Random Saturday - Piggy banks, part 1

This post was inspired by another daily thread in my jewelry forum. "Did you have a piggy bank? What did it look like?"
Now doesn't that sound like another great rabbit hole? Because, you know ... I actually had more than one over the years myself. You probably did, too?

Where do piggy banks even come from, though, and why are they called that? After all, not all of them actually look like pigs.

Let's have a look at the history of the savings box, money box, whatever you want to call it.
Would you have thought that they have been around since ancient times?
I found two different informations for the oldest known money box in the world. The first one is on one called a "Thesauros" (or "Naiskoi" according to one source) which is in the shape of a temple and was found in Priene, an ancient Greek town (today on Turkish land), dated to the 2nd century BC.

Money box held at the
Antikensammlung Berlin,
picture taken by Marcus Cyron,
CC BY-SA 3.0
(via Wikimedia Commons)

Another source, however, says that the Iraq Museum in Baghdad had an even older one in their exhibition in 1990 although it's not clear if it still exists now.
It was found in a private residence in Babylon and was dated to the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd century BC. It was thrown on a potter's wheel and looked like an amphora with a slit cut in at the side.
Those easy to make money boxes, which were popular around the world and are still made, had to be broken to get to the money ("break the bank"). You can find a picture of it here.

Earthen pots used in Nepal,
picture by Krish Dulal, CC BY-SA 3.0 
(via Wikimedia Commons)

Over time, money boxes have come in all kinds of shapes and materials, but where does the pig come in?
The oldest piggy bank in Germany is from the 13th century (again there are different opinions about it, in this case about it actually being a piggy bank or just a pig sculpture). 
Then there's the information about one from 1576, but it rather looks as if that story had a satirical background and was then passed on as truth.
Pigs have been a symbol for luck and wealth since ancient times. There are different theories about the reasons. In German, we still say someone "hat Schwein" for unexpected luck, literally "has pig". So it makes sense that a pig would be used for amassing that wealth by saving.

Verified piggy banks from the 12th century were found on the island of Java although these are really wild boars.
I wonder if this one from the 14th/15th century broke from age or if it was broken to get the money out ...

Majapahit terracotta piggy bank,
Trowulan, East Java,
picture by Gunkarta, CC BY-SA 3.0
(via Wikimedia Commons)

In Stuttgart, there's a Pig Museum with over 50,000 items which is an interesting mix of history, art, and kitsch.
Yes, I've been there myself before and was very glad they also had a vegetarian option in the restaurant there.
Of course they also have a few piggy banks behind glass.

Where does the term "piggy bank" come from, though? It's often used for savings in general or for money boxes that don't even have the pig shape.
I wish I could tell you, but again there are different theories. Was there really a clay called "pygg" used to make dishes and pots in which Western Europeans collected their money, so eventually potters started to make "pig banks"? 
Was the word "pig" used for earthenware in general?
So how did the pig get to Germany, for example, where the word is "Schwein"? Did the Germans just translate it? What about the alleged first one from the 13th century then? Which was there first, the "Sparschwein" or the "piggy bank"? 
Is it true that German immigrants helped to make the pig shape popular in the US?
Merriam-Webster tells us the word "piggy bank" was first used in 1917, the Oxford English Dictionary gives us 1913.
Will we ever know? Is it even important?

There is so much more to the history of piggy banks that I decided to stop here and write a second post about this in which I will also be sharing some of my own memories which got triggered thanks to this post.
The post can be found here once it's live.


Selected sources:

1. Spardosen. Wer den Pfennig nicht ehrt, Spardosen aller Zeiten. On: Kreissparkasse Köln - Geldgeschichte (in German)
2. Twisted tail: The great piggy bank mystery. On: BBC. StoryWorks
3. David M. Robinson: Some Roman Terra-Cotta Savings-Banks. In: American Journal of Archaeology, 28(1924),3, pp. 239 - 250 (open access)
4. Hans Graeven: Die thönerne Sparbüchse im Altertum. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 16(1901), pp. 160 - 189 (in German)