Blog Tasks - Ancient Games

Blog Tasks - Ancient Games

So in this session we discuss ancient boardgames. An amazing point that was made was that some of the oldest games known are still played today where as games created in modern times have all but been forgotten which must say something for the designers of the time.

Some of the ancient boardgames we know today are the likes of Chess, Go, Hnefatafl and The Royal Game Of Ur.

St J Simpson notes that the development of boardgames has been radically revised by archaeological evidence from the excavations in the far east.

The earliest boardgames were once said to be racing and position games (Murray(1952), Bell (1979)) developed around 3000-2000 BC. Whereas war games were developed later in the classical period. Archaeological evidence now suggests the games are up to 4,000 years older than previously thought.

Murray (1952) classifies boardgames in five distinct groups:

• Games of alignment and configuration
• War games
• Hunt games
• Race games
• Mancala games

whereas Bell (1960; revised 1980) organises games into the following six categories:

• Race Games
• War Games
• Games of Position
• Mancala Games
• Dice Games
• Domino Games

and finally Parlett (1999) has four categories:

• Race Games
• Space Games
• Chase Games
• Displace Games

As you can see clearly there are some major similarities between these three category versions but also some differences. See for Murray, Fox and Geese is a hunting game, for Parlett it is a "chase" game while for Bell it is a "war" game.

The Royal Game of Ur

In this blog i will cover an ancient board game known as the Royal Game of Ur. The Royal Game of Ur was first discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley in the Royal Tombs of Ur in Mesopotamia in 1926-27. Though he found five different versions each one had different variations in the way it was decorated. The boards were all shaped of oblongs of 3x8 cells from which two cells have been taken away on each of the outer edges. All together there are 20 cells on a board. The boards were all decorated however differently in a mix of shells and jewels  mainly lapis lazuli. The cells on some boards depicted animal scenes though all the boards agree by having rosettes on the centre file and one on the side of the bridge. The more elaborate boards have rosettes on the 3x4 end. The boards date from around 3000bc. The board is also associated as similar or played the same as the Egyptian game sen't though has a different shaped board.The boards were hollow and inside contained seven black and seven white counters and six strange dice. The dice were of a pyramid shape and had 2 of the four corners coloured differently. There was three white and three lapis lazuli.

According to Bell R.C he suggested that the game was played under the following rule set:

Each player would place an agreed sum into the games pool as a pot for the winner. To decide which player would go first one of the players would throw one of the dice and while it is in mid air would decide whether or not a marked corner would be pointing upward. Both players start with no counters on the board. The point at which the counters enter the board are shown on the diagram below(Bell, R.C (1979)). So the player that is going first throws his or her dice and the possible outcomes are three marked corners up would net you a score of five and another throw. Whereas three plain corners would get you a score of four and another throw. Two plain corners up would get you a score of zero and the turn finishes and one plain corner up would get you a score of one and another throw.

For a player to be able to place a counter on the board they would have to throw a five and then all throws after that would decide on how much the counter would move around the board. On the board  as shown in the diagram below you can see some marked squares. If a player lands his or her counter on this space then their opponent would have to pay a fine to them. On the board below there is a a central file which is where players are effectively at war with each other. If the current player moves a counter onto a square with another players counter on then the attacked players counter is removed from the board and can only be entered back into play with another successful score of five. A player can have as many of their counters on the board at any one time however they can only have a single piece in each of the games squares. The game is won when a player has managed to safely get all of their counters of the board. To do this a player must roll exactly the number of squares needed to land on the final square on the board.