Toy Town

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 252, 20 December 1940, Page 6

Toy Town

5000 YEARS AGO

A S'anta Clmus town' that made toys lor the good little children in 3000 B.C. has been unearthed —in India. And what toys, .you promptly ask, did the good little children ask for? AVliat could the jolly toymakers make in those "high and far-off times?'" For answer, archaeologists can * now produce a large assortment of 5000 year old toys. They show you marbles and whistles, gaj r rattles, sheep that rolled nicely on two ; wheels, and had strings attached for leading the painted beasts. They display ox carts ready to be loaded with pebbles and pulled around flie floor. Any modern child could amuse itself with these old, old playthings. Unearthing this oldest of Santa Claus towns has fallen to the good luck of American archaeologists. . When the Indian Government let down the bars that forbade foreigners to dig in this region, two years ago, two American organisations promptly seized the chance. Forming a joint expedition,, the Boston . Museum of Fine Arts and the A!m<|rican School of Indie and Iranian Studies arranged to dig into three mounds of earth at Chanliu-daro. Hidden inside many such mounds,, of earth have been found dead cities of the East, with streets and stumps of walls piled layer upon layer, just as the people levelled off wreckage of one demolished citj r to build anew on the ruins. ! At Chandu-daro the American archaeologists, led by field director Ernest Mackay, burrowed through two layers of cities and probed down 13 feet, when they found themselves in the town of toys. More and more playthings they pick ed out of this third layer of ruins. The toys were like rare plums or prizes hidden in a big earthen pudding. Mir Maekaj r came to realise that here were far too many playthings to supply children of one town alone, however fortunate.

The only explanation seems to be this: Chanhu-daro in its distant day was like Germany's Nuremberg,, a picturesque and flourishing centre of toy trade. 1 Toys found at Ghanhu-daro break at least one .record for antiquity. Certainly no archaeologist ever before has made such a haul of early toys in quantity. Anil as individual objects these toys of 3000 B.C. rank high among the l world's oldest playthings. There are, of course, objects thousands of years older that may be toys—or they may not. Nobody can tell about them. There is a little , brown Teddy Bear 20,000 years old, for example, found in a grotto of southern France. The little stono bear is a gem of realistic Stone Age art. But whether it Avas the familiar plaything of a cave man's child, or whether it was a charm used in dangerous magic and not for children to dare touch, Avill probably never be proved. A set of chessmen discovered last season dates from almost 400 B.C. These alabaster game pieces were found in the grave of a little boy who lived in the city of Tepe Gawl- - in Mesopotamia. But they represent amusements of a rather older lad, not exactly in a class with tlie very young children's toys that the Indian town lias revealed People examining the Indian play thing are struck by their modern appearance. But that modern touch is what archaeologists have come to expect when they dig up any bit of ancient toy history. Toys for the littlest children have not changed much in 5000 years. Same old wheel toy on string:.-Same rattles, whistles, balls and carts to load and unload. It is a curious touch of human psychology,, that mothers and fathers of so early a time seized upon essential features of play that would amuse the babies. The relative appeals of colour, noise, shape, and other fine points of toy psychology can now be explored scientifically. But so far as 1 the toys go, in basic principle, the Bronze Age toy makers did their work so well, J.hat there has been little change or improvement these thousands of years. "