Board Games Studies 1/1998 CNWS PUBLICATIONS Board Games Studies CNWS PUBLICATIONS is produced by the Research School CNWS, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Editorial board: F.A.H.D. Effert; K. Jongeling; F.E. Tjon Sie Fat; W.J. Vogelsang (editor in chief); W. van Zanten. All correspondence should be addressed to: Dr. W.J. Vogelsang, editor in chief CNWS Publications, c/o Research School CNWS, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. Tel. +31 (0)71 5272987/5272171 Fax. +31 (0)71 5272939 E-mail: [email protected] Board Games Studies Board Games Studies, Vol. 1. International Journal for the Study of Board Games - Leiden 1998: Research School CNWS. - (CNWS publications, ISSN 0925-3084) ISBN 90-5789-005-4 Subject heading: Board games. Board Games Studies: E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/gateway/institutional/projects/ Typeset by Cymbalum, Paris (France) and Nelleke Oosten, Oegstgeest (Holland) Cover design: Nelleke Oosten © Copyright 1998, Research School CNWS, Leiden University, The Netherlands Copyright reserved. Subject to the exceptions provided for by law, no part of this publication may be reproduced and/or published in print, by photocopying, on microfilm or in any other way without the written consent of the copyright-holder(s); the same applies to whole or partial adaptations. The publisher retains the sole right to collect from third parties fees in respect of copying and/or take legal or other action for this purpose. B o a r d G a m e s I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l f o r t h e c n w s S t u d y o f B o a r d G a m e s S t u d i e s 1 9 9 8/1 Editorial Board Affiliations Thierry Depaulis (FRA) The following affiliated institutes underwrite Vernon Eagle (USA) the efforts of this journal and actively Ulrich Schädler (GER) exhibit board games material, publish or Alex de Voogt (NL, Managing Editor) financially support board games research. Institut für Spielforschung und Spielpäda- Board Games Studies is an academic gogik, Salzburg journal for historical and systematic Address: Prof.-Dr. G.A. Bauer, research on board games. Its object is Hochschule Mozarteum, Schwarzstr., 24, to provide a forum for board games A - 5020 Salzburg (Austria) research from all academic disciplines International Institute for Asian Studies, in order to further our understanding Leiden of the development and distribution Address: Prof.dr. W.A.L. Stokhof, IIAS, of board games within an P.O. Box 9515, NL - 2300 RA Leiden interdisciplinary academic context. (The Netherlands) Articles are accepted in English, Russian Chess Museum and Magazine French, and German and will be “Chess in Russia”, Moscow refereed by at least two editors under Address: Natalya Ivanova/Yuri Averbakh, the final responsibility of CNWS, Gogolevsky Blvd. 14, 121019 Moskwa Leiden University. (Russia) British Museum, London. Address: Dr I.L.Finkel London WC 1B 3DG, United Kingdom Universiteit Maastricht, Department of Computer Science, Maastricht Address: Prof.dr. H.J. van den Herik, P.O. Box 616, NL - 6200 MD Maastricht (The Netherlands) Corporate Sponsor Spiel des Jahres e.V. Patrons Patrons support the efforts of this journal through continuous financial support. If you wish to become a patron, please contact CNWS by post, fax or E-mail. We hereby thank all our sponsors for their generous support: Sjaak Griffioen (Griffioen Design Puzzles and Games), Niek Neuwahl, Jurgen Stigter, Glenda Trew (Oware Society), Anneke Treep, L.V. and P.V. CONTENTS 5 Editorial / Foreword 6 Articles Ulrich Schädler, Articles Mancala in Roman Asia Minor? 10 Beiträge Thierry Depaulis, Inca Dice and Board Games 26 Vernon A. Eagle, On a Phylogenetic Classification of Mancala Games, with some Newly Recorded Games from the "Southern Silk Road," Yunnan Province, China 50 Caroline G. Goodfellow, The Development of the English Board Game, 1770 - 1850 70 Lieve Verbeeck, Bul: A Patolli Game In Maya Lowland 82 Research Notes Irving L. Finkel, Notes de recherche Edward Falkener: Old Board Games for New 104 Forschungsberichte Book Reviews E.R. Santos Silva, Jogos de quadrícula do tipo Mancala, Comptes rendus by Philip Townshend 112 Rezensionen A. van der Stoep, Over de herkomst van het woord damspel, byRob Jansen 114 M. Zollinger, Bibliographie der Spielbücher, par Thierry Depaulis 116 Summaries 120 Instructions to Authors 126 Editorial Board games have played an important role as research objects in the sciences of this century. At first, games and board games were studied from a historical perspective. In 1944, Von Neumann and Morgenstern provided a basis for using games and board games in the computer sciences and in economics, such as in the field of game theory. Research on board games accelerated with research on chess, in particular chess masters, which has proved fundamental in the cognitive sciences since de Groot (1949), followed by Newell & Simon and others. Chess is still dominant in most fields but slowly other championship games enter these fields as examples or tools in research. Only recently has research on board games other than chess been possible. Since Thomas Hyde (1694) there are historical descriptive works on board games. However, even in 1952 when Murray published A History of Board Games Other than Chess, research did not suffice to warrant an important shift in attention in the sciences. These other games had rules, boards, pieces, players and contexts unknown to the academic world. Sometimes parts were known but never studied, as shown by the first Ph.D.- thesis on the subject of draughts (or checkers) only in 1997. Since 1952, some disciplines of research have started to consider games and board games other than chess. Studies of sculptured game boards in art history (Walker 1990) and a contextual analysis of board games in anthropology (Townshend 1985) are just examples from the field of mancala games. This interest from art history, anthropology and also archaeology (Schädler 1995), psychology (Retschitzki 1990) and linguistics (van der Stoep 1997) has grown rapidly since the 1980s. International colloquia, scholarly books, research centres and a growing number of articles and inventories are being produced for which this annual publication will provide a continuous platform. Board games are a complex form of games. They consist of boards and various kinds of pieces (dice, pawns, counters, etc.), a system of rules, and most importantly players. The context of playing board games includes referees, interfering and non-interfering spectators, rules of ceremonies or rules of etiquette, club houses and societies, boards for special occasions, etc. Playing a board game introduces movement, sound, atmosphere and other elements which are described by poets rather than academics. If we consider a context with players, boards and pieces, and rules, it appears that these elements cannot be separated for a complete understanding of a board game. The rules may influence the board and vice versa. The players may determine the shape and kind of boards and the specificity of the rules. They form a complex ‘being’ which is a board game. Board games in their complexity present the researcher with various questions. For instance, the (inter)relationship of the aspects of a board game are little understood. Also, the historical development and distribution of board games has been a point of 7 discussion which was started in historical works by Murray (1952), Bell (1960), but also by Falkener (1892) and Hyde (1694) to name a few. Studies of board games collections (Goodfellow 1997 in BGS) are rare and hardly ever coincide with fieldwork on context and rules. The results of fieldwork, collection studies, analyses of rules and the study of players still need to be studied within their interaction, their dependency and their consequences for the development and distribution of board games. The methodology for classification appears fundamental for answering these questions in a systematic way (Eagle 1997 in BGS). Each article in Board Games Studies makes a rich source of literature available to scholars. This literature makes it possible to study board games with the necessary background knowledge. Area studies appear both in need of this literature and are at the same time instrumental in adding to such literature. This is shown by Depaulis (1997 in BGS) and Verbeeck (1997 in BGS) who contribute considerably to the field of Latin American studies. However, even interdisciplinary area studies are limited in their approach. Most board games appear to be distributed across the continents and rare board games in Asia may only be understood with a thorough understanding of related games in Africa or their relatives in antiquity (Eagle 1997 & Schädler 1997 in BGS). As such, board games studies are interrelated studies separate from but dependent on the known disciplines. A discipline of research prefers to concentrate on one of the elements of a board game. Archaeologists and art historians tend to study objects, while computer scientists are more interested in rules and their consequences. This results in two general problems for which this journal intends to provide a solution. Firstly, as was stated above, individual disciplines do not give insight in the complexity of board games. Instead, only aspects are discussed without the complexity of their interaction. Secondly, research on board games is presented in many unconnected publications. It is necessary to create a systematic inventory of board games research in order to get insight in the complexity of board games as a whole. Colloquia of the past seven years have already made an attempt in presenting the findings of various disciplines in one publication. This journal is a direct result of the success of and need for these publications. In line with the particularities mentioned I sense an ambition for board games research. It is my belief that, in the study of board games, the individual disciplines need to be complemented by a perspective which is primarily concerned with the board games themselves. Since academic disciplines cannot provide us with such a viewpoint, it should be the role of this journal to develop and show the importance of such a perspective providing academia with an insight unknown to the practitioners of its established disciplines. Alexander J. de Voogt B o a r d G a m e s A r t i c l e s / A r t i c l e s / B e i t r ä g e S t u d i e s /1 Mancala in Roman Asia Minor? / Ulrich Schädler Merels games, chess, backgammon and mancala are certainly the most widespread classical board games in the world. Our knowledge concerning their origins, both chronologically and geographically, is however remarkably poor. While entire libraries could be filled with theories about the history of chess, the opposite is true of backgammon, its evolution having hardly ever excited any interest(1). The origins of merels are surrounded by the darkness of prehistory and attempts to lighten it up have rarely been made. The situation concerning mancala is not very much better, as shown by Philip Townshend’s synopsis of the state of affairs: “The age of mankala is uncertain. It might be as much as 3,000 years or as little as 1,000”(2). “Some writers have ascribed to it an Egyptian, Persian, Indian or African origin”(3). It must be stressed, however, that anthropology and ethnology have rarely tried to advance theories about the origin and evolution of mancala. Based on observation and literary descriptions not earlier than the 17th century of the rules adopted in different areas of Africa (except northern Africa), the Near-East, Asia and the New World, distributional analyses of variants and different typologies have been applied to gather information about migrations of peoples or cultural inter-relationships(4). The history of the game in the long term was no primary concern. The Greaco-Roman world on the other hand was left to classical archaeology as the traditional field of research. Whether due to the afro- ethnological domination of mancala-related research or to the lack of a sufficient archaeological data-base concerning Greek and Roman board games, mancala has not been regarded as a game played in the Mediterranean during classical antiquity. This article is a preliminary attempt to contribute to the history of mancala from a classical archaeologist’s perspective. A number of methodological problems arise from such a viewpoint. To the archaeologist any board game appears as a tripartite set of data consisting of a gameboard, the material needed for playing and a set of rules. In contrast to the nearly complete knowledge of a game collected by anthropology and ethnology by observation of people playing or explaining the rules adopted, archaeology is more or less limited to the material remains of games. As far as the ancient Greek and Roman culture is concerned finds of complete sets of board games are extremely rare(5). Generally spoken there are strayfinds of gaming stones, dice and other objects on the one hand and gameboards on the other. In some cases literary sources provide further information as for example names of games and their rules, but more often they are themselves problematic, since many of them consist of concise lexicographic entries, poetical or philosophical allusions to games rather than explanations or are written by late authors, who gained knowledge not from personal experience but from previous literary sources. As a substitute for complete games and the observation of people actually playing representations of board games in progress on wall-paintings or mosaics, in sculpture and other works of art can be helpful, but follow their own laws concerning style, scale and perspective, so that often details of the games depicted are not recognizable. Left alone with the boards the search for cross-cultural analogies can be applied. The comparative study of board games, however, implies various difficulties. To state that U. SCHÄDLER, MANCALA IN ROMAN ASIA MINOR? 11 different games can be played on one and the same board (see for example Alfonso’s “Libro de ajedrez” suggesting fifteen rules for games on the backgammon-board) is to repeat a banality. Hitherto less considered, however, was the likewise evident fact that on different gameboards similar games can be played. One should keep in mind that in the first place a gameboard is a particular disposition of places for the counters. These places may be shaped as points, holes, circles, squares, intersecting lines, letters or symbols of all kinds. For the identification of the games played on a given board the particular shape of the places is less important than their disposition. On Roman XII scripta/alea boards for example the places exhibit a variety of forms but differ completely from the oblong triangles of backgammon-boards, and yet the games are very similar. Dara, an African game where the players try to aline three of their own pieces in order to acquire the right to take one of the opponent’s and therefore similar to nine men’s morris, is played on a grid of holes instead of concentric squares(6). In Egypt grids of holes are used for siga, a game very different to dara. Siga has certain affinities with the Roman game of latrunculi, which was played on a grid of squares(7). Therefore latrunculi has often been compared to chess, although it was a completely different game. What follows is that it is important to be aware of the difference between the structural layout of a gameboard and its formal design. As far as mancala is concerned this distinction has hitherto not been observed. While boards with parallel rows of holes have readily been identified as mancala boards, parallel rows of squares have not been taken into account. From an archaeological and historical point of view, however, the fact that mancala seems to be played exclusively on rows of holes during the last centuries is no proof for the assumption that mancala boards must have had this particular shape from the invention of the game on always and in all cultures. On the contrary it seems more likely to suggest, that this type of board may be the result of improvements in design or that cultures importing the game may have played it on gameboards already existing. That these considerations could of course have consequences for the study of origin, history and distribution of the game is perfectly clear. The difference of structure and form of gameboards and the difference of a game itself and its material remains handed down to us are the subjects treated in this article. It is dedicated to a class of gameboards consisting primarily of two parallel rows of five cells. These gameboards are to be found in Roman cities such as those of Asia minor, where they are frequently found incised in the marble slabs of streets, squares and other public buildings. Their identification as gameboards is suggested by the proximity of many of them to other pavement markings definitely identifiable as boards for merels games or alea(8). I have collected examples at Aphrodisias, Ephesus, Miletus, Cnidus and ancient Izmir, a similar one at Didyma, but I have not seen boards of this class at Pergamon, Teos, Claros, Magnesia, Priene, Olympos, Phaselis, Termessos, Perge, Aspendos or Side. It must be stressed, however, that the list given below is certainly incomplete, various excavated buildings being re-covered with sand or plants or not accessible to the public, as for example the theatres at Side and Perge. As for Aphrodisias I am obliged to Charlotte Roueché for allowing me to make use of her hitherto unpublished catalogue of the pavement markings in the Sebasteion, the temenos of the temple of Aphrodite, the Tetrastoon and the southern agora(9).