When ancient Greek art meets technology, then history becomes a game and the educational process goes beyond the ordinary, as children discover Greek culture through ancient Greek games.
Greektoys is an educational project that aims to promote the ancient Greek heritage through the use of technology.
This is the educational project of a Greek team, based in Belgium, with 3D animation, educational and entertainment activities for children such as the project “Little Archaeologists”: the 3D digital illustration of the tomb of Casta of Amphipolis, which travels to many European capitals, museums, and schools.
Valios is a wheeled clay horse, named after the immortal horse of Achilles, a wedding gift to Peleus, his father, by Poseidon. He admires Pegasus and dreams of looking like him when he grows up. Lily is flat, that is, a rattle, also made of clay, with its limbs moving (to produce sounds). Her name refers to the Beautiful Helen. Philon is a piglet, inspired by an ancient vase. “There are many similar animal-shaped vessels in Greek museums. They were probably used as toys but also as baby bottles since there are holes in their muzzle.
The pedagogical value of the toy for the proper physical, cognitive and social development of the child has been established since antiquity. Through play, the child uses his imagination, interacts with other children, discovers himself, develops his creativity, has fun, and learns to put his knowledge and skills into practice.
Greektoys is a “bridge” to introduce children to the culture of antiquity and has been active since 2012 in Greece and other European countries.
Thus, according to Plato, the child had to engage in pedagogical group games in order to better prepare for future citizenship. when it reaches adulthood ”(Hasselin, 2006). In Ancient Greece there was a great variety of games, group or individual, with or without the use of objects. Some of these toys remain known to this day, such as the 2 dolls (plangones), the rattle (platagi), the little horse, the barn, the blind fly (copper muscle), the statuettes (akinitida), the pentovola (pedalita) , and the crypt (detoxifier). These toys are known to us mainly from the objects themselves that have survived to the present day, but also from written sources, representations in vases and tombstones. Most of the toys that have been rescued come from burial material.
source: ethnos.gr