Researchers have unearthed toys and other articles during excavations at the ancient site

Archaeologists have unearthed ancient toys dating 2,000 years back in the Hellenistic period in the ancient seaport of Parion, located in Turkey’s northwestern province of Canakkale, according to a recent report by dailysabah.com.

Researchers have unearthed toys and other articles during excavations at the ancient site, Professor Hasan Kasaoğlu from Atatürk University, who is the excavation leader at Parion, told the Anadolu Agency.

He clarified that the toys were presented as “gifts for the dead” children and provide significant information about the sociocultural structure of the period.

For instance, Kasaoğlu stressed that female figurines were found in tombs belonging to girls, while male figures were found in tombs belonging to boys.

“2,000 years ago girls played with ‘Barbie-like’ dolls, the same way they do now,” Kasaoğlu noted, adding that although objects have changed shapes and features, humans have always had the same mentality.

Besides the human figurines, animal and mythological figurines were also found in the tombs, believed to be buried with the aim to accompany the children on their journey to the afterlife, the professor continued.

Earlier this month, researchers located a baby bottle around the same necropolis.

Parion, also called Parium, was an ancient Greek city founded in 709 B.C. It had two major harbors during the Roman era, and served as the main “customs station” for Istanbul-bound goods from the Aegean Sea.

Scientists have been carrying out excavations at the ancient site since 2005. Sarcophagi and graves, as well as ancient artifacts were found in the area.

The history of Parion

Founded in 709 B.C., the ancient city of Parion is situated in the village of Kemer in the township of Biga in Çanakkale province of Turkey, currently. A major coastal city with two harbors in the Roman period, Parion had intensive relations with Thrace and Anatolia throughout history. This was the main customs station through which all Istanbul-bound goods from Greece and the Aegean had to pass.

Located near Lampsacus, it was a colony probably founded by Eretria and Paros.[citation needed] It belonged to the Delian League. In the Hellenistic period it came under the domain of Lysimachus, and subsequently the Attalid dynasty. In Roman times, it was a colonia, within the province of Asia; after that province was divided in the 4th century, it was in the province of Hellespontus. The ancient coinage of Parium is quite abundant, attesting to its great output and advanced mint (in Hellenistic times, the city's badge shown on coins was the Gorgoneion).

The Acts of the martyr St. Onesiphorus prove that there was a Christian community there before 180. Other saints worthy of mention are: St. Menignus, martyred under Decius and venerated on 22 November; St. Theogenes, bishop and martyr, whose feast is observed on 3 January; St. Basil, bishop and martyr in the ninth century, venerated on 12 April.

Le Quien (Oriens christianus I, 787-90) mentions 14 bishops, the last of whom lived in the middle of the fourteenth century. An anonymous Latin bishop is mentioned in 1209 by Innocent III (Le Quien, op. cit., III, 945) and a titular bishop in 1410 by Eubel (Hierarchia Catholica medii ævi, I, 410).

At first a suffragan of the Archbishopric, Parium became an autocephalous archdiocese as early as 640 (Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte ... Texte, 535) and remained so till the end of the 13th century. Then the Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus made it a metropolis under the title of Pegon kai Pariou.

In 1354 the residential see of Pegae and Parium (the Latin forms of both names) were suppressed, the incumbent metropolitan receiving in exchange the See of Sozopolis in Thrace (Miklosich and Müller, "Acta patriarchatus Constantinopolitani", I, 109, 111, 132, 300, 330). This was the end of the residential see.

The see is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees.

The ruins of Parium were under Ottoman rule at the Greek village of Kamares (the vaults), on the small cape Tersana-Bournou in the caza and sandjak of Bigha.

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