Under review was the current state of knowledge and the potential for new avenues of interdisciplinary research, which could draw from ancient philosophy and history, classical archaeology and landscape studies (esp. geomorphology).

Through a diverse programme of presentations and discussions, the participants grappled with the boundaries of the ancient landscape of ‘Ionia’ and the exceptional nature (or not) of the ‘Ionian Enlightenment’. It is clear that neither can be firmly defined and that it is time to move beyond our long-inherited disciplinary and geographical containers. Instead we should investigate the way different cities and their overlapping and cross-cutting networks were socially, economically and culturally entwined, and what role these connections played in the production of contemporary ideas and the transmission of cultural knowledge chronologically and spatially.

For detailed information on the programme and for the extended abstract visit: http://ionia.eu/workshop/