Camden Passage market in Angel, he's there on Saturdays. He actually bartered HIMSELF down to £110 after I enquired the price so almost certainly you could haggle him down even lower.

I would say they're likely the same quality, I know it's handmade and wool (purchased earlier this year) but I can't speak for the dyes used.

Fwiw there's a label on the back with the original sale price of £650, then a discounted price of £350 so idk if he buys them back from retailers if they don't sell within a given time, but he always has fresh stock when I see him.

I think you probably overpaid but what's important is that you feel you got a good price. I own a kilim of similar dimensions in shades of blue that I got from a dealer in London for £110 if I remember correctly.

I don't know enough about Priapic cults to confirm or deny your last statement!

But yeah, not every artefact is loaded with meaning. Maybe someone just wanted to make a funny little trinket with a lump of clay or got bored and started whittling away at a piece of wood.

Also related: I follow a few mudlarkers/scavengers on Instagram and they often talk of enthusiastic amateurs finding 'neolithic arrowheads' which are in fact just chipped pieces of obsidian.

This is more of a question for historians than scientists, but to answer: A lot of the time they ARE identified as dolls and toys, there are some lovely Roman examples of dolls with articulated joints. If you google 'Bronze Age baby feeding bottle' you will see some very cute animal-shaped vessels for feeding babies. Even early civilisations produced artefacts that demonstrated tenderness towards their children.

The context in which they are unearthed provides a lot of information - buried with a child's body? Probably a toy. Situated in a religious building? Probably a votive item.

Then there is the nature of the figure itself, a woman appearing out of seashells is most likely a representation of Venus and therefore intended to invoke her blessing, and historians are able to identify motifs that indicate who the item is supposed to represent.

You are probably right that a lot of people (not necessarily historians) are overly keen to identify something as a ritual item (this extends beyond statues and applies also to mundane things like kitchenware) but frequently any ID on an item does come with a massive 'but I could be wrong about this' caveat.