History of board games

The history of board games is a complicated one, as many games date from early times when literacy was a scarce skill. This has meant that for many games we have three dates, the oldest known board, the earliest mention in literature and the earliest written rule set. For some games like the Royal Game of Ur we only have one of those three.

A number of important historical sites, artifacts and documents exist which shed light on early board games. The most of important of these include,

• The Alfonso X manuscript

Also known as the Libro de los juegos it is a text commissioned by Alfonso translating a large number of arabic documents on games into Spanish. Many of these original arabic documents have been lost to us, so Alfonso's book is the first known codification of many classical games.

• Buddha games list

Earliest known list of games.

• The Royal Tombs of Ur

These tombs contain the oldest board games known to have existed. They were excavated by C. Leonard Woolley and his books contain limited information on the games found. Most of the games found here are now on public view at the British Museum in London.

• Temple at Kurna, Egypt.

The temple itself isn't important, however it's roof is, dating from around 1400 BC it has seven board games etched into it. Many of these boards are the earliest of their type known.

A few books are most prominent in their coverage of the history of board games they are,

• RC Bell's Board and Table Games
• Willard Fiske's Chess in Iceland
• HJR Murray's '\'History of Board Games other than Chess''
• Falkner's Games Ancient and Oriental

Note that these works although prominent suffered from cultural bias, in particular Murray's work, which despite being the standard reference in this area tends to assume a superiority of western cultures.

For easies reference these books will be referred to by author name throughout the rest of this article.

Chronology of Board Games

• 2560 BC
  • Board of the Royal Game of Ur (found at Ur Tombs)
• 2500 BC
  • Paintings of Senet and Han being played made in the tomb of Rashepes.
• 2000 BC
  • Drawing in a tomb at Benihassan depicting an two unknown board games being played (depicted in Falkner). It has been suggested that the second of these is Tau.
• 1400 BC
  • Game boards including Alquerque, Three Men's Morris, Nine Men's Morris, and a possible Mancala board etched on the roof of the Kurna Temple. (Source: Fiske, and Bell)
• 200 BC
  • A Go board pre-dating 200 BC was found in 1954 in Wangdu County. This board is now in Beijing Historical Museum. (Source: John Fairbairn's Go in Ancient China).
• 1 BC-8 AD Ovid's Ars Amatoria contains the first reference to Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum and the smaller merels.
• 220-265 Nard enters China under the name t'shu-p'u (Source: Hun Tsun Sii)
• 1100
  • Invention of Draughts (source: Bell)