Quiz
As we explore the ancient roots of rolling dice in board game history, what natural items did players of the sacred Mesoamerican race game Patolli toss to determine how their pieces moved along the cross-shaped board?
Chapter 1
Ancient roots of rolling dice
Chapter 2
Chess and the games of war
Chapter 3
The capitalist race of Monopoly
Chapter 4
The modern Eurogame revolution
YOUR GOAL
Master of The history of board games
Ch 1 · Ancient roots of rolling dice
schopenhauer Origins of Dice
Before we rolled a six-sided die, We tossed sheep ankle bones to the sky.
schopenhauer Go is a 3,000-year-old Chinese strategy game of territory control and simple rules.
schopenhauer The Royal Game of Ur is a 4,500-year-old race game discovered in modern-day Iraq.
BETA
schopenhauer Match ancient dice to their civilizations to discover the origins of board games.
Fun Fact
Ancient gaming: The oldest known gaming pieces are 49 small carved stones found in a 5,000-year-old burial mound in Turkey.
Glossary
astragalus (noun)
The anklebone of a hoofed mammal. Ancient Greeks and Romans rolled these asymmetric bones as precursors to modern game dice.
The anklebone of a hoofed mammal. Ancient Greeks and Romans rolled these asymmetric bones as precursors to modern game dice.
Quiz
In the chapter 'Ancient roots of rolling dice' from a project on the history of board games, games of chance are contrasted with games of pure logic. Rather than rolling dice to move along a path, players of the ancient game of Go place stones on an 'endless' grid of intersecting lines. According to ancient Chinese cosmology, what did this grid-based board represent?
Quiz
In the history of board games, the endless grid of Go represents pure, luck-free strategy. Yet in ancient China, Go was frequently paired with the dice-driven game Liubo under what collective term, which combined the concepts of chance and skill?
Quiz
Long before modern cubical dice were invented, how did players of the ancient Egyptian board game Senet—a favorite pastime of pharaohs like Tutankhamun—determine how many spaces to advance their pieces?
Quiz
In Senet, the ancient Egyptian board game known as a favorite pastime of pharaohs like Tutankhamun, what did players throw as a precursor to modern six-sided dice to determine their pieces' movement?
Quiz
Which Egyptian Pharaoh's tomb contained several beautifully crafted Senet boards?
Quiz
Who translated the clay tablet in 1980 that revealed the rules of the Royal Game of Ur?