In the 1970s, a remarkable object was discovered next to a human skull in a tomb in a Bronze Age necropolis in Shahri Sokhta, Iran. This is the oldest complete board game ever discovered. The work, which is approximately 4,500 years old, consists of a board with 20 circular spaces made from the coils of a carved snake, four dice and 27 geometric pieces.
The Shahr-i Sokhta game is one of many ancient board games discovered around the world, such as the Roman game Ludus Latrunculorum and the Egyptian game Senet discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb. But we can only guess how these games are played. There is no preserved rule book. There is no such thing as the Royal Game of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia, except that its long-forgotten rules were deciphered from a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum in 2007.
But now another tool is helping bring these games back to life. In recent years, researchers have used artificial intelligence to help discover likely rules. The goal is to make forgotten games realistically replayable, while also gaining insight into the evolution of game types. “These games serve as a window into the past, giving us a glimpse into the social and cultural dynamics of the people who played them,” he says. Eric Piet At Catholic University…
