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You know that 4,000-year-old fidget spinner that everyone was on about?

Yeah, turns out it wasn't one after all.

A tweet showing a museum piece labelled as a "spinning toy with animal heads" has been making its rounds on the internet.

Tweet may have been deleted

We have to admit, the item -- which is housed in the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago -- does look pretty similar to a fidget spinner.

But more likely than not, the object was actually used as a weapon, or more accurately, as the head of a mace.

According to Oriental Institute Museum chief curator Jean Evans, the artifact was found near a temple, which would make sense as maces were seen as "weapons of the gods" in that era.

So why did the museum label it as a toy?

"All I can say is that our ideas change over time," Evans told The Verge.

"When the 'spinning toy' was first published in 1932, the excavators recognised that the object was unique, and they speculated it might be rotated and used in 'astrological divination'."

Evans also adds that there have been toys that survived from ancient Mesopotamia, but a 'spinning toy' has never been one of them.

"We have...baked clay rattles, whistles, animal figurines...but this 'spinning toy' would be a largely singular example of such a toy."

So, no, you can't pin your fidget obsession on a bunch of 4,000-year-old Mesopotamians.

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