Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Over the two decades that archaeologist Gus Van Beek excavated Tell Jemmeh, an Assyrian settlement inhabited from around 3,800 to 2,200 years ago, he recovered so many objects, it took the Smithsonian 40 years to catalogue them all. There were coins. Scarabs. Amulets. And an amount of pottery so vast, some of it later would have to be discarded.
But for Van Beek, the site – in what is now modern-day south-west Israel – yielded a discovery that was "among the more enigmatic objects recovered": 17 small, rounded discs – some made of chalk, some of stone, but most upcycled from potsherds – with two deliberate holes in the centre.
Van Beek wasn't the first archaeologist to discover objects like these. Nor was he the last. They've been found at sites across Japan, Egypt, India, and the Americas, among others. Three were found in New York City at the site of a British army camp during the American War of Independence, one fashioned from a coin. Others found elsewhere date back 4,000 years.
www.bbc.com
I'm not so sure that they had a childhood as we know it today. Girls were learning how to weave and participating in a religious function by age 7 in Athens and they were married by age 12. At age 7 the boys were in a military camp in Sparta. The concept of a childhood didn't happen in the US until the kids were forced to go to school and that was just to remove them from the workforce.
But for Van Beek, the site – in what is now modern-day south-west Israel – yielded a discovery that was "among the more enigmatic objects recovered": 17 small, rounded discs – some made of chalk, some of stone, but most upcycled from potsherds – with two deliberate holes in the centre.
Van Beek wasn't the first archaeologist to discover objects like these. Nor was he the last. They've been found at sites across Japan, Egypt, India, and the Americas, among others. Three were found in New York City at the site of a British army camp during the American War of Independence, one fashioned from a coin. Others found elsewhere date back 4,000 years.
The mystery ancient toys puzzling archaeologists
The world's oldest toys date back thousands of years – but determining whether ancient children played with them, and how, remains a mystery archaeologists are piecing together.
www.bbc.com
I'm not so sure that they had a childhood as we know it today. Girls were learning how to weave and participating in a religious function by age 7 in Athens and they were married by age 12. At age 7 the boys were in a military camp in Sparta. The concept of a childhood didn't happen in the US until the kids were forced to go to school and that was just to remove them from the workforce.
click on the link buddy.
