we continue our survey of The Collector's History of Dolls by Constance Eileen King... cross referenced with Wikipedia because this book is old! and some things are just wrong.
anyway:
the very earliest of dollies have probably not survived the ages. there's some doll-like entities made of durable materials that are still around. like the venus of willendorf...beloved venus... but we're not sure what her function was. was she a toy? was she a fertility object? was she simply a little sculpture?
who is she
(image from wikipedia)
once the ancient Egyptians start making dolls, we get to see examples of them, because in their hot dry climate, a lot more types of artifacts can survive.
many beautiful human figurines were included in Egyptian burial practices. they have an important Purpose: they are servants for the dead.
they're called ushabtis. you don't even have to rob a tomb if you want to see some, the metropolitan museum of art and other museums have taken care of that for you
(image from wikipedia)
from Egypt we also find these interesting paddle dolls.
King suggests that these are fertility objects, that, as they are the perfect shape and size, may also have functioned as toys for children. however, modern egyptologists disagree! they were actually members of a theban girl band... beyond that I'm not sure how to explain it! here is the Wikipedia for more info on these gals.
anyway, an interesting thing about paddle dolls is that in spite of their lack of legs they seem to all have...well... very prominent pubic mounds. that didn't distract me at all. im very academic.
so moving on from paddle dolls.
king talks about other more rudimentary egyptian dolls made of wood and linen and stuffed with papyrus leaves, that children could play with and dress up, though I'm struggling to find much information on them. a lot of the search results about accident Egyptian dolls seem to revolve around these shabti instead.
possibly rag dolls like this?
King then speculates other ancient cultures too had these "jointed" dolls (that i couldn't find Egyptian examples of) but they probably all decayed due to climate.
moving on to greek dolls...
The dolls from ancient greece that have survived are mostly of clay. we know children definitely played with dolls in ancient greece:
plutarch's baby girl loved dolls. 🥲
girls who died young were buried with their dolls and girls who got married would dedicate their dolls to the temple of a goddess. though i could not find any corroborating source, i was interested to read that sappho dedicated her doll to Aphrodite:
as a result of these practices, many of these dolls were preserved in tombs and temples. they were made of clay, with rudimentary joints of wire, string, or gut. kids could dress them up and there was a whole market for doll accessories and furniture.
king points out that these dolls often had awkwardly short arms.
King theorizes that since children studying figure drawing have difficulty making the arms long enough (they just can't conveive of arms being so ridiculously long) probably these uneducated doll makers just didn't realize that they were making the arms too short.
however... ahem! i would suggest a doll's arms simply do not have to be as long as a human's. what are they lifting? what are they trying to reach?
so why would a doll maker make the doll's arms longer than they need to be? 1. it would look weird to a child, who seems to prefer short arms. 2. save on materials 3. dolls made of ceramics, if you make their arms too long, will simply break. they will just break and then what are you left with? short arms
Roman dolls
they seemed to be made similarly and function similarly to those of the greeks. though we do see some more elaborate examples:
this one makes my heart flutter
the following one was included in King's book, though I thought it worth finding a color photograph:
photos from this article
king points out that the arms on *these* dolls are very long... perhaps too long. i notice that they are also jointed at the elbow. perhaps these were a more expensive sort of toy? perhaps for an older, less clumsy child?
the Romans also had rag dolls, though the only ones that survived were in Egypt
here she is. what a love.
she is at the British museum and they would really like to sell me the photo, as if it is not a photo of my very oldest sister. museums have some nerve.
she looks like she was made to Snuggle... but she is too fragile to snuggle now. she sits in storage, in the darkness, in stillness, and waits out the centuries...
Why do so many dolls from history just...look Like This.
[ID: A small doll with wide hips and shoulders and a narrow waist; it is missing its arms, and its neck is the same thickness as its body. The head has wide, staring eyes, a small puckish mouth, and a long nose with weird cylindrical ears. It looks quite haunted.]
