A History of Games from the Ages

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

On this page, I have tried to categorise traditional games from a different perspective - time.  Having received numerous emails over the years, asking me which games were played in the middle ages or by the Romans or Egyptians and so forth, it was clear that many would find this method of accessing the site useful. The particular ages of interest seem to be:- Roman, Medieval, Middle ages, Renaissance, Victorian and Egyptian. The definition of Medieval and 'Middle Ages' turn out to be ambiguous - you can see how I dealt with this below.

These terms imply an unspoken geographical specification as well.  When people say Medieval, they tend to mean European medieval, Renaissance tends to mean Western Europe, Victorian means British only, pretty much.   I apologise to people from other parts of the world for this European bias but that's where I'm from and I'm open to further suggestions.

Period / Civilisation / Era	Region concerned	Invented in this period (or probably invented)	Also known to have been popular during this time
The Sumerians (3500 BC to 2300BC)	Sumeria (in modern day Iraq)	The Royal game of Ur (The Sumerian Game)
Ancient Egypt (3000BC to 525BC when conquered by the Persians).	Egypt	Tau (Game of 20 squares, or Aseb) Double Tau Senet (Senat), Mehen (The snake game) Dogs and Jackals (Game of 58 holes)	Mancala Merels
The Romans (c.525BC - c.475) Rome became a republic in 510 BC.  The end of the Roman Empire is generally dated by the deposition of the last emperor in AD 476.	Europe	Duodecim Scriptorum / 12 Philosophers (Bgmon anc.) Alea /Tabula (Backgammon ancestor) Latrunculi (Probable Tafl ancestor)	Merels
The Dark Ages (c.475 - c.1050) This is an unfashionable term for the period following the fall of the Roman Empire in which Europe was settled by pagan Germanic tribes who adopted the vestiges of Roman institutions and traditions, were converted to Christianity by the church, and who then founded feudal kingdoms.  The period is termed "dark" because it is characterised by a lack of clear historical information about the period.  The end of the Dark Ages is defined variously as anywhere from 800 to 1050.  This definition includes the Viking Era from 800 - 1050.	Europe	Tafl /Hneftafl, Fichneal Alea Evangelii Tawlbwrdd Alquerque Nard / Tables	Merels
The Middle Ages; The Medieval period.  (c.1000 - c.1450 European period from around 1000 to the Renaissance around the 15th century.  (This is the old definition of Middle Ages - modern historians tend to regard the term "Dark Ages" as politically incorrect and have tried to replace it by redefining the Middle Ages to start at the end of the Roman Empire instead.  This author prefers clarity to political correctness).	Europe	Fox and Geese Draughts / Checkers (all variants) Ground Billiards	Merels / Nine Mens Morris Alquerque Tables
Renaissance (c.1450 - c.1650) European intellectual movement that started in Italy in the 14th century and lasted around the rest of Europe until some time in the 17th century.   The renaissance period is traditionally seen as the time when the feudal way of life of the middle ages was transformed into the modern age featuring centralised state politics, high art and science.	Europe	Modern European Chess Shovelboard, forerunner to Shuffleboard and Sjoelbak   (UK) Shove Ha'penny, another descendant of Shovelboard (UK) Backgammon (& European variants) Cribbage (UK, 1620s) Port & King Billiards Pall Mall	Real Tennis Croquet Nine Mens Morris (as quoted by Shakespeare) Fox and Geese Cribbage Bowls (as played by Drake before the battle with the Spanish Armada) Tables
		Solitaire (France pre-1697) Carambole (France, 1700s) Bagatelle (pre 1770, location unknown)	Tablut (Finland seen in 1732)
Victorian period Queen Victoria, born in 1819, was Queen of England from 1837 -1901 when the British Empire was the leading force in the world. During her reignthe British were potty about games, inventing and codifying hundreds of new games each year, many of which such as Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Snooker went on to become some of the most popular games in the world by the end of the twentieth century.	Britain	Halma (US/UK) Ludo Snakes & Ladders Lawn Tennis (UK) Squails (UK) Crokinole (Canada) Deck Shuffleboard (USA/UK)  1870s Sjoelbak (Holland) English Billiards (early 1800s, UK) Life Pool Snooker Parlour Bagatelle Croquet	Lawn Billiards Bagatelle Mah Jong (China) c.1880
Edwardian period (roughly 1900 - 1919)	Britain	Outdoor Shuffleboard (early 1900s) Indoor Shuffleboard ?	Mah Jong was particularly popular in Europe and North America in the 1920s

I realise that this list is not complete and would appreciate any suggestions or feedback you may have.  http://www.tradgames.org.uk/features/games-chronological.htm

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Neolithic Game Boards

The quest for the oldest board game used to be clearcut but recently the waters have been muddied considerably by some neolithic finds in Jordan that appear to be gaming boards. The trouble is that no-one has a clue how to play them. In fact several similar boards can have been found in ancient archeological sites within Jordan. Most are fragmentary and but there are a couple of particular interest.

The first board is a limestone slab found at Ain Ghazal, which is on the outskirts of Amman, the capital of Jordan. It is dated at 5870BC, give or take 240 years and shows two rows of 6 depressions which converge i.e. they are not parallel although whether that is relevant or is simply due to a lack of care by the maker is unknown. It appears to be complete and measures 39 x 23cm (15 x 9 inches) at its widest point. Some historians have said that this board is an ancient version of Mancala. Initially, this author was sceptical of that claim because when one compares this board to a modern game from East or West Africa played with Banduc or similar seeds, the depresssions seem very shallow and could not have held many such pieces, a feature which is usually required in that game. But further analysis of modern Mancala variants reveals that some games are played with very small seeds or other types of pieces with hollows that are correspondingly fairly shallow and so perhaps this is not an obstacle to the theory, after all.

The next two slabs show are from the archeological site at Beida which is only a few miles from the ancient city of Petra. They are both broken but show again two rows of depressions with the additional feature of a snaking line connecting the hollows. This is assumed to be purely a decorative feature but there is certainly a theme being built.

The final board of primary interest is also from Beidha although frustratingly it is not illustrated. The description of the limestone slab is very intriguing because it sounds exactly like a modern day Mancala game: "having a single hollow at each end separated by two parallel rows of hollows".

The dating of Beidha has been a bit of a problem. Originally, it was thought to around the Middle of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Recently, doubt has been cast on this and the date for the finds above are most likely to be in the terminal Pre-Pottery Neolithic period i.e. 7000 - 6500BC. Which, let's face it, is pretty old in the human history scheme of things.

Whether these tablets are games is not completely clear but most experts seem to think that they are. Assuming so, then what type of game is less apparent. If they are related to present games in any way at all, then the most likely candidate is Mancala. The history and origins of Mancala have always been the most difficult to glean of any game due to the fact that most of its game play has been with temporary materials that leave no historical evidence whatsoever. For example, play with seeds in hollows scooped in the earth or with shells in hollows scooped in a beach. So it is not unthinkable that the game has a history going back thousands of years without any evidence to show for it.