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This infant burial is from Çatalhöyük , a Neolithic settlement in Turkey that was occupied continuously for 2,500 years, between 8000 and 6400 BCE. The infant was between six months and one year old, and the burial demonstrates great care. The… [more]

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This object made from terracotta was most likely a child's pull toy. Approximately 11 centimeters high and 16.5 centimeters long (4.3 x 6.5 inches), it features functional wheels and a hole at the mouth for a string. The buffalo shows traces of… [more]

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These two infant tunics, found south of Cairo by archaeologists, date to the period after the Arab conquest of Egypt. The first tunic, measuring 45 centimeters long and 47 cm wide (17.7 x 18.5 inches), was made of a single length of hand-woven brown… [more]

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This finely carved ivory doll with moveable arms and legs was found in the grave of a girl approximately five years of age in Tarragona, Spain, a port city south of Barcelona. It dates to the 3rd or 4th century CE. The girl's skeleton was adorned… [more]

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Archaeologist W. M. Flinders Petrie found this child's sock, dated to the 2nd century C.E., in a cemetery at Oxyrhyncus, a Greek monastic centre on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. The sock is made of wool yarn in a technique called "sprang," or loop… [more]

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Susan Douglass

The vast collection of the Metropolitan Museum is effectively arranged and integrated on the www.metmuseum.org website. Navigation of the site is… [more]

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In Greek and Roman times children and adults often wrote on ostraca (that is, pieces of broken pottery and limestone flakes). They were costless and convenient writing materials. On this flat limestone piece a student practiced letters of the… [more]

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The material culture of early childhood in the 21st century is characterized by an emphasis on biological age and related levels of cognitive and motor skill development. All types of objects, including diapers, toys, food products, and clothing, are… [more]

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Jane Eva Baxter

Studying everyday material objects made and used for children—diapers, baby food, clothing, toys—provides an opportunity to investigate contemporary American childhood; it challenges students to think critically about how childhood is understood in their own culture, and demonstrates that childhood is culturally constructed by people living in a particular time and place. echo [more]

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This moving tribute, carved in the stone of an elaborate shrine, honored a five-year-old boy who died in 170 CE. While the emotions expressed in this inscription seem universal in nature, it is important to note that in Chinese antiquity, mourning a… [more]