Welcome to
Ancient Games from
Around the World
Liam Heston
Dogs & Jackals - Egypt
DOGS & JACKALS
Liam Heston
This game’s name and rules have been
forgotten among the mists of the past. We
know of it by way of a famous boardgame
found in an Egyptian tomb. It belongs to a
family of games named "game of the thirty
points" or "game of the fifty eight holes".
Many gameboards or pieces of gameboards
have been discovered in Egypt but also in
Palestine, Mesopotamia and Assyria. A very
nice boardgame has been found in the tomb
of Reny-Seneb, XII dynasty, about 1800 BC.
This beautiful game in ebony and ivory, has
the shape of a small piece of furniture. The
gameboard is a rectangular (15x10cm)
wooden box, put on four animal legs. The top
in ivory is carved with a palm tree and fifty
eight holes.
DOGS & JACKALS
Liam Heston
In the drawer within the box,
ten pawns were found. They
look like short sticks, five
carved with a dog head and
five with a jackal head. The
pawns were placed in the
holes of the gameboard.
The game is for two players.
Five dogs are given to one
and five jackals to the other.
You will need three pieces of
money to use to determine
movement. The goal is to
reach the five points (25 to
29) on your side of the board
and win the dates.
Nicholas Stilwell
Senet - Egypt
SENET
Nicholas Stilwell
Senet may be the oldest board game in the world. It has been found in
Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, circa 3500 BC and 3100 BC
respectively. Senet is also featured in a painting from the tomb of Merknera
(3300–2700 BC). Another painting of this ancient game is from the Third
Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BC).
It is also depicted in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes (c. 2500 BC).
By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1567–1085 BC), it had become a
kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck
in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a
successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the
national pantheon: Ra, Thoth, and sometimes Osiris.
SENET
Nicholas Stilwell
Consequently, Senet boards were often placed in
the grave alongside other useful objects for the
dangerous journey through the afterlife and the
game is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of
the Dead. The game was also adopted in the
Levant and as far as Cyprus and Crete but with
apparently less religious significance.
The Senet gameboard is a grid of 30 squares,
arranged in 3 rows of 10. A senet game has 2 sets
of pawns (at least 5 of each and, in some sets,
more). The actual rules of the game are a topic of
some debate, although historians have made
educated guesses. Timothy Kendall and R.C. Bell
are 2 Senet historians who have proposed
(different) sets of rules to play the game. These
rules have been adopted by different companies
which make Senet sets for sale today.
Seth Borrayo
Parcheesi – India
PARCHEESI
Seth Borrayo
Parcheesi is an American adaptation of
the Indian Cross and Circle game
Pachisi. Created in India around 500 BC,
the game is often subtitled Royal Game
of India because royalty supposedly
played using costumed dancers as
pieces on large outdoor boards.
The game and its variants are known
worldwide; for example, a similar game
called Parchis is especially popular in
Spain, and Parques is a Colombian
variant. The German name is "Mensch
argere dich nicht" (English: "Man, don't
get mad").
PARCHEESI
Seth Borrayo
Parcheesi is played with one or two
dice and the goal of the game is to
move each of one's pieces home to
the center space. The most popular
Parcheesi boards in America have 72
spaces around the board, twelve of
which are darkened safe spaces where
a piece cannot be captured.
On each turn, players throw one or
both dice and use the values shown to
move their pieces around the board. If
an amount on one or both of the dice
cannot be moved, that amount is
forfeited. Any time a player rolls, he
must use as much of the dice showing
as possible. (i.e. If a player rolls 4 and
5 and could move either 4 or 5, but not
both, then he must move 5.)
Sam Bigham
Chess - India & Southern Europe
CHESS
Sam Bigham
The current form of chess emerged in
Southern Europe during the second half of
the 15th century after evolving from a similar,
much older game of Indian origin. Today,
chess is one of the world's most popular
games, played by millions of people
worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by
correspondence, and in tournaments.
The game is played on a chessboard, which
is a square-checkered board with 64 squares
arranged in an 8x8 grid. At the start, each
player controls 16 pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2
rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, and 8 pawns (one
using white pieces, the other black pieces).
The object of the game is to checkmate the
opponent's king, whereby the king is under
immediate attack (in "check") and there is no
way to remove it from attack on the next
move.
CHESS
Sam Bigham
Chess is commonly believed to have
originated in India during the Gupta empire,
where its early form in the 6th century was
known as caturaga (Sanskrit: four divisions
[of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants,
and chariotry, represented by the pieces that
would evolve into the modern pieces. In
Sassanid Persia around 600 the name
became shatranj and the rules were
developed further.
The game reached Western Europe and
Russia by the 9th century. In the 18th century
the center of European chess life moved from
the Southern European countries to France.
As the 19th century progressed, chess
organization developed quickly. Many chess
clubs, chess books and chess journals
appeared. Chess problems became a regular
part of 19th-century newspapers.
Jackie Bonner
Go – China, Japan & Korea
GO
Jackie Bonner
Go is a strategic board game for 2 players. It
is also known as igo (Japanese), weiqi or wei
ch'i (Chinese) or baduk (Korean). Go is noted
for being rich in strategic complexity despite
its simple rules.
The game is played by two players who alternately place black and white
stones (playing pieces, now usually made of glass or plastic) on the
vacant intersections of a grid of 19×19 lines. The object of the game is to
control a larger portion of the board than the opponent. A stone or a
group of stones is captured and removed if it has no empty adjacent
intersections, the result of being completely surrounded by stones of the
opposing color.
Placing stones close together helps them support each other and avoid
capture. On the other hand, placing stones far apart creates influence
across more of the board. Part of the strategic difficulty of the game
stems from finding a balance between such conflicting interests.
Go originated in ancient China more than
2,500 years ago, and although it is not
known exactly when the game was
invented, by the 3rd century BC it was
already a popular pastime, as indicated by
a reference to the game in the Analects of
Confucius. Archaeological evidence
shows that the early game was played on
a board with a 17×17 grid, but by the time
that the game spread to Korea and Japan
in about the 7th century boards with a
19×19 grid had become standard.
The game is most popular in East Asia,
but has gained some popularity in other
parts of the world in recent years. A
conservative estimate places the number
of go players worldwide at approximately
27 million. Go reached the West through
Japan, which is why it is commonly
known internationally by its Japanese
name.
Aaryan Booter
Tafl - Scandinavia
TAFL
Aaryan Booter
Tafl games were a family of ancient Germanic and
Celtic board games played on a checkered or
latticed board with 2 teams of uneven strength.
The size of the board and the number of pieces
varied, but all games involved a distinctive 2:1
ratio of pieces, with the lesser side having a kingpiece which started in the centre. The king's
objective was to escape to the board's periphery
or corners, while the greater force's objective was
to capture him.
The term tafl (Old Norse: "table", "board") is the
original name of the game. However, Hnefatafl
became the preferred term for the game in
Scandinavia by the end of the Viking Age, to
distinguish it from other board-games, such as
Skáktafl (Chess), Kvatrutafl (Tables) and Halatafl
(Fox games). In Anglo-Saxon England, the term
tæfl also referred to many board-games.
TAFL
Aaryan Booter
Several games may be confused with tafl
games, due to the inclusion of the word
"tafl" in their names or other similarities.
Halatafl is the Old Norse name for Fox and
Geese, a game dating from at least the 14th
century. It is still known and played in
Europe.
Kvatrutafl is the Old Norse name for Tables
(the medieval forerunner of Backgammon).
Skáktafl is the Old Norse name for Chess.
Fidchell or Fithcheall (Modern Irish: Ficheall)
was played in Ireland. The Welsh equivalent
was Gwyddbwyll and the Breton equivalent
Gwezboell; all terms mean "wood-sense".
This popular medieval game was played with
equal forces on each side and thus was not a
tafl variant, but rather may have been the
medieval descendant of the Roman game
Latrunculi or Ludus latrunculorum.
Michael A. Chandler
Mancala Ethiopia, Petra, Western Africa
MANCALA
Michael Chandler
Mancala is a family of board games
played around the world, sometimes
called "sowing" games, or "countand-capture" games, which describes
the game-play. Mancala games play a
role in many African and some Asian
societies comparable to that of chess
in the West. The list of mancala
games best known in the Western
world includes Kalah and Oware. Other games are Congkak, Omweso, Ünee
tugaluulakh, Bao, Sungka and Igisoro. The word mancala comes from the
Arabic word naqala meaning literally "to move." There is no one game with
the name mancala; instead mancala is a type, or designation, of game.
Mancala games share a common general gameplay sequence. Players
begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed by the variation in
use, in each of the pits on the game board. A player may count their stones
to plot the game. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, sowing
the seeds and capturing based on the state of board. This leads to the
MANCALA
Michael Chandler
English phrase "Count and Capture". Although the
details differ greatly, this general sequence
applies to all games.
The first evidence of the game are fragments of a
pottery board and several rock cuts found in
Aksumite Ethiopia in Matar (now in Eritrea) and
Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by
archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th century
AD.
The USA has a large mancala playing population.
A traditional mancala game called Warra was still
played in Louisiana in the early 20th century. In
Cape Verde, Mancala is known as "ouril". It is
played in the Islands and was brought to America
by Cape Verdean immigrants. It is played to this
day in Cape Verdean communities in New
England.
Haley Banks
Baguenaudier Chinese Rings – China
BAGUENAUDIER
CHINESE RINGS
Haley Banks
Baguenaudier (also known as the
Chinese Rings, Cardan's
Suspension, or five pillars puzzle)
is a mechanical puzzle featuring a
double loop of string which must
be disentangled from a sequence
of rings on interlinked pillars. The
puzzle is thought to have been
invented originally in China.
Stewart Culin provided that it was
invented by the Chinese general
Zhuge Liang in the 2nd century
AD. The name "Baguenaudier",
however, is French.
BAGUENAUDIER
CHINESE RINGS
Haley Banks
In fact, the earliest description
of the puzzle in Chinese
history was written by Yang
Shen, a scholar in 16th
century in his Dan Qian Zong
Lu (Preface to General
Collections of Studies on
Lead).
Édouard Lucas, the inventor
of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle,
was known to have come up
with an elegant solution which
used binary and Gray codes,
in the same way that his
puzzle can be solved.
Sam Bigham
Dominoes – India, China & Italy
DOMINOES
Sam Bigham
Domino pieces were historically carved from
ivory or animal bone with small, round pips of
inset ebony. The game's name comes from the
pieces' resemblance to Venetian Carnival
masks known as domini, which were white
with black spots.
The oldest domino sets have been dated from
around 1120. Modern dominoes, as most of the
Western world knows them, however, appear
to be a Chinese invention. They were
apparently derived from cubic dice, which had
been introduced into China from India some
time in the distant past. Each domino originally
represented one of the 21 results of throwing
two dice. Chinese dominoes are also longer
than typical European dominoes. Over time
Chinese dominoes also evolved into the tile set
used to play Mah Jong.
DOMINOES
Sam Bigham
The early 18th century witnessed
dominoes making their way to Europe,
making their first appearance in Italy. The
game changed somewhat in the
translation from Chinese to the European
culture. European sets contain 7
additional dominoes, with 6 of these
representing the values that result from
throwing a single die with the other half of
the tile left blank, and the 7th domino
representing the blank-blank (0-0)
combination.
Most domino games are blocking games,
i.e. the objective is to empty one's hand
whilst blocking the opponents. In the end,
a score may be determined by counting
the pips in the losing players' hands. In
scoring games the scoring is different and
happens mostly during gameplay, making
it the principal objective.
Backgammon – Persia
Jackie Bonner
BACKGAMMON
Jackie Bonner
Backgammon is a board game for two players in
which the playing pieces are moved according to
the roll of dice. Players win by removing all of
their pieces from the board. There are many
variants of backgammon, most of which share
common traits. Backgammon is a member of the
tables family, one of the oldest classes of board
games in the world.
Although luck plays an important role, there is a large scope for strategy.
With each roll of the dice players must choose from numerous options for
moving their checkers and anticipate possible counter-moves by the
opponent. Players may raise the stakes during the game. There is an
established repertoire of common tactics and occurrences.
Like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer
scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been
developed capable of beating world-class human players.
BACKGAMMON
Jackie Bonner
Backgammon playing pieces are known
variously as checkers, stones, men,
counters, pawns, or chips. The objective
is to remove (bear off) all of one's own
checkers from the board before one's
opponent can do the same. The
checkers are scattered at first and may
be blocked or hit by the opponent. As
the playing time for each individual
game is short, it is often played in
matches, where victory is awarded to the
first player to reach a certain number of
points.
The Royal Game of Ur, played in ancient Mesopotamia, is a likely ancestor of
modern day table games. Excavations at Shahr-e Sokhteh (Persian ‫شهر سوخته‬,
literally "The Burnt City") in Iran have shown that a similar game existed
there around 3000 BC. The artifacts include two dice and 60 checkers, and
the set is believed to be 100 to 200 years older than the sets found in Ur.
Michael Chandler
Patolli - Aztec
PATOLLI
Michael Chandler
Patolli (the Nahuatl name) or patole (the
Spanish form) is one of the oldest games in
America. Patolli (or variants of it) was played
by a wide range of pre-Columbian
Mesoamerican cultures and known all over
Mesoamerica. Patolli was a game of
commoners and nobles alike and it was
reported by the conquistadors that Montezuma
often enjoyed watching his nobles play the
game at court.
The object of the game is for a player to win all of the opponent's treasure.
To do this, the players may need to play more than one round of the game.
In order to complete a round, a player needs to get all of the six jade
markers from the starting queue position to the ending square position on
the game board before the other player. The jade stone markers come in two
colors. One player would have an assortment of red colored jade markers.
The other player would have an assortment of blue colored jade markers.
PATOLLI
Michael Chandler
In order to get one of the jade stone markers
on the board, the player tosses five specially
prepared kidney beans on the game area. The
kidney beans, or patolli, has one side marked
with a white dot. Thus tossing the patolli
would result in several patolli showing this
white mark and others showing a blank side.
In order to get on the game board, one patolli
would have to land with the white mark face
up and all the others face down (getting a
score of one).
The players take turns tossing. Once a player is able to get on the board, the
game begins and the player is allowed to place one of the jade markers from
the queue onto the starting square of the game board.
The game board is shaped like a capital letter X that has square and triangular
shaped landing positions marked on it that run down one side and back up
the other side of the X. There are 52 landing positions in all. The game board
could be drawn on a bit of leather or on a straw mat and decorated with
colored dye or it could also be carved into the floor or table top.
Deneen Underwood
Royal Game of Ur – Sumeria
ROYAL GAME OF UR
Deneen Underwood
In 1926-27, the British archeologist
Leonard Woolley, while excavating
in the royal tombs of Sumer (modern
Iraq), discovered four game boards
and a number of playing pieces.
The tombs were in the city of Ur (in
red on the map on the left), once the
capital of Sumer about 2500 B.C.,
and the legendary home of the
Biblical Abraham. This area is in the
"fertile crescent", south of Baghdad
and Babylon. The Museum
document collection includes a
number of references to Woolley's
discovery, complete with a number
of colorful photographs such as the
one below. Woolley's finds are now
held by the British Museum.
ROYAL GAME OF UR
Deneen Underwood
This game is similar to the Egyptian game of
Senet, though it is a variation of the Egyptian
game in that there are a reduced number of cells
on the Ur board. Both game boards contain a
drawer which holds the playing pieces and
binary lots which are used like dice are used in a
contemporary board game to determine the
moves of the pieces. As do some of the Senet
boards, some of the Ur boards include conical
rather than flat pieces. Throw-sticks or lots were
included as a chance device in both games.
It appears to be a game for two players who
alternate their moves on the board. Various
markings on the board (such as the "rosettes")
appear to have had some consequence in the
play of the game if a piece lands on one of these
squares - sort of like in a contemporary board
game - "loose one turn", "go back three
spaces", etc.