Spinning tops

Spinning tops

Spinning tops are one of the most popular games in the world. With a few changes in form and manner of play, they have always been used both as a recreational activity and as a ritual object. The top, with its unpredictable movement, was a tool to predict the future, and a form of gambling.

The player has to be able to lead the top on certain routes without it stopping. The spin is set forth by using a cord, which is later used to control its movement.

Traditionally winners have to break or scratch the spinning top of the loser: the unlucky player will have to put it into the ground, undergoing other competitors’ shots, with the chance of being broken.


Historical Background

Spinning tops, Paleo or Turbo for the Greeks , are also mentioned in the Iliad, where Homer describes a stone thrown by Ajax as similar to a spinning top.

The Egyptians surely knew this game tool, as proved by a wooden spinning top of cistus , found in a tomb at the site of Kemada , in Menfi. This finding can be dated to the Old Kingdom (2600-2200 BC).

It is believed , however, that the game is even more ancient: even today, especially among the indigenous peoples of Asia and Africa, children play with acorns or other rudimentary wooden spinning tops.

In literature there are many references to this game in the works of  Virgil, Cato, Dante, Tasso , Boccaccio, and Rabelais . The first paintings including spinning tops are “The Games of the Young” and “The Battle Between Carnival and Lent” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna).


Game Communities

Trottole, Mattie (Torino), Piemonte

Paorgiu, Novara di Sicilia (Messina), Sicilia