Tag Archives: history of dolls

The Historical Factor of Dolls

I wasn’t going to post until next week because I’m trying to concentrate on my manuscripts.  But I just got a notification from WordPress that it’s the one year anniversary of this blog. So I thought I’d pop on here for a moment to say Happy Anniversary to me, um, Writer Site.

While I’m on here, I thought I’d make a few more points about dolls. This time it’s history, not creepiness.

  • The word doll may come from the Greek word for idol: eidolon. This reminds us that one of the purposes of early dolls was in religion.
  • Most ancient and modern cultures have had dolls, although they were not always children’s toys.
  • Dolls have been made from every material you can imagine.
  • No dolls have survived from prehistoric times, but there are museum examples from the major ancient cultures, such as Egyptian, Greek, etc.
  • Any model of a human being can be viewed as a doll of sorts.
  • Technically, stuffed animals are not dolls, but when I realized that Koko the Gorilla views stuffed gorillas as dolls, I saw how human-centric our thinking is.
  • Dolls look as different from each other as people do from each other.
  • Here’s a link to a basic history of dolls.

Ming Ming by the Quan Quan Company

Mattel’s Ken and wardrobe in Ken doll case

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Filed under Books, Creative Nonfiction, Dolls, Essay, Nonfiction, Poetry, Writing