User:Cullen328/sandbox/Rattle

In colonial America, artisans made elaborate gold and silver baby rattles incorporating bells and whistles and teething devices made of coral. In 1777, in the early days of the American Revolution, John Hancock wrote to his wife, Dorothy Quincy Hancock saying, "I have sent everywhere to get a gold or silver rattle for the child, with a coral to send, but cannot get one." Their daughter Lydia later died at ten months of age.

Edith Wharton, who was born during the American Civil War, received a similar elaborate silver baby rattle as an infant, which was engraved with her name and had a coral teething extension.

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Baby rattles go back at least 2500 years. A rattle made of clay was found in Poland in a grave of a baby who was a member of the early Iron Age Lusatian culture, and was documented by archaelogists. That hollow clay rattle was shaped like a pillow and was filled with little balls. It was found next to a tiny urn containing the cremated remains of the baby. Many similar examples of baby rattles have been recovered from Greco-Roman archaeological sites. Often, these rattles were in the shape of a pig or a boar, and sometimes a figure of a baby was riding the animal. Pigs were associated with the Greek goddess Demeter, who was invoked in rituals intended to protect babies in life and death.