Ambiguïté des jeux et jouets dans la culture matérielle du monde égéen aux âges du bronze moyen et récent

The rich material cultures of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations rarely offer clear remains of toys or games for the period from the XXth to the XIIth century B.C., if we exclude athletic events depicted in various forms. Researchers have been debating the ambiguous nature of some categories of objects – Mycenaean figurines and miniatures, Minoan stones with cupules – since the beginning of the XXth century, opposing interpretations favouring religious functions against those of play. Today contextual study allows us to specify the use of some artifacts and their regional variations. If most of the small objects relating to childhood seem polysemic, other evidence – conus shells on the mainland, stones with cupules in Crete – could indicate that play activities were widely disseminated in these societies, but they were often underestimated in the bibliographies