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 were seen as a way to develop strategic thinking and mental skill by the political and military elite.
In his 1938 book, Homo Ludens, Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga argued that games were a primary condition of the generation of human cultures. Huizinga saw the playing of games as something that "is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing". Huizinga saw games as a starting point for complex human activities such as language, law, war, philosophy and art.
Pre-modern
Some of the most common pre-historic and ancient gaming tools were made of bone, especially from the Talus bone, these have been found worldwide and are the ancestors of knucklebones as well as dice games. Dice were invented at least 5,000 years ago and early dice probably did not have six sides. These bones were also sometimes used for oracular and divinatory functions. Other implements could have included shells, stones and sticks.Middle East and the Mediterranean
Board games likely originate from the ancient Near East, based on archeological findings. A series of 49 small carved painted figures 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 Tell Brak and Jemdet Nasr, but they were isolated. Researches have called the find Dogs and Pigs. The earliest board games were a pastime for the elite and were sometimes given as diplomatic gifts according to a study published in Antiquity. Another possibility is that boards were reserved for the elite, but lower classes played on boards scratched into stone or on the ground. Some archeologists think that stones carved with long rows, dated between 7000 BC and 9000 BC, were used for a mancala-like game.The earliest known board games all used dice and were for two players. Among the earliest examples of a board game is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt and in hieroglyphs dating to around 3100 BC. The game was played by moving draughtsmen on a board of 30 squares arranged into three parallel rows of ten squares each. The players strategically moved their pieces based on the throw of sticks or bones. The goal was to reach the edge of the board first. Senet slowly evolved to reflect the religious beliefs of the Egyptians. The pieces represented human souls and their movement was based on the journey of the soul in the afterlife. Each square had a distinct religious significance, with the final square being associated with the union of the soul with the sun god Re-Horakhty. Senet may have also been used in a ritual religious context.
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 2600 to 2400 BC. It was a race game which employed a set of knucklebone dice. This game was also known and played in Egypt. A Babylonian treatise on the game written on a clay tablet shows that the game had astronomical significance and that it could also be used to tell one's fortune. The game of Ur was also popular with the lower classes, as attested by a 2,700-year-old graffiti version of the game, scratched onto a gateway to a palace in Khorsabad. Similar games have been found in Iran, Crete, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, and Syria.
Another Game of Twenty was discovered in 1977 by the Italian Archaeological Mission in grave no. 731, a pseudo-catacomb grave at Shahr-i Sokhta, a UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site in Iran. This board game set, comprising 27 pieces and four different dice, dates to 2600–2400 BCE. For the first time, the entire set has been scientifically analyzed and reconstructed by researchers , and it is considered the oldest complete and playable board game ever discovered.
Games such as Nard and the Roman game Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum may have developed from this Iranian game. The Byzantine game Tabula is a descendant of the game of twelve points.
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. The game was spread to Mesopotamia in the late 3rd millennium BC and was popular until the 1st millennium BC. More than 68 gameboards of Hounds and Jackals have been discovered in the archaeological excavations in various territories, including Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Egypt. It was a race game for two players. The gaming board consisted of two sets of 29 holes. Ten small pegs with either jackal or dog heads were used for playing. It's believed that the aim of the game was to begin at one point on the board and to reach with all figures at the other point on the board.
File:A reconstruction of the ancient board game of "enneas", Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology.jpg|thumb|A modern reconstruction of an ancient tic tac toe version, called "enneas", in Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Athens.
In Ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire, popular games included ball games, dice games, knucklebones, Bear games, Tic-tac-toe, Nine men's morris and various types of board games similar to checkers. Both Plato and Homer mention board games called 'petteia'. According to Plato, they are all Egyptian in origin. The name 'petteia' seems to be a generic term for board game and refers to various games. One such game was called 'poleis' and was a game of battle on a checkered board.
The Romans played a derivation of 'petteia' called 'latrunculin' or Ludus latrunculorum. It is first mentioned by Varro and alluded to by Martial and Ovid. This game was extremely popular and was spread throughout Europe by the Romans. Boards have been found as far as Roman Britain. It was a war game for two players and included moving around counters representing soldiers, with 'custodian' captures made by getting one of the adversary's pieces between two of one's own.
After the Muslim conquest of Persia 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. The game became immensely popular during Abbasid Caliphate of the 9th century. The Abbasid Caliphs Harun al-Rashid and Al-Ma'mun were avid Shatranj players. During this period Muslim chess players published several treatises on chess problems and chess openings. Elite players such as Al-Adli, al-Suli and Ar-Razi were called aliyat or "grandees" and played at the courts of the Caliphs and wrote about the game. Al-Adli is known for writing Kitab ash-shatranj, a comprehensive work on the game, including history, openings, endgames and chess problems. Al-Adli also developed a system for ranking players. During the reign of the Turko-Mongol conqueror Timur, a variant of chess known as Tamerlane chess was developed which some sources attribute to Timur himself who was known to be a fan of the game.
File:Polo game from poem Guy u Chawgan 2.jpg|thumb|upright|A Persian miniature illustrating the poem Guy-o Chawgân from the Safavid dynasty
Various games in the Tables family were also quite popular and are known as ifranjiah in Arabic and as Nard in Iran. Many of the early Arabic texts which refer to these games often debate the legality and morality of playing them. This debate was settled by the eighth century when all four Muslim schools of jurisprudence declared them to be Haraam, however they are still played today in many Arab countries. Other popular games included Mancala and Tâb.
Polo was first played in Sassanid Persia. It passed from Sassanid Persia to the neighboring Byzantine Empire at an early date, and a Tzykanisterion was built by emperor Theodosius II inside the Great Palace of Constantinople. After the Muslim conquests, it passed to the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties, whose elites favored it above all other sports. Notable sultans such as Saladin and Baybars were known to play it and encourage it in their court.
Playing cards were imported from Asia and India and were popular during Mamluk dynasty Egypt, featuring polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups as suits.
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 in the Indus Valley Harappan civilization. Archaeological excavations have found gambling dice in monasteries and other Buddhist sites. The earliest textual mention of games in India is the Rig-Veda's mention of the use of dice. 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.Another early reference is the list of Buddha games which is a list from the Pali Canon that Buddhist monks were forbidden to play. This list mentions games on boards with 8 or 10 rows, games which use floor diagrams, dice games and ball games. Ashtapada and Daśapada were race games.
Chaturanga, the predecessor of chess, possibly developed in the Indian subcontinent or Central Asia during the Kushan or Gupta periods from an amalgamation of other game features and was transmitted to Sassanid Persia and China through the Silk Road. It was divided into four parts called angas, which were symbolic of the four branches of an army. Just like the real ancient Indian army, it had pieces called elephants, chariots, horses and soldiers, and was played to devise war strategies.
File:Shiva parvati chaupar 1694–95.jpg|thumb|Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati playing chaupar, ca 1694–95
The word 'checkmate' comes from the Persian term in the game, ‘shah mat’, meaning 'the king is dead'. Another game named chaturaji was similar but played with four sides of differing colors instead of two, however the earliest source for this four sided board game is Al-Biruni's 'India', circa 1030 AD. Historians of chess such as Yuri Averbakh have surmised that the Greek board game petteia may have had an influence on the development of early chaturanga. Petteia games could have combined with other elements in the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms.
The game of carrom is said to have originated in the Indian subcontinent. Though there isn't any particular proof, it is said that Indian Maharajas invented the game centuries ago. There was a finding of an ancient glass carrom board in Patiala, Punjab. Carrom gained popularity after World War I, and is still a widely popular board game in India.
Adding on, the game of 'Snakes and Ladders', previously known as vaikuntapaali, was originally a Hindu game. It has been speculated that this game was already being played in India as early as the 2nd century AD. Others have credited the invention of the game to Dnyaneshwar, a Marathi saint who lived during the 13th century AD. This game is also known by names like gyan chaupar or mokshapat and moksha patamu.
The game now known as 'ludo' – was originally called pachisi. The board was made out of cloth or jute. A depiction of pachisi is found in the caves of Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, showing that the game was quite popular in the Medieval Era. Cross and circle games such as chaupar and pachisi may be very old games, but so far their history has not been established prior to the 16th century. Chaupar was a popular gambling game at the court of Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. The emperor himself was a fan of the game and was known to play on a courtyard of his palace using slaves as playing pieces. Karuna Sharma of Georgia State University noted the political side of these board games played at the court.
The game of seven stones is mentioned in the Bhāgvata Purāna, a text written in 1000 AD at the latest. Several variations of tag, such as kho kho, kabaddi, atya patya, and langdi, are believed to be hundreds or thousands of years old, with kho-kho having been played since at least the fourth century BC, certain aspects of kabaddi possibly being mentioned in the Mahabharata, and atya-patya being mentioned in the Naṟṟiṇai.