Archaeologists find 500-year-old board game carved in ruins of Polish castle
Archaeologists find 500-year-old board game carved in ruins of Polish castle
Archaeologists find 500-year-old board game carved in ruins of Polish castle
By Jennifer Ouellette
September 19, 2023
Summary
Some 500 years ago, construction workers in the midst of building Mielów Castle in Poland carved a simple game board into a slab of the sandstone floor as a diversion for their leisure time.
At least that's one possible scenario for the existence of a game board recently discovered by archaeologists in the castle ruins; it's also possible the board could have been carved by children or by servants after the castle was completed, or it may have been meant as a symbolic message.
A 4,000-year-old board discovered last year at an archaeological site in Oman's Qumayrah Valley might be a precursor to an ancient Middle Eastern game known as the Royal Game of Ur, a two-player game that may have been one of the precursors to backgammon.
The earliest-known Mill game board was found carved into the roofing slabs of an Egyptian temple at Kurna, which likely predates the Common Era.
A game board was found in a 13th-century church in Opole, Poland, and depictions of people playing the game were inscribed on 15th-century stove tiles in Wielkopolska.
A typical Mill game board is a grid with 24 intersecting points, and players must try to line up three of their nine men horizontally or vertically to form a "Mill." When this happens, they can remove one of the other player's pieces from the board.
The carved game board found at ?mielów Castle measures about 13.5 cm, per Olszacki.
Reference
Ouellette, J. (2023, 19 September). Archaeologists find 500-year-old board game carved in ruins of Polish castle. ArsTechnica. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/09/archaeologists-find-500-year-old-board-game-carved-in-ruins-of-polish-castle/