The vast majority of ancient civilizations maintained a custom in common:the fascination and habit of dolls . Currently, children, mostly girls, have the habit of having and playing with dolls. But can we say that this love for dolls of today's children is a legacy of antiquity?
The history of dolls began in Ancient Egypt around 2000 BC Many archaeologists have found dolls in Egyptian excavations; some were made of wood , others from clay .
Archaeologists who found and researched the remains left by the people of Ancient Egypt claimed that clay dolls were used to accompany the pharaohs to the world of the dead , that is, they were placed in the tombs together with the body of the pharaoh. This practice was adopted to replace close people, relatives and slaves who were previously buried with the pharaoh. Therefore, such a practice avoided the sacrifice of people .
The doll in Ancient Greece , more specifically in Athens , had almost the same current usage. Athenian children used dolls as toys . Another function that dolls had in Athens, which diverges from the current uses by children, was the symbolic practice that the doll performed during marriage. Athenian women used to consecrate their dolls to the goddess Aphrodite , which represented love and beauty (this practice represented a kind of wish for luck in love).
Going back to the beginning of the text, we can say that children's taste for dolls today can be considered a heritage from Antiquity, that is, Athenian Greek heritage – a knowledge that was not lost during the historical process and that has reached the present day with its due strength.