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<aside> 💡 Use this history to better understand the WHY behind games.
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Some of the most common pre-historic and ancient gaming tools were made of bone, especially from the Talus bone, these have been found worldwide and are the ancestors of knucklebones as well as dice games.[3] These bones were also sometimes used for oracular and divinatory functions. Other implements could have included shells, stones and sticks.
In ancient civilizations there was no clear distinction between the sacred and the profane.[4] According to Durkheim, games were founded in a religious setting and were a cornerstone of social bonding.[5]
A series of 49 small carved painted stones found at the 5,000-year-old Başur Höyük burial mound in southeast Turkey could represent the earliest gaming pieces ever found. Similar pieces have been found in Syria and Iraq and seem to point to board games having originated in the Fertile Crescent.[6] The earliest board games seem to have been a pastime for the elite and were sometimes given as diplomatic gifts.[7]
The Royal Game of Ur, or Game of Twenty Squares was played with a set of pawns on a richly decorated board and dates from about 3000 BCE.[8] It was a race game which employed a set of knucklebone dice. This game was also known and played in Egypt. A Babylonian treatise on the game written on clay tablet shows that the game had astronomical significance and that it could also be used to tell one's fortune.[9] The Ur game was also popular with the lower classes, as attested by a 2,700-year-old graffiti version of the game, scratched onto a gateway to a palace in Khorsabad. Similar games have been found in Iran, Crete, Cyprus, Sri Lanka and Syria.[9] Excavations at Shahr-e Sukhteh ("The Burnt City") in Iran have shown that the game also existed there around 3000 BCE. The artefacts include two dice and 60 checkers.[10][11] Games such as Nard and the Roman game Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum (game of 12 points, also known as simply "dice", lat. "alea") may have developed from this Iranian game. The Byzantine game Tabula is a descendant of the game of twelve points.
Among the earliest examples of a board game is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and in hieroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE.[12] The game was played by moving draughtsmen on a board of 30 squares arranged into three parallel rows of ten squares each. The players strategically moved their pieces based on the throw of sticks or bones. The goal was to reach the edge of the board first. Senet slowly evolved over time to reflect the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. The pieces represented human souls and their movement was based on the journey of the soul in the afterlife. Each square had a distinct religious significance, with the final square being associated with the union of the soul with the sun god Re-Horakhty.[12] Senet may have also been used in a ritual religious context.
The other example of a board game in ancient Egypt is “Hounds and Jackals”, also known as 58 holes. Hounds and Jackals appeared in Egypt, around 2000 BC and was mainly popular in the Middle Kingdom.[13][14] The game was spread to Mesopotamia in the late 3rd millennium BC and was popular until the 1st millennium BC.[13] More than 68 gameboards of Hounds and Jackals have been discovered in the archaeological excavations in various territories, including Syria (Tell Ajlun, Ras el-Ain, Khafaje), Israel (Tel Beth Shean, Gezer), Iraq (Uruk, Nippur, Ur, Nineveh, Ashur, Babylon), Iran (Tappeh Sialk, Susa, Luristan), Turkey (Karalhuyuk, Kultepe, Acemhuyuk), Azerbaijan (Gobustan) and Egypt (Buhen, El-Lahun, Sedment).[15][13] It was a race game for two players. The gaming board consisted of two sets of 29 holes. Ten small pegs with either jackal or dog heads were used for playing.[16] It's believed that the aim of the game was to begin at one point on the board and to reach with all figures at the other point on the board.[17]
In Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire, popular games included ball games (Episkyros, Harpastum, Expulsim Ludere - a kind of handball), dice games (Tesserae), knucklebones, Bear games, Tic-tac-toe (Terni Lapilli), Nine men's morris (mola) and various types of board games similar to checkers. Both Plato and Homer mention board games called 'petteia' (games played with pessoi', i.e. 'pieces' or 'men'). According to Plato, they are all Egyptian in origin. The name 'petteia' seems to be a generic term for board game and refers to various games. One such game was called 'poleis' (city states) and was a game of battle on a checkered board.[18]
The Romans played a derivation of 'petteia' called 'latrunculi' or Ludus latrunculorum (the soldiers' game or the bandits' game). It is first mentioned by Varro (116–27 BCE) and alluded to by Martial and Ovid. This game was extremely popular and was spread throughout Europe by the Romans. Boards have been found as far as Roman Britain. It was a war game for two players and included moving around counters representing soldiers, the object being to get one of the adversary's pieces between two of one's own.[19]
A Senet gameboard and game pieces from the KV62 tomb of Tutankhamun—originally from Thebes.
Royal Game of Ur, southern Iraq, about 2600-2400 BCE
Board game with inlays of ivory, rock crystal and glass paste, covered with gold and silver leaf, on a wooden base (Knossos, New Palace period 1600–1500 BCE, Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete)