Ancient Board Games - Duodecim Scripta and Tabula

    Continuing the discussion about Ancient Board Games, we came across two games that are considered to be Backgammon's ancestors: Duodecim Scripta and Tabula.
    
  

Duodecim Scripta or  Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum is the game of twelve marks. Buried beneath the thick layer of lava were found, where once the citizens of Pompeii were living, two murals, 1700 years after the catastrophe that destroyed the city in eighteenth century. The first mural depicted a scene where a men accused the other of cheating. The second one was showing the inn keeper shouting at the men who better go outside if they look for a fight. Historians say that the game of Duodecima Scripta was very popular among people back then. The Roman literature has a lot of information regard to this game. Even the most important people of that time were enjoying the game as Emperor Claudius was known as an ardent player of Duodecim Scripta. He wrote a book about the game and it is said that he was always carrying the board game with him.
     The game is considered to be an early version of the well-known game, Backgammon. As requirements you needed the special board game, fifteen counters each and three six-sided dice and the average game length was 30 minutes. A lot more than what a game of Backgammon might last.



 
  The second game we spoke about last time was Tabula and historians agreed that the game is a better version of Duodeim Scripta and became played among Romans after the popularity of Ludus started to decline (10 B.C.E -54 C.E.). Around fourth century, Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno was playing a game of Tabula and fifty years later the game was described in Asia by a student. The epigram helped Louis Becq de Fourquieres to write the precise rules of the game.
   Unlike Duodecim Scripta, Tabula had two rows instead of three as Backgammon has.


   
    To conclude, despite the fact that two thousand years stay between us and the civilization that invented and played Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum and Tabula we can, in modern days, enjoy their games.

Senet and The Royal Game of Ur

     Last lecture (07.11.2014) we spoke more about the ancient games. The purpose of the lectures is for us to get a better understanding of the history by playing some of the oldest games ever found. Even though archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest board games are four thousand years old, we got the opportunity to try out two, more recent games: Senet (the game of 30 squares) and The Royal Game of Ur (aka the game of 20 squares ).    

   

    Before I start writing about the gameplay experience of these two, I will add some board game classification.

    H. J. R. Murray, historian, classified board games in five groups:

    -Game of alignment and configuration (eg Noughts and Crosses, Nine Men’s Morrie etc.)

    -War games (eg chess)

    -Hunt games (eg fox and geese)

    -Race games (eg backgammon, pachisi etc.)

    -Mancala games (eg mancala)

    In 1960 Bell, R. C. organised games into six categories:

    -Race games (eg pachisi)

    -War games (eg chess)

    -Games of position (eg noughts and crosses)

    -Mancala games, which means “to move” (eg Kalah, Oware etc)

    -Dice games(eg hazard)

    -Domino games(eg ma-jong)

The Royal Game of Ur or the game of 20 squares date from around 2600BC. We played the game and the rules encourage players use strategy in order to win. The interaction between players is high which makes the game very competitive.

    

  

    Senet or the game of 30 squares is considered to be five thousand years old. Has some similarities with the Royal Game of Ur in terms of player interaction but the rules and the layout of the game are different.

       

    All in all, both board games are very valuable historical artifacts. The Royal Game of Ur and Senet can be considered parents of games that were discovered afterwards. The strategy and player interaction found in these two can be seen in various modern games.

Games Britannia - Part One: “Dicing with Destiny”

     Benjamin Woolley, a biographer and historian, starts a series of documentaries talking about the evolution of games in Britain, starting with the Iron Age and going through history until the Information Age, discovering and analysing how games influenced the society.

     The documentary starts with Benjamin Woolly saying how diverse were the reasons why people were playing games: for fun, for friendship, for intellectual purposes,for education and often for money. Even the locations were very different one from another: from churches to pubs and casinos. There was no doubt that people were feeling the need of playing games no matter the purpose or the place.

     In 1996 an archaeological team found a well preserved board game near Colchester that is believed to be two thousand years old and belonged to the Romans. The game was called Stanway Game. It had no dice of any kind in the box the game was found so it has to be a strategy game. 

     Even though we often say that is just a game, for the ancient society games were more than that. They were battle of chance and destiny and most of the time historical events can be depicted from this board games. Nowadays teenagers play video games to escape reality and to live different events that in real life were most of the time impossible.

     Later in the documentary, Benjamin Woolley finds a game in an early version of the Bible that can be consider the map of a religion. Might symbolise the fight between good and evil, a path a man should take to get to Heaven.  

     Games have different interpretation based on the mechanics they use. On one hand there were games that focus on luck as people's lives are most of the time influenced by destiny and on the other hand were games that focus on skill. Woolley says that life is a combination between these two.The perfect games should contain both of them. A game of such complexity might be backgammon.

     Game historian, Caroline Goodfellow says that game are a good way of having fun and waste time mostly because humans, unlike animals, tend to get bored. 

     Nine men's Morris is a very common game similar to "X's and O's" that can easily be found anywhere. In cathedrals you can find carved drawings of the game in stone.

      Later in history, dice were considered a tool of evil as no faith is worth being decided only by luck. Also, many considered that you can cheat with ease using dice.Hazard is a game where you bet money on the outcome of the rolled dice. Another game of pure chance is Faro. The difference is it uses decks of cards instead of dice. Usually the game is played in casinos for money. Because the prizes consist most of the time in money the stake was really high and addicted gambling players can become a real problem to society due to the fact that losing could cost them, literally, a fortune.

     The church started to see dice as a real menace to community's life, so people found an alternative: a spinner with number written on the margins. Very similar to dice but with different shape.

     Snakes and ladders is another well known game that is actually inspired by an Indian game named Gyan Chapoor. The game doesn't  rely on competition. It focuses on the spiritual path the human must take to reach the balance and happiness.

     Chess it is considered to be on of the most evolved game in terms of strategy that is easy to learn but very hard to master. The game is dated around 18th century in India. It was so well designed that lasted for two hundred years~ without any changes gameplay changes.

     This concludes the first part of the documentary Games Britannia: Dicing with Destiny.