Spinning tops in the classical world (book)

Started by ta0, July 20, 2021, 04:46:34 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

ta0

Quote from: peonza on July 10, 2022, 02:34:18 AM
Yes Jesus played with tops. There is a painting titled "Das Leben Christi und Mariens" by a painter of Cologne school who painted a scene with jesus Christ playing with a whip top. This painting is about 1410/1420
Great find!

Quote from: peonza on July 10, 2022, 02:39:42 AM
In Galicia, northwest of Spain, we named the spinning top like "buxaina" because it is made of woodbox (buxux)
It's nice to see the continuity of the name for at least 20 centuries.

ta0

#16
Going back another century (!), a nice analogy of the emotions of love in a poem (Elegiae, book1, poem 5, lines 3-4) by Albius Tibullus (c. 55 BC – 19 BC):

QuoteNamque agor ut per plana citus sola verbere turben,
Quem celer adsueta versat ab arte puer.

I am pushed like a fast top moved on flat surfaces by
the whip that the child with experience spins quickly


By the way, I have developed a theory on the origin of tops that use strings (contrary to finger tops) and why whip tops seem to be the first tops invented in ancient times, and independently in many cultures. This is something I had always found surprising, as they seem more complex than other tops. In my theory, string tops would have appeared only after the invention of the whip and therefore after the domestication of animals that are managed using whips. Children would naturally start playing with whips and hitting random things. Pushing things around with a whip could be fun, specially if they are round and roll far. I can imagine a skillful kid hitting a pine cone of the right dimensions and being fascinated when it stood up and spun like a top. If the spirit of the whip could make the pine cone spin, why not hit it again to try to keep it spinning? The rest, as they say, is history.
In this theory, throw tops that are wrapped with a string come much later. First, players would figure out that the top is much easier to start spinning if wrapped with the end of the whip and thrown that way. Eventually, the stick was eliminated and games that didn't involve keeping the top spinning were developed.

ta0

#17
This is a plate from the book, showing two early sculptures of older boys with tops:



The bronze statuette on the right is the oldest, from the Etruscan civilization, dated to the last decades of the 4th century B.C. The left hand appears to have held something originally, probably a whip.
The bronze on the left was found just north of Rome and probably made in Pompei (therefore earlier than 79 A.D.). This one still has the whip on the left hand.

ta0

#18
Let's finish the first major section of the book.

The painting on the vase on the left is attributed to Athenian vase-painter Douris (active c. 500 to 460 BCE.) It shows the kidnapping of Ganymede by Zeus. The top (konos) on the hand of the boy on the left, a playmate of Ganymede, symbolizes the youthfulness of the adolescents. He also has a whip (mastix) on the other hand (not seen on the picture.)



The second vase (attributed to the "painter of London", 500-480 BCE) shows Hermes spinning a whip top. Hermes is a multifaceted god but one of his missions is to guide children and therefore it's associated with play  although, according to the book, the only toy with which he is painted is the top.
Here is another pottery showing Hermes with a top and also attributed to Douris (I'm replacing the B&W image of the book by a photo from the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum):



From the museum page:
QuotePerhaps the youth, teetering on the edge of manhood, is dedicating his childhood top to Hermes. This rite of passage is captured in the Greek Anthology VI 309:

"To Hermes... he hangs toys of his boyhood: his noiseless ball, this boxwood rattle, the knuckle-bones he had such mania for, and his spinning-top."

The depiction of the shape of the whip top is pretty consistent, as shown in this other vase (attributed to the "painter of Brigos" 480s-470s BCE) where it's likely also whipped by Hermes:



By the way, I have a top that Rocco made with a very similar shape, except that it's more elongated as it's meant to the thrown not whipped.

The book says that the images with Hermes probably represent the boys leaving childhood and offering their toys to the gods.

A more forceful stop of the games is given by this vase painting that shows Eros, the god of love, making the youth leave the top on the ground:



As it was the case over 2000 years ago, girlfriends tend to stop boys from continuing to play.  >:D
However, this part of the book ends with this cliffhanger: "as we continue with our analysis, one fact seems to emerge clearly: Eros likes to play with spinning tops a lot."  :o

Ketzaltlipoka