ABSTRACT
We quoted earlier one designer’s definition of a toy: ‘anything is a toy if I choose to describe what I am doing with it as play’. That is all very well, but, as we have already seen in considering dolls, it does not help us very much when it comes to identifying what objects were originally made with the purpose of play in mind. To some extent, the historian or archaeologist has to rely on circumstantial knowledge of the life styles of the period when deciding on whether a particular object had a play function or some other use. But is there such a thing as a toylike quality? What makes an object a toy?
