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Castle Espie - amazing wetlands venue for getting up close to...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:08:48 -0500

Castle Espie - amazing wetlands venue for getting up close to amazing and rare birds! Put down your phone & visit now! (at Castle Espie Wetlands Centre)

Benbulben mountain, Sligo. (at Benbulben)

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:55:09 -0500

Benbulben mountain, Sligo. (at Benbulben)

Grave of WB Yeats, Drumcliff, Co Sligo (at Yeats’...

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:41:43 -0500

Grave of WB Yeats, Drumcliff, Co Sligo (at Yeats’ Gravesite)

High cross and round tower, Drumcliff, Co Sligo. (at...

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:35:19 -0500

High cross and round tower, Drumcliff, Co Sligo. (at Yeats’ Gravesite)

We were out looking for some exotic birds today… And look...

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:27:08 -0500

We were out looking for some exotic birds today… And look who came to visit! (at Portmore Lough Nature Reserve)

Dundrum Bay, Co. Down. The world’s first iron- hulled,...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:07:40 -0500

Dundrum Bay, Co. Down. The world’s first iron- hulled, screw propellor ocean going liner, the SS Great Britain ran aground here in 1846. (at The Slieve Donard Resort and Spa)

Victorian express! The RPSI Mince Pie Special Steam Train #train...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:28:13 -0500

Victorian express! The RPSI Mince Pie Special Steam Train #train #transport #steam #victorian (at Lisburn Train Station)

Slieve Gullion courtyard shrouded in mist for Enspire’s...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:11:09 -0500

Slieve Gullion courtyard shrouded in mist for Enspire’s magical Winter Wonderland!

Loughbrickland; Named after a famous chieftain, this lake has...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:50:37 -0500

Loughbrickland; Named after a famous chieftain, this lake has been a centre for Bronze Age activity, including a Crannog, standing stones and settlements. #history #heritage #lake #water #cold #winter #ice (at loughbrickland)

ancientpeoples: Toy Mouse New Kingdom Egypt Toy mouse, with...

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 05:01:58 -0500

ancientpeoples:

Toy Mouse

New Kingdom

Egypt

Toy mouse, with body modelled in clay, and decorated with black lines of paint. The lower jaw and tail are of wood, and are both moveable

(Source: The British Museum)

ancientpeoples: Ancient Gamers – The Games of Old If there is...

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:19:26 -0500

Game Paraphernalia dating from the Roman Empire

Queen Nefertari playing a game of Senet, as depicted in her tomb

A set of glass astragaloi; Late Roman Imperial

The Game of Twenty Squares, as found in the Royal Tombs of Ur

ancientpeoples:

Ancient Gamers – The Games of Old

If there is one thing that transcends time and space, it’s gaming. For tens of thousands of years, children and adults from all over the world have invented, played and mastered thousands of different games. Board games, dice games, games that require only the hands of the participants - someone, somewhere, at some point in time thought of an exciting new game. Some were successful, others fell back into obscurity. Chances are many of the games you played as a child (hopscotch, knucklebones) have been in existence for far longer than you think. In fact, there are quite a few games we play as adults that go back to ancient times. So without further ado, here is a selection of the most interesting games of yore.

Board Games

Despite a plethora of uncovered gaming boards, pieces and other related artefacts, we need to take into account that we’re missing a lot of information on rules, the origins and the geographical distribution. What we do know is that these type of games would have required moving pieces around a board. It seems pretty straightforward, because we’ve all been raised with Ludo and Monopoly, but it needs to be mentioned. Some of these required skill while others were strategy based, and more often than not pure luck played its part.

Senet

The oldest mention of this Egyptian game comes from the third Dynasty tomb of Hesire, Chief of Dentists. It was played by both the elite and the common people, for over three thousand years, until it was rejected in the Late Roman Period because of its then-pagan symbolism. A similar game has been found in Arad, Canaan, but it’s unsure whether Senet has its origins in either one of these countries, or if the games have developed separately.

The board is arranged in three columns of ten squares each. It has two sets of game pieces, usually five of either kind, though there are more extensive games found with more pawns, as well as a few with less. The rules are a question of debate, though there have been made some educated guesses by specialists. Based on these guesses, several companies have made Senet games for sale.

Latrunculi

The Romans were very fond of dice. As such, hardly any of their board games did not feature these. Latrunculi is one of the very few. This game is somewhat alike to modern day chess, as it is played on a square board divided into a grid. The name, which means ‘soldier-game’, gives us an indication on the nature of Latrunculi as a strategy game. We know quite a bit about it thanks to such figures as Varro and Ovid, who have left us a good idea of how the game was played in writing.

The game pieces were coloured glass pawns and called calculi, latrones, or milites. The pieces could be moved both forwards and backwards, and a piece was taken after being surrounded by two enemy pieces in rank or file. Blocking played a big part, and a player with good strategic skill could extract himself from a block. Backwards moves were a strategic retreat, and the entire game of Latrunculi had all aspects of a military battle: the player who took the most enemy pieces won, and was called the imperator.

The Game of Twenty Squares

This game, also known as The Royal Game of Ur, is a board game found in royal tombs dating from the first Dynasty of Ur, around 2600 B.C. The board itself has a peculiar shape: a three by four grid is connected to a two by three grid by a single column of two. It’s decorated with six different patterns. The pawns were two sets of markers, one black and one white, blank on one side and marked on the other. Three tetrahedral dice are also used. We don’t know exactly how the game would be played in the earliest of times, but a reconstruction could be made based on a Babylonian tablet dating from around 177 B.C.

Like Senet, Twenty Squares is a racing game part skill and strategy, and part luck. Also like Senet, modern incarnations of this game are for sale. There are different versions of the modern rules: in one, players race along the inner and outer tracks much like a game of Ludo, and in another the players must occupy all squares of two different patterns before the other does.

Dice Games

Dice games are perhaps more difficult to reconstruct, because in most case we lack a playing board – after all, all you need for a nice game of dice is a handful of dice. Most of these games involved values given to a particular side on the die, then simply rolling the dice and making sure you have the highest total value to win.

Ludus duodecim scriptorum

Other games required an additional playing board, such as the Roman game of Scriptorum. The board for this game existed out of three rows of twelve letters, arranged into two columns, that formed a sentence. Most of the board we have found have symbols, circles or semicircles drawn between each pair of horizontal words. Unfortunately, we don’t know enough about the rules of this game to make an educated guess beyond that it was akin to backgammon.

Children’s Games

One of the most widely played children’s games has been around since time immemorial: knucklebones. It was originally played with five ‘knucklebones’ of a sheep, and the rules are simple. The child throws the bones in the air and catches them, usually on the back of the hand, in a series of prescribed throws and catches. The child that’s the first to manage the full set of throws in a row, wins.

Other names for knucklebones include astragaloi, dibs, and chuckstones. The origin isn’t quite sure, it seems to be one of those games that many cultures came up with on their own. Sophocles, for instance, ascribes the invention to Palamedes during the Trojan War, while in another legend Zeus is said to have presented Ganymede with both a new playmate (Eros) and a set of gold dibs for them to play with. On the other hand, Plato mentions the game as having been invented by the Egyptian god Toth, while Herodotus tells us the Lydians created it during a period of famine.

Whatever the origin, knucklebones is still played by children the world over today, using, now as then, a wide variety of materials, from pebbles to specially fabricated plastic pieces.

Gambling

It is not a big endeavour to make a gambling game out of any old game: you simply bet money on the outcome. That said, there are games that have been designed as gambling games right from the outset (such as most dice games). One of the most famous of these games is:

Mahjong

Perhaps the most extensive game out there, a full game of Mahjong can take up to two days (believe me, I’ve tried!) No, we’re not talking about the online game of playing out pairs: Mahjong as it’s supposed to be played is a cross between domino, rummikub and poker. The rules are many and so elaborate that it’d require an article on its own to even start explaining them all, but the basics are as such: four players, each representing a wind, have a hand full of tiles (14). Each turn, they’ll exchange one tile from either the stack or the discard pile, until they have a strategic hand of pairs, called a Mahjong. While it was a gambling game pur sang, nowadays it’s being played without money changing hands.

The origin of Mahjong is unclear, though myth suggests that it was Confucius who invented it. The name would come from his fondness of birds, because it bears a resemblance to maque (麻雀), sparrow. Historians now believe the game is a fair bit younger than this, and was based on a forty-card game called Mǎdiào (馬吊), Hanging Horse.

Kottabos

Not so much a gambling game as a drinking game, this Greek game originating around the fifth or fourth century B.C., and required players to fling the dregs of wine at a target while uttering the name of the object of their affection. This target was a bronze standard with a small disk on top called a plastinx. When done correctly, the thrown wine would knock the plastinx down and make it hit a larger disk called the manes, which would cause a bell-like sound. This was done without getting up from the table, and the player could only use his right hand. Sometimes objects of value were staked on the outcome of the game, and considering the game required men flinging their leftover wine at a target, it got more difficult as the night progressed.

(Image sources: The British Museum - paraphernalia; Ur & The Metropolitan Museum of Art - astragaloi)

Fabulous post about ancient games:

Moyry Castle, a defensive castle built in 1601. It supposedly...

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 04:17:02 -0500

Moyry Castle, a defensive castle built in 1601. It supposedly took less than a month to build. #castle #defense #history #war #ring #gullion (at moyry castle)

The grave of Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce and...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 05:05:26 -0500

The grave of Edward Bruce, brother of Robert the Bruce and descendant of Brian Boru. #history #heritage #battle #grave #lonely #hill #faughart #king #boru #bruce (at Faughart)

Craigmore viaduct, Bessbrook. Opened in 1852 the bridge is known...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:02:33 -0400

Craigmore viaduct, Bessbrook. Opened in 1852 the bridge is known locally as the “18 Arches” because it has, well, 18 arches. #bridge #span #history #transport #railway #train (Taken with Instagram at craigmore)

Dromore Mound, a 13th century Motte and Bailey. King John stayed...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:44:11 -0400

Dromore Mound, a 13th century Motte and Bailey. King John stayed here when he came to Ireland. #history #hill #castle #heritage #king #earthwork #built #ancient (Taken with Instagram at Dromore Mound)

Looking towards Carlingford lough from the...

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:19:22 -0400

Looking towards Carlingford lough from the ‘Ramparts’ embankment, Newry. #sky #clouds #reflection #water #sun (Taken with Instagram at Newry Ramparts)

Can anyone guess what this us? Extra points if you can tell is...

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:48:49 -0400

Can anyone guess what this us? Extra points if you can tell is how old it is! It’s a prop for one of our programmes!

More waves from Gyles’s Quay! #sea #splash #wave #beach...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 19:54:42 -0400

More waves from Gyles’s Quay! #sea #splash #wave #beach #sky #cloud #drama (Taken with Instagram at Gyles’s Quay)

Waves at Gyles’s Quay. #beach #sky #sea #water #wave...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:50:08 -0400

Waves at Gyles’s Quay. #beach #sky #sea #water #wave #clouds #cloud #stone #stones #weather #drama (Taken with Instagram at Gyles’s Quay)

Stone Age Rath, outside Bessbrook. Circa 3000 BC. This seems to...

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:45:40 -0400

Stone Age Rath, outside Bessbrook. Circa 3000 BC. This seems to be part of a family grouping as there are other Raths nearby. #history #heritage #stone #age #bc #ancient #hill #fort (Taken with Instagram at Bessbrook)