I have chosen to include this particular object in my cabinet of plaything curiosities, despite there being some uncertainty as to whether this kind of coil or bobbin was actually used exactly as a yoyo in Ancient Greece.

For the purposes of this little project, I am happy to defer to the Director of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Maria Lagogianni-Georgakarakos , who advised on this article (2020, in Greek), which takes us through several objects that were clearly toys in Ancient Greece, as well as several other ‘possible’ toys, all of which are exhibited at this museum. One of these objects is our chosen yoyo.

For a bit of context and comparison, this is around 100 years older than one of our favourite pigs.

We are told that this bobbin or yoyo depicts Perseus on one side, and Medusa on the other side, although I have not been able to find a photograph of the Medusa side. It was found in Thebes and dates from 425-400 BC, making it close to 2500 years old.  

There are several of these bobbins or yoyos dotted across museum collections around the world – this one at the Met Museum, for instance, is particularly beautiful and well-preserved.

Despite its fragmented appearance, I chose this one because I was taken with the idea of Perseus and Medusa being depicted on a plaything. The Perseus side, partially reconstructed to convey the original shape, shows his face, his body, and a wing behind him.  

For those of us needing a refresher in Greek mythology, Perseus – son of Zeus and Danaë, and a great hero – killed Medusa, the only mortal of the three Gorgons. As Perseus beheaded Medusa, from her blood sprang the winged horse Pegasus and his lesser-known twin brother Chrysaor. We can only assume Pegasus is the owner of the wing we see here.

About four centuries after this object was made, the Roman poet Ovid had Perseus describe his feat in Book IV of the Metamorphoses (Thomas More’s translation):

“When she was helpless in the power of sleep
And even her serpent-hair was slumberbound
I struck, and to her head sheer from her neck.—
To winged Pegasus the blood gave birth
His brother also, twins of rapid wing”

In earlier Greek times, Medusa was characterised as having been born a Gorgon, already a monstrous creature with writhing snakes for hair, but by the time Ovid writes, Medusa’s ‘origin story’ has changed, possibly by him. When asked about why there were snakes interspersed in Medusa’s locks, Ovid has Perseus reply:

“Beyond all others she
Was famed for beauty, and the envious hope
Of many suitors. Words would fail to tell the glory of her hair, most wonderful
Of all her charms—A friend declared to me
He saw its lovely splendor.
Fame declares
the Sovereign of the Sea attained her love
in chaste Minerva's temple. While enraged
she turned her head away and held her shield
before her eyes. To punish that great crime
Minerva changed the Gorgon's splendid hair
to serpents horrible. And now to strike
her foes with fear, she wears upon her breast
those awful vipers–creatures of her rage."

That is quite a paragraph to digest.

Indeed, my mind wandered all over the place with this particular piece: the use of myths to decorate objects in Ancient Greece and their presence in every aspect of life; playthings for adults and children; the human compulsion to fiddle with things; the history of the yoyo and the often misleading ‘truths’ about it which are repeated as fact in many different sources (there seems be no evidence for it being used as a weapon centuries ago in the Philippines); the widespread use of petrification as a theme in stories all over the world; the figure of Medusa as what seems the ultimate incarnation of misogyny and male fear; what constitutes a hero, today and in Antiquity; and the vague and pleasing idea of things that move away but always return to us, as yoyos do.

So, did the Greeks play with yoyos? There is a well-known terracotta vase showing a youth with something that definitely resembles one, which is widely cited as being the earliest depiction of one.

 In Antiquity, toys were seen as objects marking stages in one’s life, and when children were ready to transition to adulthood, they would offer their playthings to the gods as a sort of rite of passage – could this account for the refined nature of some of the bobbins found? That is, that they were never played with as such, and were intended as symbolic offerings?

 There is mention of the Greeks’ use of a yoyo-like object in a section on toys in the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, referred to as iynx (ἴυγξ).

It was interesting to read that the name iynx comes from the myth of the nymph Iynx, daughter of Pan and either Echo or Peitho, who used magic to make Zeus fall in love with Io. In revenge, Hera turned her into a wryneck. Iynx would seem to refer to a spinning love charm used to attract love objects or unfaithful lovers that featured a wryneck on it (see reference here). The Oxford Classical Dictionary tells us that by “Theocritus Idyll 2, the bird has vanished from the wheel, but has left its name behind: Simaitha spins a birdless ἴυγξ to beguile Delphis” (see reference here). I thought to myself that it would be interesting to know if there are any instances of the word iynx relating to children’s toys.

But just as I formulated that thought, I caught myself a little. Would a spinning love charm not be considered a plaything for an adult? It would be a nice little object to fiddle with, with the added bonus of the mindless fiddling having a purpose.

Of course, the yoyo has not always been known as such. The Chinese have apparently had a form of yoyo (slightly different in design, with a longer axle) for as long as 4000 years – again many references to this fact, though no specific primary source. That design would eventually give way to the design of the diabolo, which is similar in appeal.

In 18th century France it was known variously as an émigrette or émigrant (on account of it being used by the upper echelons of society who had emigrated to England, where it was known as a bandalore), a joujou de Normandie, or a jouet de Coblenz. There was even a little song made up about it in France.

If we are to believe multiple Internet sources, Napoleon was a big fan, and all of his soldiers had one in the battle of Waterloo, though again I have found no primary sources for this in my short research. Apparently the Duke of Wellington was also a famous yoyo enthusiast.

 The Dauphin Louis Charles (younger brother of the Dauphin Louis Joseph, who was gifted one of our favourite macabre playthings) is pictured here aged 4 with an émigrette.

 There is debate as to whether the word yoyo or yo-yo comes from Tagalog, or whether it is an evolution of the French word for toy joujou, but it seems clear that the current incarnation of the toy that we are most familiar with today owes a lot to a Filipino bellboy called Pedro Flores who started making Filipino-style yoyos in 1927 in California, and by 1929 already had two factories.  Donald Duncan would then buy up the business and marketed the toy until it became a craze, reaching fever point in 1962, when we are told a total of 45 million yoyos were sold in the US, though there were only 40 million children at the time.

I confess I was always pretty useless at yoyos, and more taken by mythology. This may explain why I chose this particular yoyo. Wouldn't it be something if it turned out to be a magical petrification weapon? I remember my grandmother gave my sister and me a book about Ancient Greek myths when we were young. I thought Medusa and her snaky head were impressive and scary and have some recollections of drawing her.

It is striking how much petrification has been used in stories and myths throughout the ages and in different cultures. The fate of being turned into stone always seemed to me a particularly suffocating idea.

Would you still be you in there, somewhere? Would it be like William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, where you feel doomed to hope eternally for someone to release you from the curse?

“Night followed day and day followed night over and over again. […]

When he was awake, he was only hopeless and unhappy. He felt he would be a rock forever and he tried to get used to it. He went into an endless sleep. […]

How he wanted to shout, "Mother! Father! It's me, Sylvester, I'm right here!" But he couldn't talk. He had no voice. He was stone-dumb.”

Or would you just cease to exist and be an ordinary stone, with no consciousness at all?

I leave a great many ponderings and disconnected threads out of this already long piece, but I cannot leave out this poem by Michael Rosen, entitled Yoyo, which delighted me.

You can also watch him recite it wonderfully here.

 “I’m a helicopter,’ I said.

I whirled Mart’s best yoyo round and round

above my head.

Round and round and round.

Then I let go.”

 [Excerpt from Michael Rosen's poem ‘Yoyo’, in Jelly Boots Smelly Boots, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018]