Play and Ritual at Carthage. Some Remarks on a Terracotta Doll

Abstract

Far from being two distinct and distant spheres, play and ritual had blurred boundaries in antiquity, when they may have sometimes overlapped. In light of recent attention to toys in the ancient Mediterranean, this article reconsiders a remarkable yet fragmentary nude standing female figure with articulated arms from the excavations by the German Archaeological Institute in the so-called Magon Quarter at Carthage. It provides a detailed analysis of this terracotta figurine and its find-context, but it also assesses various hypotheses on its original use by considering similar artefacts in ancient and contemporary societies. Through this investigation, dolls emerge as objects whose use was not merely limited to children and play, but it could have been extended to adults and ritual, especially in those cases when a possible divine iconography was portrayed.