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If you're feeling the need to step away from the screen, here are 10 historical board games from the collection - some of which you can still play today. You can buy replicas of some of the games from our online shop.

1. The Royal Game of Ur

The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest playable boardgame in the world, originating around 4,600 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia.

The game's rules were written on a cuneiform tablet by a Babylonian astronomer in 177 BC. From this, curator Irving Finkel was able to decipher the rules - two players compete to race their pieces from one end of the board to the other. The central squares were also used for fortune telling.

If you want to try the game for yourself, you can buy your very own replica from our online shop.

Discover how to play this game of speed and strategy with Tom Scott and Irving Finkel in this video:

2. The Lewis Chessmen

These charismatic chess pieces are the Lewis Chessmen - some of the most iconic objects in the Museum.

Made in Scandinavia in the late 12th century, the skilfully carved chess pieces were found on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland around 1831.

It's thought they belonged to a merchant travelling from Norway to Ireland, and various stories have emerged to explain why they may have been concealed there.

The chessmen are strongly influenced by Norse culture. This is most evident in the figures of the warders or rooks which take the form of berserkers - fierce mythical warriors.

'Check' out all our replica chess sets in our online shop.

Hear how the Lewis Chessmen are linked to a certain boy wizard in this video:

3. Wari

Wari is a game of calculation and strategy played widely within West Africa and also popular elsewhere in the world - you might know it as mancala.

The aim of the game is to capture the seeds of your opponent, moving them from their six playing holes to your bank.

This game board was made in Sierra Leone and is notable for its elaborate sculptural base. It's decorated with an animal, possibly a pig.

If you don't have a game board at home, you can play by drawing two rows of six circles on a piece of paper, with an oval at each end, and use 48 marbles, beads, pebbles, or even sweets as your counters.

Find out how to play with this blog from the spruce crafts.

4. Senet

Beloved by Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertari alike, senet is one of the earliest known board games, dating to around 3100 BC.

The game board comprises 30 squares, laid out in three rows of 10. Two players compete to race all their pieces to the end of the board, using casting sticks or bones, rather than dice, to determine the number of squares moved with each throw.

Some boards, like this one made from a hollowed-out piece of wood faced with ivory, have completely blank squares, whereas others include squares decorated with hieroglyphs representing additional game rules.

On this papyrus, dating to around 1250-1150 BC, a lion plays senet with a gazelle, despite having a bit of trouble holding the pieces.

5. Mahjong

First played during the Qing dynasty in China (1644-1912), mahjong is a strategy-based game played using tiles. They are traditionally decorated with Chinese characters, bamboo branches and dots, and special tiles are indicated with winds, dragons, flowers and seasons. This incomplete set has 140 of the original 144 tiles, which are made from bamboo and bone - each tile weighs just six grams.

It is similar in practice to the card game rummy, and four players draw and discard tiles to complete their hand. The aim of the game is to get all 14 of your tiles into four sets and one pair.

Mahjong was introduced to the West in the 19th century, and has grown in popularity internationally since. You can find an exquisitely-made mahjong set in our online shop, and master the game for yourself.

6. The Game of the Goose

The earliest commercially produced board game, the Game of the Goose is a game of chance and luck, involving no strategy at all.

Duke Francesco de Medici first gifted the game, then called Gioco dell'Oca to Philip II of Spain between 1574 and 1587, and the pastime quickly spread in popularity throughout Europe. These examples dating from 1774 to the late 19th century include the rules in French, German and Italian.

The aim of the game is to get your counter to the centre of the board, moving counterclockwise according to rolls of a die. Some spaces are accompanied by special rules - for example, if you land on number 58 you must start the game again, or if you land on number 19 you might pay a forfeit and drink until your next turn. Players must score a perfect 63 to win the game.

To play 'Game of the Goose' at home, simply copy or print out any of the versions linked in the captions above, which handily hold all the rules on the board, find two dice, and enjoy!

7. Ajax and Achilles' game of dice

Made in Athens around 530 BC, this amphora shows Ajax and Achilles - two of the heroes of the Trojan war - playing a board game, possibly with pessi, or dice.

Seven counters or dice are visible on the game board, and Ajax reaches out to pick up one of his pieces for the next throw, as they pass the hours between the fighting.

We can't be sure what game they were playing, or how the dice were scored, but an equivalent might be backgammon, which involves both counters and dice. It dates back nearly 5,000 years to Mesopotamia, and versions were played in the Byzantine Empire in 5th-century and in 6th-century Persia.

Hear from curator Irving Finkel about the history of board games - including chess and backgammon - in this audio clip.

Curator Victoria Donnellan invites us into the world of Ajax and Achilles' game in this video:

8. Sugoroku

First brought to Japan from China in the 8th century, sugoroku was originally a complex game played by two people with a pair of dice and fifteen counters each, popular among the Japanese elite.

Affordable woodblock-printed sugoroku sheets were developed in the Edo period (1615-1868), meaning this form of the game - e-sugoroku - meaning 'picture sugoroku', could be played widely. It is similar in style to western snakes and ladders, and this 18th-century example uses the hierarchical status system, from merchant to artisan, farmer and warrior in ascending order.

It can be played by two or more people, who advance their pieces according to dice rolls around a clockwise spiral. Each player starts at the 'merchant' square, in the bottom right-hand corner, and the goal is to reach the largest square in the centre - 'daimyo lord's first arrow shooting of the year', with a picture of a samurai drawing his bow in the presence of high-ranking courtiers.

Each square is illustrated with a different occupation, including fishmongers, pharmacists, plasterers, priests, doctors and scholars. Print the game out and play it for yourself to see if you can spot them all - you'll just need dice and some counters to get started.

9. Pachisi

Pachisi is an Indian game played since at least the 16th century on a board shaped like a symmetrical cross. The aim of the game is to move all four of your pieces around the board before your opponents do, with the central square acting as the start and finish point.

The number of spaces moved on each turn is determined by a throw, traditionally of cowrie shells, and the number of shells which land with their opening upwards dictates the number of spaces moved. In other iterations of the game, shells are replaced by beehive-shaped pieces, like these below.

The name of the game is derived from the Hindi word paccīs, meaning twenty-five - the largest score possible with one throw, where none of the pieces land upside down, and so the game is also known as Twenty Five.

The principles of pachisi were taken to create Ludo - a simplified version of the same game - in England in 1896. Find out more on Google Arts & Culture.

10. Mehen

Named after the Egyptian snake god, Mehen was played from around 3000 BC until 2300 BC.

The game board is in the shape of a coiled snake, whose body is divided up into rectangular segments, and teams of up to six players race from the tail to the head and back again, with additional lion-shaped gaming pieces.

The rules and scoring system of mehen are unknown, but a modern equivalent might be hyena - a North African game where players race a mother piece along a spiral track from the outside (the village), to the centre (the well), and back. The first to finish wins and releases a hyena, which also travels along the spiral, eating other players' pieces as it goes!
We hope you enjoyed our rundown of some historic board games - let us know if they've cured your boredom and if you're enjoying playing any by tweeting us @britishmuseum. Find more great games and perplexing puzzles to challenge your mind in our online shop.

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Spanning over 5,000 years, explore ancient board games, some still played today, like Game of Ur, senet, warri, mahjong and chess.

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Ancient & Historical Board Games | High quality replicas

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Fascinating range of historical board games. High quality replicas. Fun ancient games for all ages & historic period games for museums & schools.

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EBG -интернет магазин настольных игр

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Исторические настольные игры разных народов, стран и эпох.

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"Play Hide and Seek in Herculaneum" is the new animation realised by Steve Simons and Sonya Nevin (Panoply) for Locus Ludi.

This delicate animation, evoking the carefree happiness of loved children and hope, is meant as a gesture of solidarity with all our Italian friends, our colleagues and the many people throughout Europe and the world who are currently isolated. In the past as today, play and games can provide suspended moments of shared happiness.

The animation is based on a wall painting from the so-called cryptoporticus of the House of the Stags (Casa dei Cervi), one of the largest dwellings in Herculaneum with a beautiful terrace that once overlooked the sea.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE destroyed the city but the pyroclastic flow preserved the splendour of this wealthy house.

Children may have actually played hide and seek in the corridor which was decorated with a series of small panels depicting Erotes engaged in various lively activities.

The scene is a perfect example of the contribution of images to the history of play and games: it preserves the memory of children's social life ; they perform a collective activity, hide and seek, which otherwise left no archaeological trace and belongs to an immaterial heritage. The picture shares an imaginary, cheerful world where children are no longer mortal, but divine: they are depicted as carefree winged supernatural beings.

Images, however, do not provide us with game rules. The dictionary (Onomasticon) written by Julius Pollux in the 2nd century CE provides a list of games with descriptions.

Pollux lists four variants of hide and seek games : Myinda, Apodidraskinda, Chalké Muia, some of which are still practiced today. But which one is illustrated in Herculaneum? The animations skilfully propose different hypotheses

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"Play Hide and Seek in Herculaneum" is the new animation realised by Steve Simons and Sonya Nevin (Panoply) for Locus Ludi. This delicate animation, evoking the carefree happiness of loved children and hope, is meant as a gesture of solidarity with all our Italian friends, our colleagues and the many people throughout Europe and the world who are currently isolated.

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About This Game

What is Daldos?

Daldos is a game about the confrontation of two players, whose warriors came together in battle on board one drakkar. The game is about cold calculation. The game is about a single winner!

You will have to fight with other players in the classic game of the ancient Vikings to show who is the best here!
Show everyone your strategic and tactical skills, challenge any opponent to a duel and win a magnificent victory, taking pride of place in Valhalla!

What is this game about?

In Daldos, you will have a squad consisting of 16 warriors under your leadership. You meet with your opponent's squad on the deck of the drakkar. Your main task is to defeat the enemy forces by reducing the number of enemy troops to 1 warrior.

But it will not be easy to do this, because every player is a dangerous and experienced strategist. The same as you! Use your wits, show your strategic and tactical skills, make the right decision and take the right action - then your victory will not keep you waiting long!

What features does Daldos have?

Firstly, uniqueness. You will not find analogues of this game!
Secondly - network and local multiplayer. This will allow you to show your power to everyone else!
Thirdly, stylization. Beautiful graphics, carved interface and theme music - all this will please your inner connoisseur.
Fourth - four languages! The game is translated into Russian, English, Norwegian and Danish!

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Daldos is a game about the confrontation of two players, whose warriors came together in battle on board one drakkar. The game is about cold calculation. The game is about a single winner! You will have to fight with other players in the classic Viking game and show who is the best here!

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No download required. HTML5, CSS3 based game. Responsive layout.

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The Royal Game of Ur is one of the longest-lived games in history, with evidence of it being enjoyed by people that lived over the course of many thousands of years. This affords the game a huge wealth of history to explore and discover, and in fact, you can experience this history yourself by playing the game! You would think that a game that has lasted millenia would be fun, and it is fun!

The game is made for two players with a board, 5 or 7 pieces per player, and 4 two-sided dice. The exact rules that were played thousands of years ago is hard to deduce (and likely changed over time!). However, academics have used ancient artifacts and the writing on old cuneiform tablets to discover several likely options. However, the rules for the game that have become the most popular in this millenia are the ones presented in the 2017 YouTube video Tom Scott vs. Irving Finkel.

Scans of an excavated board of the Royal Game of Ur.

The video that cemented Irving Finkel as an icon of this game also inspired Padraig X. Lamont to start a hobby project. And so, over one Christmas, many slices of Christmas ham, and many hot chocolates, a fledgling version of this website was born! That fledgling hobby project has since grown up, and we are now proud to boast an average of 500 games played every day on RoyalUr.net. However, in an even bigger accomplishment, we are also proud to have grown a rich Discord community of over 700 people that are enthusiastic about the Royal Game of Ur. This community welcomes both serious and casual players, as well as academics! And that is why we are so excited to have you join us here, to share in the game we all love.

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Can you master the world's oldest board game? Play online, with a friend, or against the AI!

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Hnefatafl written in HTML and JavaScript by adapting the code of Checkers

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The Royal Game of Ur Game of Twenty Squares 1:1 Scale - Etsy Finland

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Daldos Daldøs Viking ‘running/chase’ Board Game - Etsy Finland

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This Board Games item by KleverNKrafty has 884 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from United States. Listed on Sep 3, 2023

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Латрункули, лат. latrunculi, latrones, сокр. latro, полная форма Lūdus lātrunculōrum, Ludus latrunculorum - букв. "игра солдатиков/наемников" - древнеримская игра шашечного типа. Считается, что от вариации на доске 8х8, с изменением правил хода дамки и простой шашки, включая правило ударного хода, произошли шашки на 64-клеточной доске.

Ludus latrunculorum развилась из древнегреческой игры петтейя или игры pente grammaí. Первое упоминание об latrunculi оставил римский автор Варрон (116-27 до н. э.) в книге "О латинском языке". Упоминал о них в энциклопедии " Этимологии" Исидор Севильский.

Была очень популярной игрой, по ней проводились турниры.

Игра имела множество вариаций, самих правил, размеров доски.

Два игрока. Доска 8х12, 7х8, 8х8, 16 шашечных фигур или 32, в игре появляется дамка, если простая достигнет т. н. Реки, последней линии (ср. изменение правил с нардами). Простые ходят по 4 сторонам, но не по диагоналям (ср. с турецкими шашками). Если простая окружена с 4 сторон, то есть не может сделать ход, она снимается с доски (введено правило боя). Дамка может делать сложный ход, "перешагивая" через простые. Игра завершается, если соперник не может сделать ход (уничтожены или блокированы) (ср. изменение правил с нардами, т. н. марс, и хасами сёги).

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Латрункули - Википедия

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Латрункули, лат. latrunculi, latrones, сокр. latro, полная форма Lūdus lātrunculōrum, Ludus latrunculorum - букв. "игра солдатиков/наемников" - древнеримская игра шашечного типа. Считается, что от вариации на доске 8х8, с изменением правил хода дамки и простой шашки, включая правило ударного хода, произошли шашки на 64-клеточной доске.

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🎁BOARD GAME CHARACTERISTICS🎁

Size: 18х35 cm
Materials: wood.
Weight: 0.3 kg
Processing time: 1-2 weeks

🌟MATERIALS 🌟
For making our board games, we use only natural materials such as wood, leather or metal. We avoid plastic to keep the product authentic. In addition to this, we use only ash and oak types of wood due to their features. These woods are durable and good-looking. As a result, we can guarantee that the game will last you for ages.

🟩MANUFACTURING PROCESS🟩
Eastern Europe has been famous for it`s wood carving skilled artisans for ages. Since the times of Kievan Rus the artisans were developping their skills to make highest quality products. Usually artisans were creating wooden products such as bowls, plates, boxes, different tools and board games. We have chosen experienced and skillfull artisans to make our products. All our products are handmade.

🔥PERSONALIZATION🔥
We can add large engraving on the inner side of the board, or a small engraving on the outer side of the board. For the customization , please choose the "personalized" option before you order.

🌍DELIVERY🌍

Most of the items are made to order, so the processing time is between 1 and 3 weeks. All the items are shipped from Ukraine with the priority shipping. Average delivery time is 10-15 days. We also have an option of express delivery if you need an item faster.

❓STILL HAVE A QUESTION❓

If still have any questions about the products, you can message us anytime, we will answers as fast as we can. Sometimes it may take up to 12 hours to reply due to time difference.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Game_of_Ur

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The Royal Game of Ur is a two-player strategy race board game of the tables family that was first played in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third millennium BC. The game was popular across the Middle East among people of all social strata and boards for playing it have been found at locations as far away from Mesopotamia as Crete and Sri Lanka. One board, held by the British Museum, is dated to c. 2600 - c. 2400 BC, making it one of the oldest game boards in the world.

The Royal Game of Ur is sometimes equated to another ancient game which it closely resembles and which is called the Game of Twenty Squares or Game of Twenty (see below).

At the height of its popularity, the game acquired spiritual significance, and events in the game were believed to reflect a player's future and convey messages from deities or other supernatural beings. The Game of Ur remained popular until late antiquity, when it stopped being played, possibly evolving into, or being displaced by, a form of tables game. It was eventually forgotten everywhere except among the Jewish population of the Indian city of Kochi, who continued playing a version of it called 'Asha' until the 1950s when they began emigrating to Israel.

The Game of Ur received its name because it was first rediscovered by the English archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley during his excavations of the Royal Cemetery at Ur between 1922 and 1934. Copies of the game have since been found by other archaeologists across the Middle East. A partial description in cuneiform of the rules of the Game of Ur as played in the second century BC has been preserved on a Babylonian clay tablet written by the scribe Itti-Marduk-balāṭu.

Based on this tablet and the shape of the , British Museum curator Irving Finkel reconstructed the basic rules of how the game might have been played. The object of the game is to run the course of the board and bear all one's pieces off before one's opponent. Like modern backgammon, the game combines elements of both strategy and luck.

A graffito version of the game from the palace of Sargon II (British Museum in London)[4][5]

A game box for playing senet and Twenty Squares, 1635-1458 BC

The Game of Ur was popular across the Middle East and boards for it have been found in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Cyprus and Crete. Four gameboards bearing a very close resemblance to the Royal Game of Ur were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. These boards came with small boxes to store dice and game pieces and many had senet boards on the reverse sides so that the same board could be used to play either game and merely had to be flipped over.

The game was popular among all social classes. A graffito version of the game carved with a sharp object, possibly a dagger, was discovered on one of the human-headed winged bull gate sentinels from the palace of Sargon II (721-705 BC) in the city of Khorsabad.

The Game of Ur eventually acquired superstitious significance and the tablet of Itti-Marduk-balāṭu provides vague predictions for the players' futures if they land on certain spaces, such as "You will find a friend", "You will become powerful like a lion", or "You will draw fine beer". People saw relationships between a player's success in the game and their success in real life. Seemingly random events, such as landing on a certain square, were interpreted as messages from deities, ghosts of deceased ancestors, or from a person's own soul.

A 2013 study of nearly one hundred well-dated game boards across the Near East shows significant changes over 1,200 years of time in the layout of squares on the board. This indicates that game rules and game play were not static, but changed over time. The study further shows the game was transmitted from Mesopotamia to the Levant around 1800 BC, from the Levant to Egypt around 1600 BC where it picked up small innovations in board design (additional squares), and from Egypt or the Levant to Cyprus and Nubia. Several apparently failed innovations in board design also appear (i.e., only one example of a specific board design is known from the archaeological record).

It is unclear what led to the Game of Ur's eventual decline during late antiquity. One theory holds that it evolved into backgammon; whereas another holds that early forms of backgammon eclipsed the Game of Ur in popularity, causing players to eventually forget about the older game. At some point before the game fell out of popularity in the Middle East, it was apparently introduced to the Indian city of Kochi by a group of Jewish merchants.

Members of the Jewish population of Kochi were still playing a recognizable form of the Game of Ur, which they called Aasha, by the time they started emigrating to Israel in the 1950s after World War II. The Kochi version of the game had twenty squares, just like the original Mesopotamian version, but each player had twelve pieces rather than seven, and the placement of the twenty squares was slightly different.

The British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley discovered five gameboards of the Game of Ur during his excavation of the Royal Cemetery at Ur between 1922 and 1934. Because the game was first discovered in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, it became known as the "Royal Game of Ur", but later archaeologists uncovered other copies of the game from other locations across the Middle East. The boards discovered by Woolley date to around 2,600-2,400 BC.

All five boards were of an identical type, but they were made of different materials and had different decorations. Woolley reproduced images of two of these boards in his 1949 book, The First Phases. One of these is a relatively simple set with a background composed of discs of shell with blue or red centers set in wood-covered bitumen. The other is a more elaborate one completely covered with shell plaques, inlaid with red limestone and lapis lazuli. Other gameboards are often engraved with images of animals.

Reconstruction

The rules tablet dated 177 BC (British Museum[11])

When the Game of Ur was first discovered, no one knew how it was played. Then, in the early 1980s, Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, translated a clay tablet written c. 177 BC by the Babylonian scribe Itti-Marduk-balāṭu describing how the game was played during that time period, based on an earlier description of the rules by another scribe named Iddin-Bēl. This tablet was written during the waning days of Babylonian civilization, long after the time when the Game of Ur was first played.

It had been discovered in 1880 in the ruins of Babylon and sold to the British Museum. Finkel also used photographs of another tablet describing the rules, which had been in the personal collection of Count Aymar de Liedekerke-Beaufort, but was destroyed during World War I.

This second tablet was undated, but is believed by archaeologists to have been written several centuries earlier than the tablet by Itti-Marduk-balāṭu and to have originated from the city of Uruk. The backs of both tablets show diagrams of the gameboard, clearly indicating which game they are describing. Based on these rules and the shape of the gameboard, Finkel was able to reconstruct how the game might have been played.

Basic rules

The Game of Ur is a race game and it is probably an ancestor of the tables family of games that are still played today and include backgammon. The Game of Ur is played using two sets of seven game pieces, similar to those used in draughts or checkers. One set of pieces is white with five black dots and the other set is black with five white dots. The gameboard is composed of two rectangular sets of boxes, one containing three rows of four boxes each and the other containing three rows of two boxes each, joined by a "narrow bridge" of two boxes.

The gameplay involves elements of both luck and strategy. Movements are determined by rolling a set of four-sided, tetrahedron-shaped dice. Two of the four corners of each die are marked and the other two are not, giving each die an equal chance of landing with a marked or unmarked corner facing up. The number of marked ends facing upwards after a roll of the dice indicates how many spaces a player may move during that turn. A single game can last up to half an hour and can be very intense. Games are very often unpredictable and close at the end.

The object of the game is for a player to move all seven of their pieces along the course ( two proposed versions of which are shown at right) and off the board before their opponent. On all surviving gameboards, the two sides of the board are always identical with each other, suggesting that one side of the board belongs to one player and the opposite side to the other player. When a piece is on one of the player's own squares, it is safe from capture.

When it is on one of the eight squares in the middle of the board, the opponent's pieces may capture it by landing on the same space, sending the piece back off the board so that it must restart the course from the beginning. This means there are six "safe" squares and eight "combat" squares. There can never be more than one piece on a single square at any given time, so having too many pieces on the board at once can impede a player's mobility.

When a player rolls a number using the dice, they may choose to move any of their pieces on the board or add a new piece to the board if they still have pieces that have not entered the game. A player is not required to capture a piece every time they have the opportunity. Nonetheless, players are required to move a piece whenever possible, even if it results in an unfavorable outcome. All surviving gameboards have a colored rosette in the middle of the center row.

According to Finkel's reconstruction, if a piece is located on the space with the rosette, it is safe from capture. Finkel also states that when a piece lands on any of the three rosettes, the player gets an extra roll. In order to remove a piece from the board, a player must roll exactly the number of spaces remaining until the end of the course plus one. If the player rolls a number any higher or lower than this number, they may not remove the piece from the board.

One archaeological dig uncovered twenty-one white balls alongside a set of the Game of Ur. It is believed that these balls were probably used for placing wagers. According to the tablet of Itti-Marduk-balāṭu, whenever a player skips one of the boxes marked with a rosette, they must place a token in the pot. If a player lands on a rosette, they may take a token from the pot.

The Game of Twenty or Game of Twenty Squares is another ancient tables game similar to the Royal Game of Ur. Egyptian gaming boxes often have a board for this game on the opposite side to that for the better-known game of senet. It dates roughly to the period from 1500 BC to 300 BC and is known to have been played in the region that includes Babylon, Mesopotamia and Persia, as well as Egypt. The board comprises two distinct sections; a quadrant of 3 × 4 squares, like that in the Ur game, and a row or 'arm' of 8 squares projecting from the central row of the quadrant. It has five rosettes. The rules are not precisely known but it appears likely that players entered at their 5 pieces onto the arm and aimed to bear them off from the sides of the quadrant, perhaps having contested the arm by hitting opposing pieces off.

Botermans, Jack (1988). Le Monde des jeux. Paris: Le Chêne. ISBN 978-2851085122.

Crist, Walter, Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi and Alex de Voogt (2016). Ancient Egyptians at Play: Board Games Across Borders. UK: Bloomsbury.

Finkel, Irving (2007), "On the Royal Game of Ur," in Ancient Board Games in Perspective, ed. Irving Finkel. London: British Museum Press, pp. 16-32.

Finkel, Irving (1991). La tablette des régles du jeu royal d'Ur. Jouer dans l'Antiquité, Catalogue de l'Exposition. Marseille: Musée d'Archéologie Méditerranéenne.

Finkel, Irving (2005) [1995]. Games: Discover and Play Five Famous Ancient Games (3rd ed.). London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0714131122

Lhôte, Jean-Marie (1993). Histoire des jeux de société. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 978-2080109293.

Parlett, David (2018) [1999]. History of Board Games. Brattleboro, VT: Echo. ISBN 978-1-62654-881-7

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The Royal Game of Ur is a two-player strategy race board game of the tables family that was first played in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third millennium BC. The game was popular across the Middle East among people of all social strata and boards for playing it have been found at locations as far away from Mesopotamia as Crete and Sri Lanka.

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Daldøs - vikingu galda spēle

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Hounds and jackals -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_and_jackals

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Hounds and jackals board, ivory, found at Thebes, 12th Dynasty

Hounds and jackals or dogs and jackals is the modern name given to an ancient Egyptian tables game that is known from several examples of gaming boards and gaming pieces found in excavations. The modern game was discovered by Howard Carter, who found one complete gaming set in a Theban tomb from the reign of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat IV that dates to the 12th Dynasty. The latter game set is one of the best preserved examples and is today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He called it "Hounds contra Jackals". Another, less often used modern name is " fifty-eight holes".

The gaming board has two sets of 29 holes. Gaming pieces are ten small sticks with either jackal or dog heads. The game appeared in Egypt, around 2000 BC and was mainly popular in the Middle Kingdom. In the 1956 movie The Ten Commandments, Pharaoh Seti ( Cedric Hardwicke) and Nefretiri ( Anne Baxter) are shown playing the game.

Hounds and jackals game set.

Hounds and jackals, also known as 58 holes, is a well-known Bronze Age board game which was invented in Ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago.

William Mathew Flinders Petrie initially discovered the game and published about it in 1890. More than 60 examples of the game have been revealed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria, Iran, Azerbaijan, around the Levant and Mediterranean since that time.

A 2013 study of 68 boards from across the Near East suggests that the game was transmitted via trade relations from Egypt to Central Anatolia around 1950 BC, and was later transmitted via trade from there to Mesopotamia. By contrast, the game was transmitted via conquest to Nubia around 1980 BC, and by trade and/or conquest to the Levant at an as-yet-unknown date.

Sticks were made of expensive materials such as ivory, silver and gold based on the findings at some of the archaeological sites. Wood was also used in the preparation of ordinary pegs, but such examples would not have survived.

The complete set of this Egyptian game discovered in 1910 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter is now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The original name of this game is unknown. Different archaeologists use different names.

The game was named "Hounds and jackals" by Carter because of the decorative shapes of the pegs - one player's pins were carved in the form of hounds, while the opposite player's pins were carved as jackals.

The game was called 58 Holes by William Mathew Flinders Petrie because the game board features 58 holes (29 for each side).

"Shen" is the less common name for this game; it was inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphs around the big hole on some of the boards found.

The game is also called the "Palm tree game" as some of the holes were replaced by tree figures.

The game is played with two players. The gaming board has two sets of 29 holes. Gaming pieces are ten small sticks with either jackal or dog heads. One player takes five jackal heads, and the other player takes five dog heads. The aim of the game was perhaps to start at one point on the board and to reach with all figures another point on the board. The hole on the top of the board is slightly bigger than others and accepted as the endpoint for the players.

This game is also known from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.

The game was spread to Mesopotamia in the late 3rd millennium BC and was popular until the 1st millennium BC. The game spread into Assyria, Israel, Anatolia, Babylon and Persia.

During the archaeological excavations, boards were found from remains of Assyrian merchant colonies in Central Anatolia dated 19th-18th centuries B.C. There are options that these boards were brought to Anatolia from Mesopotamia by Assyrian traders, or through the connection between Cappadocia and Egypt.

However, the game was popular in the Mediterranean and surrounding areas, where it preserved its general shape and rules wherever it was played

More than 68 gameboards of hounds and jackals have been discovered in the archaeological excavations in various territories, including Syria (Tell Ajlun, Ras el-Ain, Khafaje), Israel (Tel Beth Shean, Gezer), Iraq ( Uruk, Nippur, Ur, Nineveh, Ashur, Babylon), Iran ( Tappeh Sialk, Susa, Luristan), Turkey (Karalhuyuk, Kultepe, Acemhuyuk), Azerbaijan (Gobustan) and Egypt (Buhen, El-Lahun, Sedment).

Other animals (horses, cats or sparrowhawks) have been found on the top of the pegs, in addition to dogs and jackals, but no such pieces have been found in the Near East where this game was played from the beginning of the second millennium till the middle of the first millennium. Tokens made of ivory with a notch at the top found at Megiddo have been linked to board games. In this site, pins made of ivory with a top as a dog or jackal head was also revealed. Undecorated sticks were found at Ur.

One of the examples of hounds and jackals was discovered in Necropolis B at Tepe Sialk in Iran.

In April 2018, archaeologist Walter Crist from the American Museum of Natural History discovered the examples of 58 holes in Gobustan, Azerbaijan. After examining the rock shelters having complicated dot patterns carved on them, he includes this one of the samples of Hounds and Jackals. In his speech at the annual meeting of American Schools of Oriental Research in November, Crist linked this close relation as: "Bronze Age herders in that region must have had contacts with the Near Eastern world. Ancient games often passed across cultures and acted as a social lubricant."

Hounds and jackals has similar characteristics with other ancient board games. Hounds and Jackals, Twenty Squares or Royal Game of Ur and Senet are similar; all are race games for two players. Compared to Senet, both have been found in Egyptian tombs and dated third millennium BC, also sticks were used in them.

Twenty squares was widely spread to other territories such as Israel, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Cyprus as hounds and jackals games. As well as gaming rules are alike: the one who reaches the endpoint wins the game as it is in Hounds and Jackals. Dice, stones or other pieces are also used in this game to determine who should start first.

1. ^ William C. Hayes: The Scepter of Egypt, I. From the Earliest Times to the End of the Middle Kingdom, New York 1953 ISBN 0-87099-190-6, 250, fig. 160

2. Anne Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi: Game of Hounds and Jackals, in: A. Oppenheim, d. Arnold, D. Arnold, Kei Yamamoto (editors): Ancient Egypt Transformed, The Middle Kingdom, New York 2015 ISBN 978-1-58839-564-1, 249, no. 188

3. Alex de Voogt; Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi; Jelmer W. Eerkens (April 2014). "Cultural Transmission in the Ancient Near East: Twenty Squares and Fifty-Eight holes". Journal of Archaeological Science. 40 (4): 1715-1730.

4. Mihai Andrei (2018-11-28). "Archaeologists discover 4,000 year-old-game in rock shelter. It's called "58 Holes"". ZME Science.

5. ^ De Voogt, Alex; Dunn-Vaturi, Anne-Elizabeth; Eerkens, Jelmer W. (2012). "Cultural Transmission in the Ancient Near East: twenty squares and fifty-eight holes". Journal of Archaeological Science. 40 (4): 1715-1730. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.11.008.

6. ""The Monkey Race" - Remarks on Board Games Accessories" (PDF).

7. ^ Mihai Andrei (2018-11-28). "Archaeologists discover 4,000 year-old-game in rock shelter. It's called "58 Holes"". ZME Science.

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Hounds and jackals or dogs and jackals is the modern name given to an ancient Egyptian tables game that is known from several examples of gaming boards and gaming pieces found in excavations. The modern game was discovered by Howard Carter, who found one complete gaming set in a Theban tomb from the reign of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat IV that dates to the 12th Dynasty.

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Ludus Latrunculorum - Seno Romiešu galda spēle 

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Ludus Latrunculorum - Seno Romiešu galda spēle 

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Roman writers regarded Ludus Latrunculorum as a game requiring an understanding of planning and strategy, and it is strange that such an excellent strategy game disappeared after the end of the Roman Empire.

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Hnefatafll - skandināvu galda spēle, kas minēta jau mūsu ēras trešajā gadsimtā. Vikingi to ieveda Grenlandē, Islandē, Velsā, Britānijā.

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Years active

4th-12th centuries

Genres

Board game
Abstract strategy game

Players

2

Setup time

< 1 minute

Playing time

Typically 5-20 minutes

Random chance

None

Skills required

Strategy, tactics

Synonyms

Hnefatafl

Tafl games ( pronounced [tavl], also known as hnefatafl games) are a family of ancient Nordic and Celtic strategy board games played on a checkered or latticed gameboard with two armies of uneven numbers. Most probably they are based upon the Roman game Ludus latrunculorum. Names of different variants of Tafl include Hnefatafl, Tablut, Tawlbwrdd, Brandubh, Ard Rí, and Alea Evangelii. Games in the tafl family were played in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Britain, Ireland, and Lapland. Tafl gaming was eventually supplanted by chess in the 12th Century, but the tafl variant of the Sami people, tablut, was in play until at least the 1700s. The rules for tablut were written down by the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus in 1732, and these were translated from Latin to English in 1811. All modern tafl games are based on the 1811 translation, which had many errors. New rules were added to amend the issues resulting from these errors, leading to the creation of a modern family of tafl games. In addition, tablut is now also played in accordance with its original rules, which have been retranslated.

The term tafl ( Old Norse: "table", "board"; pronounced ) is the original Norse name of the game. Hnefatafl (roughly , plausibly realised as ), became the preferred term for the game in Scandinavia by the end of the Viking Age, to distinguish it from other board games, such as Skáktafl ( chess), Kvatrutafl ( Tables) and Halatafl ( Fox games), as these became known. The specific name Hnefatafl possibly arose as meaning "board game of the fist", from hnefi ("fist") + tafl, where "fist" referred to the central king-piece.

The precise etymology is not entirely certain but hnefi certainly referred to the king-piece, and several sources[who? ] refer to Hnefatafl as "King's table". In Anglo-Saxon England, the term tæfl also referred to many board games. It is not known if the Anglo-Saxons had a specific name for the game or if they generically referred to it as tæfl in the way that modern people might refer to "cards".

Several games may be confused with tafl games, due to the inclusion of the word tafl in their names or other similarities. Halatafl is the Old Norse name for Fox and Geese, a game dating from at least the 14th century. It is still known and played in Europe. Kvatrutafl is the Old Norse name for Tables (the medieval forerunner of Backgammon). Skáktafl is the Old Norse name for chess. or Fithcheall ( Modern Irish: Ficheall) was played in Ireland. The Welsh equivalent was Gwyddbwyll and the Breton equivalent Gwezboell; all terms mean "wood-sense". This popular medieval game was played with equal forces on each side and thus was not a tafl variant, but rather may have been the medieval descendant of the Roman game Latrunculi or Ludus latrunculorum.

The only variant of tafl where a relatively unambiguous has survived into modern times is tablut, the Sámi variant of the game which was recorded by Linnaeus during his Expedition to Lapland in 1732.

As for the medieval game, no complete, unambiguous description of the rules exists, but the king's objective was to escape to (variously) the board's periphery or corners, while the greater force's objective was to capture him. Although the size of the board and the number of pieces varied, all games involved a distinctive 2:1 ratio of pieces, with the lesser side having a king-piece that started in the centre.

There is some controversy over whether some tafl games (i.e. Hnefatafl and Tawlbwrdd) may have employed dice.

Alea evangelii, which means "game of the gospels", was described, with a drawing, in the 12th-century Corpus Christi College, Oxford manuscript 122, from Anglo-Saxon England. It was played on the intersections of a board of 18×18 cells. The manuscript describes the layout of the board as a religious allegory, but it is clear that this was a game in the Tafl family.

Ard Rí (Gaelic: High King) was a Scottish tafl variant played on a 7×7 board with a king and eight defenders against sixteen attackers. This is the least documented of the known tafl variants.

Brandubh (or brandub) ( Irish: bran dubh) was the Irish form of tafl. From two poems it is known that it was played with five men against eight, and that one of the five was a "Branán", or chief. A number of 7×7 boards have been found, the most famous being the elaborate wooden board found at Ballinderry in 1932, featuring holes for pegged pieces, possibly to allow for portability of the game. The name brandubh means "black raven".

Original rules were not found, but using these 7x7 boards, the text of the two poems and the Tablut rules as a basis, the World Tafl Federation was able to reconstruct balanced rules validated by several tests. · ·

Despite its small size board and the speed of the games, Brandubh offers an undeniable tactical and strategic exercise where the first mistake very often leads to defeat. The small number of pieces means that each of them must often simultaneously defend and attack: it is therefore easy to forget one of these tasks if one focuses too much on the other. As in the great games of Tafl, sacrifices are useful, especially for the defenders, but with only four pieces, it is important not to weaken the king too early in the game.

Hnefatafl (sometimes now referred to as Viking Chess) was a popular game in medieval Scandinavia and was mentioned in several of the Norse Sagas. Some of these saga references have contributed to controversy over the possible use of dice in playing hnefatafl. The rules of the game were never explicitly recorded, and only playing pieces and fragmentary boards are extant, so it is not known for sure how the game was played. If dice were in fact used, nothing has been recorded about how they were employed. Archaeological and literary sources indicate Hnefatafl may have been played on a 13×13 or an 11×11 board.

Hnefatafl became a popular game in Northern Europe during the Viking era (end of the 8th Century to 1000 C.E), a turbulent time full of conflicts. When chess became a popular game during the Middle Ages, the rules of Hnefatafl were forgotten over time. Hnefatafl was particularly popular in Nordic countries and followed the Viking civilization to other parts of Europe, primarily to the British Isles and the Viking country of Gardarike in what is now part of Russia.

The game developed differently at different locations. Archaeologists have found editions in places such as Ireland and Ukraine. Hnefatafl literally translates to "fist table," from the Old Norse (equivalently in modern Icelandic) hnef, 'fist', and tafl, 'table'.

The rules for Norse tafl were lost, but in the 1900s attempts were made to reconstruct the game based on the rules for the Sámi tafl game tablut. The rules for tablut had been written down in the 1700s, and translated from Latin to English in the 1800s (see "Tablut" on this page). Unfortunately, the rules were poorly translated from Latin and gave unbalanced , mainly due to the mistaken idea that the king must be surrounded on four sides to be captured - instead of two. Different innovations were made to create a game that favoured the defender side less, such as limiting the king's escape possibilities to the corners (instead of the entire edge of the board), making the king "weaponless" (unable to participate in capture), making the initial starting points of the attackers inaccessible for the king, and making it easier to capture the king against the corner fields of the board.

Today, many different versions of modern hnefatafl are in play - both online and on physical boards that are sold commercially. One variant used in tournaments is Copenhagen Hnefatafl, which also features a "shield wall" mechanism to capture several soldiers at once, and an "exit fort" rule that enables the king to escape on the edge while otherwise being limited to escape in the corners.

This variant, from Sápmi, is the best documented historical tafl variant It is unique among tafl games in that it is known to have still been played in the 18th century. It may also have survived into the late 19th century. P.A. Lindholm (1884) wrote that the Sámi played a chess-like game where the pieces were called "Swedes and Russians", which follows Sámi tafl terminology.

Carl Linnaeus recorded the rules of tablut and a drawing of the board and pieces in his journal, during his 1732 " Expedition to Lapland" where he travelled in the area of the Lule Sámi - along the Lule River on the Swedish side of the border, and in Salten on the Dano-Norwegian side of the border.

The game may have been called something other than tablut by the Sámi, since the word tablut (also rendered dablut) simply means "to play boardgames". Linnaeus likely misunderstood the word describing the general activity as the name of the game. However, tablut has been established as its modern name, since no other name for it is known. For the same reason, another traditional Sámi board game is today called or dablot which similarly just means "gameboard" and "playing a board game".

The game was played on a 9×9 mat of embroidered reindeer hide. In his diary, Lachesis Lapponica, Linnaeus explained that the players referred to the defending pieces as " Swedes" and the attacking pieces as " Muscovites". The name of the latter pieces reflect the Grand Duchy of Moscow, a regional rival of Sweden, which changed its name to the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. Linneaus does not describe the pieces as being differently colored, but his drawing shows that one side's pieces are distinguished by being notched (the Muscovites). This way of distinguishing board game pieces is known from other traditional Sámi board games (cf. Sáhkku and Dablo).

Lachesis Lapponica was translated into English in 1811 by James Edward Smith. The translation of the tablut rules (which was done by a Swedish merchant in London, Carl Troilius) had many errors which would become an issue not only for playing tablut, but also for the subsequent attempts to reconstruct other historic tafl games on the basis of the tablut rules. The central mistake in Troilius' translation is that four attackers are always needed to capture the king, whereas the original rules only demand two, except in special cases. The following rules are based on the modern translations of John C. Ashton (2007), Nicolas Cartier (2011) and Olli Salmi (2013):

The game is played on a 9×9 board. Initial setup is as shown.

The king (konakis, modern Lule Sámi gånågis) starts on the central square or castle (Latin: Arx).

The eight defenders, called Swedes, start on the eight squares adjoining the gånågis, in the form of a cross.

The sixteen attackers, called Muscovites, start in groups of four at the centre of each edge of the board, in direct contact with the Swedish "cross".

The Swedes win if the king escapes to any of the fields at the edge of the board.

The Muscovites win if they capture the king.

Any piece may move any number of vacant spaces in any straight line [←↑→↓], but not diagonally. (Cf. the rook in chess.)

No piece may ever pass over another piece in its path.

An enemy piece is captured and removed from the board if you move one of your pieces so that the enemy piece becomes surrounded on two opposite sides (horizontally or vertically - not diagonally) by two of your pieces. The king is also captured in this way, except in a few select cases where he is protected by the castle. A piece may be moved in between two enemy pieces without being captured.

When the castle is not occupied by the king, it is "hostile" to all soldiers - attackers and defenders. This means that an enemy soldier may be captured by pinning it (horizontally or vertically) between one of one's own pieces and the castle.

If the king is on a square adjoining the castle (horizontally or vertically) he must be surrounded on the three remaining sides by his enemies.

If the king is inside the castle, he is not captured until he is surrounded on all four sides.

If the king is in the castle and surrounded on three sides by attackers, but protected by a defender on the last side, it is possible to capture the last defender by pinning it between an attacker piece and the occupied castle.

The latter is the only situation in which the attackers may capture a defender against the occupied castle. The defenders may capture an attacker between one of their own and the occupied castle, since the king then participates in capturing.

The only unclarity in the modern translation of the tablut rules concerns the castle. Resultantly, tablut is currently played in two variants: In one variant, the castle cannot be entered by anyone, not even the king, once the king has left it. In another variant, the king may re-enter the castle, and both attackers and defenders may pass through it but not stop in it.

If the king should ever have an unimpeded path to the edge of the board, he must call out "raichi" (modern spelling: rájgge), meaning "opening" or "hole", and if he has two paths of escape, then he must call out "tuichu" (modern spelling. dujgu) (cf. "check" and "checkmate" in chess).

This variant (pronounced [ˈtau̯lbʊrð]) was played in Wales. It is described as being played with 8 pieces on the king's side and 16 on the attacker's side. The rules were taken from an incomplete account of the game by Robert ap Ifan, with a drawing in a manuscript dated 1587, and the gaps were filled in by using Tablut rules. His version was played on an 11×11 board with 12 pieces on the king's side and 24 pieces on the opponent's side. His passage states:

The above tawlbwrdd should be played with a king in the centre and twelve men in the places next to him, and twenty-four men seek to capture him. These are placed, six in the centre of each side of the board and in the six central positions. And two move the men in the game, and if one [piece] belonging to the king comes between the attackers, he is dead and is thrown out of the game, and the same if one of the attackers comes between two of the king's men in the same manner. And if the king himself comes between two of the attackers, and if you say 'Watch your king' before he moves to that space, and he is unable to escape, you capture him. If the other says 'I am your liegeman' and goes between two, there is no harm. If the king can go along the [illegible] line, that side wins the game.

Certain modern board games not generally referred to as "tafl", "tablut" or "hnefatafl" have nevertheless been based on tablut rules, or the rules of other tafl games reconstructed on the basis of tablut. They bear significant resemblance to the other tafl games, but with some important differences.

Around 1960, Milton Bradley published Swords and Shields, which was essentially Tablut as recorded by Linnaeus and erroneously translated by Troilius, but with the Swedes transformed into shields (with a king shield) and the Muscovites transformed into swords.

was developed in the 1960s as part of the 3M bookshelf game series. It features tafl-like symmetry, but with twelve defenders plus one "flagship" (cf. king) pitted against twenty attackers upon a tiered board, so that the objective of the defenders is to escort the flagship from the centre to the outer zone of the board. Apart from the distinction of the inner zone and outer zone, there are no distinctive spaces on the Breakthru board. Breakthru also features a distinctive double move, whereas no evidence points to such a move in any of the historical games.

, a modern game inspired by a series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett (which in turn were inspired by the historical tafl games, as reflected in the game's Dwarfish name, Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl), also features the general symmetry of tafl games, although it is played on an octagonal board with only eight defenders pitted against thirty-two attackers. Thud also features a "Thudstone" (cf. konakis), but no kingpiece. There are also important differences in the moves and attacks in Thud.

There have long been controversies concerning imbalance of the game, as rules for certain modern tafl games strongly favor the defenders. This imbalance results from a mistranslation of Linnaeus' rules for tablut, a Sámi tafl game from the 1700s, which were subsequently used as the basis for reconstructions of rules for medieval tafl. Newer translations of Linnaeus' tablut rules reveal a balanced game. After this change, tablut can be said to be slightly in favor of the attackers rather than the defenders: according to statistics, the attackers overall win marginally more often (on average 9% more).

There are several rule modifications that have been made to produce more balanced play than in the mistranslation of the tablut rules. These include a weaponless king (the king cannot participate in captures), escape to the corners (rather than to the edges), or hostile attacker camps (the king and defenders may be captured against a vacant attacker camp square). Schmittberger (1992) even reveals some workarounds to produce more balanced play without modifying the rules of gameplay.

One such solution is by bidding: Players take turns bidding on how many moves it will take them to win the game. The lowest bidder gets the king. Thus, one player may open with a bid of 15 turns, the other player may counter with a bid of 14 turns, and the first player, more confident in his ability to escape in 13 rounds than in his ability to contain for 14, may bid 13 and take the king's side. If that player does not escape within 13 turns, the other player wins. Another workaround is to play a two-round match, in which players switch sides after the first round. If the king escapes both rounds, the winner is the player whose king escaped in the fewest turns.

Hnefatafl was mentioned in several of the medieval sagas, including Orkneyinga saga, Friðþjófs saga, Hervarar saga, and others. These three period treatments of Hnefatafl offer some important clues about the game, while numerous other incidental references to Hnefatafl or Tafl exist in saga literature. Sagas help indicate the widespread use of board games just by mentioning them-although rituals varied in the Viking period from region to region, there were some underlying basics to culture. The fact that the sagas mention board games indicates this use because the sagas are read and understood by a very large audience.

In Orkeyinga saga, the notability of Hnefatafl is evident in the nine boasts of Jarl Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, who tops his list with skill at Tafl. In Friðþjófs saga, a conversation over a game of Hnefatafl reveals that the king's men are red and the attackers white, and that the word hnefi does indeed refer to the kingpiece. The most revealing - and yet most ambiguous - clues to Hnefatafl lie in a series of riddles posed by a character identified as Odin in disguise (see Gestumblindi) in Hervarar saga.

One riddle, as stated in Hauksbók, refers to "the weaponless maids who fight around their lord, the [brown/red] ever sheltering and the [fair/white] ever attacking him", although there is controversy over whether the word weaponless refers to the maids or, as in other versions, to the king himself, which may support the argument that a "weaponless king" cannot take part in captures (see Balance of play above). One may also note that the assignment of the colours of brown or red to the defenders and fair or white to the attackers is consistent with Friðþjófs saga.

Another of Gestumblindi's riddles asks, "What is that beast all girded with iron, which kills the flocks? He has eight horns but no head, and runs as he pleases." Here, it is the answer that is controversial, as the response has been variously translated as: "It is the húnn in hnefatafl. He has the name of a bear and runs when he is thrown;" or, "It is the húnn in hnefatafl. He has the name of a bear and escapes when he is attacked." The first problem is in translating the word húnn, which may refer to a die (as suggested by the former translation), the "eight horns" referring to the eight corners of a six-sided die and "the flocks" that he kills referring to the stakes the players lose. Alternatively, húnn may refer to the king, his "eight horns" referring to the eight defenders, which is more consistent with the latter translation, "He has the name of a bear and escapes when he is attacked." Ultimately, the literary references prove inconclusive on the use of dice in Hnefatafl.

There have been many archeological discoveries of tafl games and gaming pieces found in various Warrior Burials. One example was a wooden board and a single gaming piece made of horn found in a ship burial at Gokstad in southeastern Norway. Another example was twenty-two gaming pieces made of whalebone found in Orkney.

Some finds have occurred in religious sites. A gaming board dated to the 8th century or earlier, was dug up in 2018 at the site of the later Scottish Monastery of Deer. As another example, a small worked glass piece was discovered in 2019 on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, target of a famous Viking raid in 793 A.D. The piece was blue in colour, with swirls etched into the glass, and was topped with small white glass droplets, thought to symbolise a crown. The piece, thought to be a gaming piece for Hnefatafl or a related game, came from a trench that has been dated to the eighth to ninth centuries.

The material used to make both the board game and the gaming pieces has varied: from walrus ivory to bone to amber to wood.

In some boat burials there have been wooden board games found. There have been very few actual boards found in these burials, implying that having these board games included was extremely rare. However, this is believed to be due to wood readily being destroyed by cremation fires or decaying over time.

The first major attempt to revitalize tafl was the publication of "The Viking Game" in 1981. This was essentially the Sámi game tablut of the 1700s, as mistranslated by Troilius in 1811, and with the modern innovation that the king's escape possibilities were limited to the corners. The latter was done in order to compensate for the imbalanced gameplay resulting from the notion that the king must be surrounded on all four sides. In "The Viking Game" the pieces drawn by Linneaeus, which reflected traditional Sámi game piece design (see: Tablut), had been replaced by pieces influenced by Norse medieval aesthetics. The game booklet did not inform players that the rules were drawn from the Sámi game tablut, and claimed that "hnefatafl" was last played "in Lapland in 1732" without mentioning the Sámi at all. The Sámi game terminology such as "raichi", "tuichu" and "konokis" was also not included in the booklet.

This game did much to spark the interest in tafl games, and also began the modern evolution of the game as players attempted to remedy the game which was still unbalanced in the king's favor.

In 2008, Hnefatafl was revived by Peter Kelly in the island of Fetlar in Shetland, where the annual World Quickplay Hnefatafl Championships are now held each summer under the auspices of the Fetlar Hnefatafl Panel. The term "quickplay" refers to the time limit of ten seconds per move, marked by the sounding of a gong. The Fetlar rules were for some time the standard in international hnefatafl play, but have since largely been superseded by Copenhagen Hnefatafl, which builds on Fetlar Hnefatafl.

After the rules for tablut were retranslated and published online (2007-2013), this historical game has also gained in popularity. A tournament was held in England in 2017.

Tafl games can be played online on sites similar to Chess.com. Aage Nielsen created his site in 1998, and currently hosts the World Tafl Federation Hnefatafl Championship Tournament. Another Hnefatafl game site was launched in 2014, by Jacob Teal and John Carlyle. Variants of tafl playable online today include Copenhagen Hnefatafl, Tablut, and many others.

Alea evangelii

an elaborate Anglo-Saxon variant documented in a medieval manuscript

a modern game inspired by Tafl games

an ancient Irish board game

e.g. Fox and Geese

Game of the Gods

a Norse literary motif

an unrelated board game with a similar name

a modern game inspired by Tafl games

1. ^ Ellis 1869, pp. 554, 559. The pronunciation of f as [v] is included in the table on p. 554 (also here attributed to Jakob Grimm), and borne out in the comparative translation on p. 559.

2. Noreen, A. Altnordische Grammatik. 1923. Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik. 4. Auflage. § 36. f bezeichnet zwei verschiedene laute: 1. Bilabiales, später labiodentales f im anlaut (des wortes oder des zusammensetzungsgliedes), vor k, s, t und in der verdoppelung, z. b fara, rífka, liúfs, liúft, offra. 2. Bilabiales v (ƀ), später labiodentales v in übrigen stellungen ... z. b. hafþa, erfa, kelfa, gefa, gaf, huarf.

3. ^ Murray 1951, p. 60, says "hnefi (meaning doubtful, but used of the king-piece)", while Helmfrid 2005, p. 1, notes that hnefa is the genitive form of Icelandic hnefi (fist), but observes that "since the hnefi had a role corresponding to the king in chess it is often translated as king."

4. ^ Helmfrid 2005, p. 7, and Murray 1951, p. 35. Also, Bayless 2005, p. 17, further discusses the link between Fidchell and Latrunculi and the difference between these games and the tafl family.

5. ^ Bayless 2005, pp. 15-16, suggests that several archaeological finds in Scandinavia reveal hnefatafl sets that included dice, and discusses controversy over whether the very name tawlbwrdd suggests the throwing of dice.

6. While there is a dearth of information in the published sources, ^ Ard Ri is briefly described and illustrated in four web articles:
1. Leif Bennett. "Ard-Ri". Archived from the original on 17 March 2008.
2. Colyne Stewart. "The Tafl Family of Games: Rules and a Brief History, With an Emphasis on Tablut". Archived from the original on 21 November 2008.
3. Damian Walker. "Other board layouts". Hnefatafl. Archived from the original on 16 May 2008.
4. Eric Woroshow. "High King". Archived from the original on 13 July 2009.

7. ^ Murray 1951, p. 59, discusses the Ballinderry board with an accompanying sketch of the board. This board is also discussed by Helmfrid 2005, p. 12, and Bayless 2005, p. 14, calls it "the most celebrated find" in Ireland.

8. ^ Bayless 2005, p. 15, mentions an 11×11 Hnefatafl board from the 12th century, found near Trondheim, and Helmfrid 2005, p. 7, reports that Robert ap Ifan drew an 11×11 board in his manuscript, while Murray 1951, p. 58, reports that the board found on the Gokstad ship had 13×13 squares on one side and Nine men's morris on the reverse.

9. Keyland, N. (1921) ^ Dablot prejjesne och Dablot duoljesne. Tvänne lappska spel forklarade och avbildade. Etnologiska Studier tillägnade Nils Edvard Hammarsted. 3/3. Göteborg. pp. 35-47."

10. "How to Play Breakthru". ^ Breakthru: Strategic Game of Evasion or Capture (1965). 3M Bookshelf Games. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

11. ^ Peterson 2005, Helmfrid 2005, p. 11. Original source: Rǫgnvaldr jarl kali Kolsson 1158, Orknøsk jarl og skjald Original text (Icelandic). An English translation is prominent in the Viking Answer Lady's King's Table article.

12. Helmfrid 2005, p. 10, reproduces the above quotation from Hauksbok and discusses the "weaponless" controversy.

13. ^ Helmfrid 2005, p. 11. The idea that the húnn is the king is supported by Murray (p. 61).

14. ^ Whittaker, Helene (2006). "Game-Boards and Gaming-Pieces in Funerary Contexts in the Northern European Iron Age". Nordlit: Tidsskrift i Litteratur og Kultur. 10 (2): 103-112. doi:10.7557/13.1802. ISSN 0809-1668.

15. ^ "Somerset glass sculptor retains Viking chess game world title". Shetland Times. 2 August 2010.

Bayless, M. (2005). "Alea, Tæfl, and Related Games: Vocabulary and Context," in Latin Learning and English Lore, ed. Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe and Andy Orchard, 2 vols., vol. II, pp. 9-27. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-8919-4. Search inside this book.

Bell, R. C. (1979). Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (Revised ed.). New York: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-23855-5. LCCN 79-51819

Duggan, E. (2015). Ancient Board Games 3. Tafl games. (Revision C, 2015)

Ellis, A. J. (1869). On Early English Pronunciation. Part II: On the Pronunciation of the XIIIth and Previous Centuries, of AngloSaxon, Icelandic, Old Norse, and Gothic, with Chronological Tables of the Value of Letters and Expressions of Sound in English Writing. London: Philological Society - Asher & Co. ISBN 1-4021-9646-6. OCLC 3951183

Helmfrid, S. (2005). "Hnefatafl: The Strategic Board Game of the Vikings". 23 April 2005. Accessed 20 December 2007.

Ifan, Robert ap (1587). Welsh National Library, MS 158. Cited in Murray 1951, p. 63

Lindholm, P. A. (1884). Hos Lappbönder. Skildringar, sägner och sagor från södra Lappland [At Lappbönder. Descriptions tales and stories from southern Lapland] (in Swedish). Stockholm: A. Bonnier. OCLC 46788856.

Murray, H. J. R. (1951). A History of Board-Games Other than Chess. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-827401-7. LCCN 52-3975 OCLC 1350513

Peterson, N. (2005). Hnefatafl: An Experimental Reconstruction.

Schmittberger, R. Wayne (1992). New Rules for Classic Games. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-53621-0. LCCN 91-22386

Smith, J. E. & Linné, C. (1811). Lachesis Lapponica. London: White and Cochrane. LCCN 05-8960 OCLC 2456941 Digitized copy on the web

Zoëga, G. T. (1910). A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. LCCN 46-29683 OCLC 3471226

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Years active 4th-12th centuries Genres Board game Abstract strategy game Players 2 Setup time < 1 minute Playing time Typically 5-20 minutes Random chance None Skills required Strategy, tactics Synonyms Hnefatafl Tafl games ( pronounced [tavl], also known as hnefatafl games) are a family of ancient Nordic and Celtic strategy board games played on a checkered or latticed gameboard with two armies of uneven numbers.