Ancient Board Games in Perspective

Everyone plays board games, and everyone will find something to fascinate them in this book about the games of the past, and their history and development. Based on the lectures given at a conference in the British Museum, this book tells the story in a properly academic way, but it is no less interesting for that ... and perhaps even more interesting! The book begins with three chapters on the games of the ancient Near East, most notably The Royal Game of Ur , then there are five chapters on the various games of ancient Egypt, senet, mehen , etc. Five more chapters are devoted to the games of the Greek and Roman world, then one on India, and three on Chinese games including Go. Then there are three on the beginnings of Chess and its introduction into western Europe, then four on backgammon from India to medieval England, three on mancala games, and one on the pursuit of hnefatafl , finally some brief notes on the games of the New World. The authors, thirty-one of them, range from archaeologists, historians and museum curators, not least Irving Finkel, the editor of the volume, to such well-known historians of games as R C Bell and the internationally famous grandmaster and journalist Raymond Keene. It is a large format book with hundreds of photos and drawings.

Table of Contents

Preface (John Curtis); The Study of Board Games and the present volume (I.F. Finkel); 1. The Earliest materials Homo Ludens: Early Board Games in the Near East (St. John Simpson); 2. Ancient Mesopotamia The Royal Game of Ur (A. Becker); The Game and the play of the Royal Game of Ur (I.F. Finkel); 3. Egypt Mehen: the ancient game of the serpent (Timothy Kendall); Were there gamesters in ancient Egypt? (W.J. Tait);The Egyptian game of senet and the migration of the soul, (Peter A. Piccione); The game of hounds and jackals (A.J. Hoerth); The ancient Egyptian 20 field game (E. Pusch); 4. The Classical World Board games and their symbols from Roman times to early Christianity (Anita Rieche); Inscribed imperial Roman gaming boards (N. Purcell); Pavement signs and game boards of the Graeco-Roman world, a BM typology (R.C. Bell & C. Roueché); Late Roman and Byzantine game boards at Aphrodisias (C. Roueché); 5. Chess The beginnings of chess (Michael Mark); Changing cultures: the reception of chess into W. Europe in the Middle Ages (Richard Earles); Problems with the dating of chess with reference to Shatrang (Raymond Keene); 6. Backgammon New evidence from central Asia for board game history (G. Semenov); India in the history of backgammon (M. Soar); Notes on the early history of the backgammon family in China (Andrew Lo); A late eleventh century tabluae set from Gloucester (Ian J. Stewart); A brief history of backgammon and the design of the board (M. Watkins); 7. India and the Far East Game boards at Vijayanagara: a preliminary report (John M. Fritz and David Gibson); Horse coins: pieces for Da ma, the Chinese board game Driving Horses (Joe Cribb); An Introduction to board games in late imperial China (Andrew Lo); Go in ancient China (John Fairbairn); 8. Mankala An overview of Mankala rules and variations (L. Russ); The typological spread of the Mankala table for the above (Philip Townsend); Mankala game boards as African emblems of status (Rosly Adele Walker); 9. Miscellaneous studies The pursuit of Hnefatafl (I. Riddler); The history and rules of Rithmomachia, the philosopher's game (J. Stigter); Robert Culin and New World games (Bonita Freeman-Witthoft).