<P> Playing with toys is considered to be important when it comes to growing up and learning about the world around us . Younger children use toys to discover their identity, help their bodies grow strong, learn cause and effect, explore relationships, and practice skills they will need as adults . Adults on occasion use toys to form and strengthen social bonds, teach, help in therapy, and to remember and reinforce lessons from their youth . </P> <P> Most children have been said to play with whatever they can find, such as sticks and rocks . Toys and games have been unearthed from the sites of ancient civilizations . They have been written about in some of the oldest literature . Toys excavated from the Indus valley civilization (3010--1500 BCE) include small carts, whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys which could slide down a string . </P> <P> The earliest toys are made from materials found in nature, such as rocks, sticks, and clay . Thousands of years ago, Egyptian children played with dolls that had wigs and movable limbs which were made from stone, pottery, and wood . In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, children played with dolls made of wax or terracotta, sticks, bows and arrows, and yo - yos . When Greek children, especially girls, came of age it was customary for them to sacrifice the toys of their childhood to the gods . On the eve of their wedding, young girls around fourteen would offer their dolls in a temple as a rite of passage into adulthood . </P> <P> The oldest known mechanical puzzle also comes from Greece and appeared in the 3rd century BC . The game consisted of a square divided into 14 parts, and the aim was to create different shapes from these pieces . In Iran "puzzle - locks" were made as early as the 17th century (AD). </P>

When was the first battery operated toy made