Well before yo-yo mania struck in the 1930s, and even before 18th-century French audiences watched Figaro nervously playing with a toy that “dispels the fatigue of thinking,” the ancient Greeks were using metal, wooden and clay disks to “skin the cat” and “shoot the moon.” Yo-yo’s like the terracotta example above, dating to about 460 B.C., have been found in archaeological excavations throughout Greece. Images of people playing with yo-yo’s were also painted on vases and plates, such as the mid-fifth-century B.C. plate above. Children in ancient Greece and Rome played with a variety of toys—including tops, hoops, marionettes, […]
