Figurine

Figurines have been made in many media, with clay, metal, wood, glass, and today plastic or resin the most significant.

The two oldest known examples are made of stone, were found in Africa and Asia,[citation needed] and are several hundred thousand years old.

Olmec figurines in semi-precious stones and pottery had a wide influence all over Mesoamerica about 1000–500 BC, and were apparently usually kept in houses.

Ancient Greek terracotta figurines, made in moulds, were a large industry by the Hellenistic period, and ones in bronze also very common.

Most of these were religious, and deposited in large numbers in temples as votive offerings, or kept in the home and sometimes buried with their owner.

There are many early examples from China, mainly religious figures in Dehua porcelain, which drove the experimentation in Europe to replicate the process.

Also Amiibo is a line of plastic figurines with NFC tags embedded to its base that can be used in order to interact with certain videogames for Nintendo consoles.