Amulets, Gaming Pieces, Toys or Offerings? Thoughts on Animal Figurines and Funerary Practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean

This article, published in the Board Game Studies Journal in 2022, asks whether a set of objects from a Late Bronze Age tomb assemblage at Katsambas on Crete, along with related animal figurines and shells from Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean burials, functioned as gaming pieces, amulets, ornaments, toys, or votive offerings. Its central thesis is that the evidence does not support a single confident interpretation: while a gaming-set reading for the Katsambas finds is plausible, the items were recovered from separate contexts and their link to a specific burial is not firmly established.

The author's detailed analysis focuses on the faience bovine figurine from Katsambas, which is argued to be a personal ornament or amulet on the basis of parallels with beads and pendants from Mycenae, Tiryns, and Thebes. Comparable couchant animal figurines, including the large Mycenaean ivory lion and Phaistos ivory examples, are judged unlikely to have been game pieces given the absence of clear Aegean game boards, a contrast with the Egyptian mehen and senet evidence often invoked in comparison. Bronze couchant figures from Cyprus and Ugarit are more plausibly weights.

The study's geographic and chronological scope centres on the Late Bronze Age Aegean, particularly Crete and the Greek mainland (with Late Helladic III tombs at Prosymna and Perati), and extends to Cyprus at sites such as Kalavasos and Hala Sultan Tekke. Its material categories include faience, ivory, bronze, terracotta, and cone shells found in both child and adult burials.

The article's broader conclusion is that function varied with object material and shape, and that terracotta animal figurines in children's graves were likely votive or symbolic, possibly used as toys in life. Confirming toy use would require evidence of wear, repair, or association with childhood possessions, which is rarely documented. Overall, the author regards many interpretations as plausible but unproven.