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Board game
A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects (game pieces) that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the term "board game" are between the 1840s and 1850s.
While game boards are a necessary and sufficient condition of this genre, card games that do not use a standard deck of cards, as well as games that use neither cards nor a game board, are often colloquially included, with some referring to this genre generally as "table and board games" or simply "tabletop games".
Board games have been played, traveled, and evolved in most cultures and societies throughout history Board games have been discovered in a number of archaeological sites. The oldest discovered gaming pieces were discovered in southwest Turkey, a set of elaborate sculptured stones in sets of four designed for a chess-like game, which were created during the Bronze Age around 5,000 years ago. Numerous archaeological finds of game boards exist that date from as early as the Neolithic period including, as of 2024, a total of 14 Neolithic sites reporting 51 game boards, ranging from mid-7th millennium to early 8th millennium.
The Royal Game of Ur, estimated to have originated from around 4,600 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, an example of which was found in the royal tombs of ancient Mesopotamia (c. 2600 BC – c. 2400 BC), is considered the oldest playable boardgame in the world, with well-defined game's rules discovered written on a cuneiform tablet by a Babylonian astronomer in c. 177 BC – c. 176 BC.
Another game similar to the Royal Game of Ur 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 4 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.
Currently, Senet is argued to be the oldest known board game in the world, with possible game board fragments (c. 3100 BC) and undisputed pictorial representations (c. 2686;BC – c. 2613 BC) having been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials dating as far back as 3500 BC. However, while Senet was played for thousands of years, it fell out of fashion sometime after 400 A.D. during the Roman period; the rules were never written down, therefore they are not decisively known. Similarly, Mehen is one of the oldest games dated with reasonable confidence, i.e., c. 3000 BC – c. 2300 BC, with some estimating it dates back to c. 3500 BC. The rules, scoring system, and game pieces, however, are unknown or speculative.
The title of the oldest known board game has been difficult to establish. An example of this is mancala, which includes a broad family of board games with a core design of two rows of small circular divots or bowls carved into a surface, which has had numerous estimations of its generic age due to the many variants that have been discovered in different locations across Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. These are dated across many different historical periods, from archaeological sites dating the game at c. 800 BC – c. 200 BC (Roman Settlements); c. 2500 BC – c. 1500 BC (Egypt); and even c. 7000 BC – c. 5000 BC (Jordan). The later based on divots carved out of limestone in a Neolithic dwelling from c. 5870 BC ± 240 BC, although this later dating has been disputed. Furthermore, when considering the Neolithic period game boards discoveries, caution has been given against considering these finds as representing earliest human game playing, as the absence of evidence of such games does not equate to evidence that no games were played during earlier periods.
The 1880s–1920s was a board game epoch known as the "Golden Age", a term coined by American art historian Margaret Hofer where the popularity of board games was boosted through mass production making them cheaper and more readily available. The most popular of the board games sold during this period was Monopoly (1935), with 500 million games played as of 1999.
Board game
A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects (game pieces) that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the term "board game" are between the 1840s and 1850s.
While game boards are a necessary and sufficient condition of this genre, card games that do not use a standard deck of cards, as well as games that use neither cards nor a game board, are often colloquially included, with some referring to this genre generally as "table and board games" or simply "tabletop games".
Board games have been played, traveled, and evolved in most cultures and societies throughout history Board games have been discovered in a number of archaeological sites. The oldest discovered gaming pieces were discovered in southwest Turkey, a set of elaborate sculptured stones in sets of four designed for a chess-like game, which were created during the Bronze Age around 5,000 years ago. Numerous archaeological finds of game boards exist that date from as early as the Neolithic period including, as of 2024, a total of 14 Neolithic sites reporting 51 game boards, ranging from mid-7th millennium to early 8th millennium.
The Royal Game of Ur, estimated to have originated from around 4,600 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, an example of which was found in the royal tombs of ancient Mesopotamia (c. 2600 BC – c. 2400 BC), is considered the oldest playable boardgame in the world, with well-defined game's rules discovered written on a cuneiform tablet by a Babylonian astronomer in c. 177 BC – c. 176 BC.
Another game similar to the Royal Game of Ur 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 4 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.
Currently, Senet is argued to be the oldest known board game in the world, with possible game board fragments (c. 3100 BC) and undisputed pictorial representations (c. 2686;BC – c. 2613 BC) having been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials dating as far back as 3500 BC. However, while Senet was played for thousands of years, it fell out of fashion sometime after 400 A.D. during the Roman period; the rules were never written down, therefore they are not decisively known. Similarly, Mehen is one of the oldest games dated with reasonable confidence, i.e., c. 3000 BC – c. 2300 BC, with some estimating it dates back to c. 3500 BC. The rules, scoring system, and game pieces, however, are unknown or speculative.
The title of the oldest known board game has been difficult to establish. An example of this is mancala, which includes a broad family of board games with a core design of two rows of small circular divots or bowls carved into a surface, which has had numerous estimations of its generic age due to the many variants that have been discovered in different locations across Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. These are dated across many different historical periods, from archaeological sites dating the game at c. 800 BC – c. 200 BC (Roman Settlements); c. 2500 BC – c. 1500 BC (Egypt); and even c. 7000 BC – c. 5000 BC (Jordan). The later based on divots carved out of limestone in a Neolithic dwelling from c. 5870 BC ± 240 BC, although this later dating has been disputed. Furthermore, when considering the Neolithic period game boards discoveries, caution has been given against considering these finds as representing earliest human game playing, as the absence of evidence of such games does not equate to evidence that no games were played during earlier periods.
The 1880s–1920s was a board game epoch known as the "Golden Age", a term coined by American art historian Margaret Hofer where the popularity of board games was boosted through mass production making them cheaper and more readily available. The most popular of the board games sold during this period was Monopoly (1935), with 500 million games played as of 1999.
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