This 19th C spinning top comes from Sri Lanka, and is made of coconut shell, wood, and string. It is in storage at the British Museum, part of a vast collection gathered by a member of the Ceylon Civil Service called Hugh Nevill (1847-1897), which now seems to be mostly spread between this museum and the British Library.
The top was acquired together with the rest of Nevill’s collection in 1898, after his death, which means that it was gathered (and likely made) sometime during his years in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), from 1865 to 1897. During this period, he was, variously, Private Secretary to the Chief Justice, a writer for the Ceylon Civil Service, Commissioner of Requests, District Judge on two separate occasions, Fiscal for the Central Province, and Assistant to the Government Agent.
His collection at the BM includes six different spinning tops with very similar designs: see here – it was clearly a specific style of spinning top. Aside from these tops, the collection also includes what looks like a string spinner. It is striking to me that Hugh Nevill’s collection does not feature more toys, given that it comprises 2,216 items, including a wide range of objects including swords, jars, cooking implements, bells, and tools.
Take a look, for instance, at the large number of spoon racks he collected (49 results), or armlets (157 results), to pick two objects at random. Perhaps it says something about the relevance or importance assigned to children, or perhaps he was simply not interested himself, though given the wide range of interests he pursued, it stands out to me especially.
Up until the last minute, this week I hesitated between several different spinning tops, including this one from early 20th C Murray Islands (Australia), which is made from volcanic tuff and decorated with a lovely turtle [I especially like the detail that the blue lines were achieved by using Reckitt’s Blue clothes whitening agent!], and was used to play with not by children but by adult men in competitions. I decided that I should save the collection of lovely Australian First Peoples toys I came across for a future portrait of a plaything that is unique to that part of the world. Another candidate that intrigued me was this lovely, smooth spinning top made by Finnish wood artist Markku Kosonen, in which he used a different type of wood for each section. But I settled for this one, as I liked its shape, which is different from most spinning tops I was acquainted with, and it came from a country as yet unvisited in these portraits.
It is interesting that in my search for toys and, specifically, spinning tops, I have found a significant number of examples from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Near East, as well as items from the 19th and 20th centuries from all over the world, but comparatively very little dating from the vast period in-between. I did, however, come across a lovely hoard of toys dating from the early 17th Century in England that was found behind a bricked up stairwell in a church in Harborough – it includes balls, tops and, among other things, tipcat sticks, which I was not previously familiar with. Archaeologists have wondered whether this hoard is made up of toys that were perhaps confiscated from children at church – this instantly evokes memories of being caught red-handed in class, and of toys growing lonely in the teacher’s top drawer, next to old packs of chewing gum and scrunched up secret notes.
Looking into tipcat, I was delighted to see how it brought me back to the Indian subcontinent, where it is known mostly as Gulidanda/Gullidanda/Viti Dandu/ Kitti Pul (in Sri Lanka, among other places). Take a look at these children playing in India, and in Sri Lanka. It is seen by many as the precursor to cricket, and some think it might date back more than 2000 years. Very similar games are also played around the world, including in Italy, Korea, Romania, Iran, Ireland and local regions in Spain, the US, and the UK.
Spinning tops are equally or indeed more ubiquitous than tipcat. I found many references to the ‘earliest spinning top found’ in Ur, Mesopotamia, dating back to 3500 BC. I have not been able to track down an image of this specific find. In China, I found references to wooden objects resembling spinning tops found in sites dating from the Pengtoushan (7500 to 6100 BC) and Hemudu (5500 BC to 3300 BC) Neolithic cultures (see A Companion to Chinese Archaeology), but it is unclear what they were used for.
In any case, there are plenty of ancient examples, including a lovely top found in Tutankhamun’s tomb (14th Century BC). I came across an 8th Century BC spinning top from Athens, which is photographed with a selection of other objects/toys (scroll through the photographs in the British Museum record), including our friendly pig rattle from Cyprus made a few centuries later.
While looking at all the different types and designs, I came across the wonderful little 7-minute film entitled ‘Tops’ made by Charles and Ray Eames in 1969, with music by Elmer Bernstein (who scored, among other things, To Kill a Mockingbird), which charmingly showcases the delight and variety of these playthings found all over the world.
Of course it was only a matter of time before I fell down an Eames rabbit hole, watching wonderful little films like A Communications Primer, or House: After Five Years of Living, as well as recent offerings created by the Eames Office, like a series of videos on Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America.
I was trying to identify what I am reminded of when I look at this top, and eventually realised it was star anise, known in Sri Lanka as biryani mal. A lot of it has to do with the colour and texture of the coconut shell, which is still used today for traditional crafts in Sri Lanka. Hugh Nevill’s collection at the British Museum includes cooking utensils that also have a similar kind of petal pattern – take a look at these lovely spoons, or this one here with a carved figure on the handle.
I like that it has a stem and looks like a flower – a flower made out of coconut shell and wood. The description says one of its components is string, which I imagine is spooled in some way inside the spherical element on the stem. Wouldn’t you like to tug at it, and see its petals and its serrated edges blur as it goes round and round on itself?
It looks natural, familiar even, as though it would look at home in anyone’s hand, and perhaps the reason I am drawn to it is that it makes perfect sense to me as an object, like a toy camouflaged by nature.