Toys that make a noise go back to the Bronze Age
Submitted by Andy B on Friday, 24 December 2004 Page Views: 3318
Neolithic and Bronze AgeCountry: Scotland Parents who are irritated tomorrow by noisy toys may console themselves: children have been making a racket since the Bronze Age. Archaeologists believe they have identified one of the earliest toys after re-examining pieces of bone found in excavations all over Europe.The toggle-shaped bones, some up to 4,000 years old, had mystified scientists for years until they were compared recently to a simple toy found in remote parts of Britain until the start of the 20th century.
The Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust discovered that the ancient bones were identical to a toy known in Shetland and Orkney as a "snorie bane", or snoring bone. The perforated bones would be threaded with cord or animal sinew and spun.
Catherine Smith, 47, a bone expert, said identical bones had been found at digs in the northern isles, and in Germany, Spain and throughout Scandinavia.
She added: "Traditional toys like the snorie bane would only have survived in the most isolated places. We know that children used to queue to get the bones whenever a pig was killed in Orkney and Shetland even after the turn of the 20th century.
"A snorie bane was quite easily made from a pig's metatarsal, a bone found in a pig's trotter like that on the back of a human hand. You would simply take the bone from either the front or hind trotter, boil and scrape it clean, and bore a hole centrally through the shaft.
"You would then thread a piece of sinew through the central hole and form a loop, twirl it to store energy, and pull. Because there are two metatarsals in each trotter, you could make up to eight snorie banes from each pig."
More: Daily Telegraph
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