031 – Brief History of Games

031 – Brief history of games The history of games dates to the ancient human past. Games are an integral part of all cultures and are one of the oldest forms of human social interaction. Games are formalized expressions of play which allow people to go beyond immediate imagination and direct physical activity. Common features of games include uncertainty of outcome, agreed upon rules, competition, separate place and time, elements of fiction, elements of chance, prescribed goals and personal enjoyment. Games capture the ideas and worldviews of their cultures and pass them on to the future generation. Games were important as cultural and social bonding events, as teaching tools and as markers of social status. As pastimes of royalty and the elite, some games became common features of court culture and were also given as gifts. Games such as Senet and the Mesoamerican ball game were often imbued with mythic and ritual religious significance. Games like Gyan chauper and The Mansion of Happiness were used to teach spiritual and ethical lessons while Shatranj and Wéiqí (Go) were seen as a way to develop strategic thinking and mental skill by the political and military elite. — Ancient games Some of the most common pre-historic and ancient gaming tools were made of bone - found worldwide - and are the ancestors of knucklebones as well as dice games. These bones were also sometimes used for oracular and divinatory functions. Other implements could have included shells, stones and sticks. In ancient civilizations there was no clear distinction between the sacred and the profane. ● Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world A series of 49 small carved painted stones found at the 5,000-year-old Başur Höyük burial mound in southeast Turkey could represent the earliest gaming pieces ever found. Similar pieces have been found in Syria and Iraq. The Royal Game of Ur (or Game of Twenty Squares) was played with a set of pawns on a richly decorated board and dates from about 3000 BCE. It was a race game which employed a set of knucklebone dice. Brief history of games ● Page 1 of 7 Among the earliest examples of a board game is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and in hieroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE. The other example of a board game in ancient Egypt is Hounds and Jackals, also known as 58 holes. Hounds and Jackals appeared in Egypt around 2000 BC and was mainly popular in the Middle Kingdom. In Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire, popular games included ball games (Episkyros, Harpastum, Expulsim Ludere — a kind of handball), dice games (Tesserae), knucklebones, Bear games, Tic-tac-toe (Terni Lapilli), Nine men's morris (mola) and various types of board games similar to checkers. Both Plato and Homer mention board games called 'petteia'. ● Middle East After the Muslim conquest of Persia (638-651) Shatranj spread to the Arab world. While pre-Islamic chess sets represented Elephants, Horses, Kings and Soldiers; the Islamic prohibition against image worship led to increasing abstraction in chess set design. Islamic chess pieces were therefore simple cylindrical and rectangular shapes. Various games in the Tables family were also quite popular, along with Mancala and Tâb. Many of the early Arabic texts which refer to these games often debate the legality and morality of playing them. Brief history of games ● Page 2 of 7 Polo — first played in Sassanid Persia — passed to the neighboring Byzantine Empire and from there to Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties. ● India India saw a number of games in ancient period ranging from the various dice games to other board games. The use of cubical and oblong dice was common (c. 2300 BC). Texts such as the "Mahabharata" indicate that dice games were popular with Kings and royalty, and also had ceremonial purposes. Cowry shells were also widely used. Chaturanga (which means 'quadripartite' and also 'army'), the predecessor of Chess, possibly developed in the Indian subcontinent or Central Asia during the Kushan (30–375 CE) or Gupta (320–550 CE) periods from an amalgamation of other game features and was transmitted to Sassanid Persia (where it was known as Shatranj) and China through the Silk Road. The game of Carrom is said to have originated in the Indian subcontinent. The now known as Ludo, this board was made out of cloth or jute. A depiction is found in the caves of Ajanta Cavesin Maharashtra, showing that the game was quite popular in the Medieval Era. ● East Asia The extinct Chinese board game liubo was invented no later than the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, and was popular during the Warring States period (476 BCE – 221 BCE) and the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE). Go is first mentioned in the historical annal Zuo Zhuan (c. 4th century BC). Chinese Chess or Xiangqi seems to have been played during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907). Playing cards or tiles were invented in Chinaas early as the 9th century during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). The pre-modern Chinese also played ball games such as Cuju which was a ball and net game similar to football, and Chuiwan, which is similar to modern golf. ● Africa The most widespread of the native African games is Mancala. It is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the gameplay. Brief history of games ● Page 3 of 7 The earliest evidence was found in Ethiopia and dated between the 6th and 7th century CE. More than 800 names of traditional mancala games are known, and almost 200 invented games have been described. ● Americas Dice games were popular throughout the Americas. A series of holes on clay floors arranged in "c" shapes at the Tlacuachero archaeological site in Mexico's Chiapas state may be 5000-year-old dice-game scoreboards. If so, this would be the oldest archaeological evidence for a game in the Americas. One of the oldest known ball games in history is the Mesoamerican ballgame. It was played as far back as 1,400 BC and had important religious significance for the meso-american peoples such as the Maya and Aztec. The indigenous North American peoples played various kinds of stickball games, which are the ancestors of modern Lacrosse. Traditional stickball games were sometimes major events that could last several days. As many as 100 to 1,000 men from opposing villages or tribes would participate. ● European games The Tafl games were a family of ancient Germanic and Celtic board games played across much of Northern Europe from earlier than 400 CE until the 12th century. Chess was introduced to the Iberian emirate of Cordoba in 822. An important source of medieval games is the "Libro de los juegos" ("Book of games"), or "Libro de acedrex, dados e tablas" ("Book of chess, dice and tables", in Old Spanish) which was commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile, Galicia and León in 1283. The manuscript contains descriptions and color illustrations of Dice games, Chess and tabula (predecessor of Backgammon). Other pre-modern European board games include Rithmomachy (the philosophers’ game), Alquerque, Fox & Geese, Nine men's morris, Draughts, Nim, Catch the Hare and the Game of the Goose. Dice games were widely played throughout Europe and included Hazard, Chuck-a-luck, Glückshaus, Shut the Box and knucklebones. Card games first arrived in Italy from Mamluk Egypt in the 14th century, with suits very similar to the Swords, Clubs, Cups and Coins and those still used in traditional Italian and Spanish decks. Outdoor games were very popular during holidays and fairs and were played by all classes. Many of them are the predecessors of modern sports and lawn games. Brief history of games ● Page 4 of 7 — Modern games ● Card games During the 15th century card suits began to approach the contemporary regional styles and the court cards evolved to represent European royalty. Early European card games included Noddy, Triomphe, All Fours, Piquet, Basset, Hofamterspiel, Karnöffel and Primero. The game of Cribbage appears to have developed in the early 17th century, as an adaptation of the earlier card game Noddy. Pinochle was likely derived from the earlier Bezique, a game popular in France during the 17th century. Whist was widely played during the 18th and 19th centuries Baccarat first came to the attention of the public at large and grew to be widely played as a direct result of the Royal Baccarat Scandal of 1891. The first documented game of poker dates from an 1833 Mississippi river steamer. Collectible card games or trading card games while bearing similarities to earlier games in concept, first achieved wide popularity in the 1990s. ● Miniature wargaming Miniature figure games have their origin in a German chess variant called 'The King's Game', created in 1780 by Helwig, Master of "Pages to the Duke of Brunswick". Brief history of games ● Page 5 of 7 The first non-military wargame rules were developed by Naval enthusiast and analyst Fred T. Jane in 1898. H. G. Wells published rules in his "Floor Games" (1911) and "Little Wars" (1913) designed for wargaming with toy soldiers. In 1956, Jack Scruby, known as the "Father of Modern Miniature Wargaming" organized the first miniatures convention and he was also a manufacturer of military miniatures and editor of a wargaming newsletter. Today miniature wargaming includes most historical eras, fantasy and science fiction settings as well as Naval wargaming. ● Indoor Role playing games Early role-playing games developed from miniature figure wargames. Chainmail was a historical game, but later editions included an appendix for adding fantasy elements such as spells, wizards and dragons.

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