New research: Baby toys were mass produced in Early Bronze Age Syria

Forget about BRIO and LEGO. Already 4500 years ago, parents bought professionally produced toys for their babies. The production of clay rattles was a veritable industry for potters at the time.

This is revealed by new research carried out at the National Museum of Denmark and published in the scientific journal Childhood in the Past.

The mixture of clay from which the rattles are made is of the exact same composition as the professionally made pottery from the ancient city of Hama where they were found, showing that the rattles were part of the potters’ professional range alongside other ceramic wares.

The rattles were likely sold at the market.

“It shows us that parents in the past loved their children and invested in their wellbeing and their sensorimotor development, just as we do today. Perhaps parents also needed to distract their children now and then so that they could have a bit of peace and quiet to themselves. Today, we use screens, back then it was rattles,” says senior researcher at the National Museum of Denmark Mette Marie Hald, one of the co-authors of the study.

Rattles – and children – are overlooked in archaeology

Although the rattles contained little pieces of clay or small pebbles, which enabled the production of sound, the noise they make is so low that the scholars rule out the possibility that they might have been used as musical instruments.

Moreover, the handles are very small and not suitable for adults, but they fit exactly into a small child’s hand.

“When you find items such as these, the tendency in archaeology has been to interpret them as musical instruments or even cultic objects when, really, they are something much more down-to-earth and relatable such as toys for children,” says Mette Marie Hald.

Tip of the iceberg

The team of researchers identified a total of 19 rattles from an Early Bronze Age residential quarter within the city of Hama. This is the largest collection of this type of rattles from the Near East.

However, Mette Marie Hald estimates that there must be many more rattles from archaeological sites stored in museum collections, but they are difficult to recognize as such from their fragments.

For this reason, the scholars have put together a manual to identify rattles, says Mette Marie Hald.

“I hope that this will provide us with a greater insight into the world of children in the past. From an economic point of view, it is fascinating that already 4500 years ago, there was an actual market for commercial toys. At the same time, it is touching to get a glimpse of a family’s everyday life – perhaps a parent stopped at a market stand on their way home and bought a rattle as a present for their child. This scenario is entirely recognisable to us today.”

The study was financed by Independent Research Fund Denmark.