Is this Britain's oldest toy?

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A lump of chalk carved to resemble a piglet with snout and floppy ears has been found in the grave of a prehistoric child buried near Stonehenge.

{mosimage}Joshua Pollard of the University of Bristol, a co-director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project team that made the find, said that the Iron Age figurine could have been a toy, adding that ‘it is very rare to find any kind of representational art in British prehistory – almost as if there were a taboo on making images of animals or people at this time’. A pottery vessel from the grave suggests a date of around 800–200 BC.

 

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