Two thousand years ago, someone scratched a web of lines into stone in a Roman settlement on the empire’s northern edge. Soldiers, traders, or locals passing time in Coriovallum, now Heerlen in the Netherlands, moved small counters across those lines in a tactical duel of blockade and entrapment.

The board survived but the rules did not. Now researchers believe they have them using artificial intelligence.

By simulating thousands of possible turn sequences on the carved network found at the site, archaeologists identified a ruleset that best matches the wear patterns on the stone: a two-player blocking game they’ve named Ludus Coriovalli, the Game of Coriovallum.

It belongs to the Roman family of line-movement strategy games that includes ludus latrunculorum, but with its own geometry and tempo.

For Green Prophet readers, this is familiar territory.

We’ve previously explored ancient games reborn from archaeology, from Mehen boards etched into ship planks to Egyptian Senet sets reconstructed from tomb art. These games are more than pastime, they’re ancient culture, revealing how people thought about territory, risk, and control.

Ludus Coriovalli adds a Roman frontier voice to that conversation.

What are the proposed rules of the game?

Two players use unequal numbers of pieces on a network of intersecting lines, with the larger force attempting to surround and immobilize the smaller force. Players take turns moving one piece at a time along the engraved lines to an adjacent intersection point. A piece (or group) is captured or neutralized when it is completely blocked so it cannot move along any connecting line. The larger side wins by trapping all opposing pieces, while the smaller side wins by evading capture or escaping the blockade.

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Archeologists in Israel have recently discovered an unusual assortment of animal bones dating from about 2300 years ago, the biblical period, that were used in games and for telling the future, a craft called divination. The discovery tells us something new about the past – and perhaps reveals a little about our present and future. 

A cache of 530 animal knuckle bones were found in the ancient city of Maresha, which today is located in the Maresha-Bet Guvrin National Park in in southern Israel. Called “astragali” the bones were unearthed by Dr. Ian Stern in the Maresha-Bet Guvrin National Park in the Judean Shefelah in southern Israel in a huge underground cave complex below the ancient city of Maresha.

The astragali — made from bones of goats, sheep and cattle were used like we’d use dice for  gaming and fortune telling, mainly by women and children. Some of the knuckle bones were shaved down, or perforated, or filled with lead, to be thrown more effectively.

Some of the dice were carved with Greek inscriptions; some were engraved with the names of gods associated in ancient times with human wishes and desires. Some that came into play were Aphrodite, the goddess of fertility, love and beauty, Eros, the god of love, the god Hermes, the goddess Hera, and Nike, the goddess of victory, appear among other gods.

On other knuckle bones, game instructions and various role play instructions are engraved, such as “Robber”, “Stop!”, “You are burnt”.

“The assemblage shows that in ancient times of distress, as today, people sought help  from external factors, in magic and spells and in the world of the unknown,” says one of the researchers Lee Perry-Gal, Israel Antiquities Authority zoo-archaeologist and research fellow in the University of Haifa.

She adds: “In the past, men, and especially women, struggled with an environment of uncertainty, death, childbirth, and health issues, and tried to protect themselves with the help of magic. In addition, we know that astragali were used for games.

“It is noteworthy that we have examples of children buried with similar gaming dice. The cubes, which were a popular gaming activity, had a role in accompanying children to the next world, to be used there. Since the astragali symbolize good luck, it was customary to inter them under the house threshold, in the hope that they will bring good luck and prosperit,” she adds.

The cultic role of bones

The knuckle bones are often found next to ostraca – pottery sherds with writing inscribed or written in ink –  with Aramaic texts, such as, ‘Magical Incantation’, or ‘If you do so, this will happen to you’, which demonstrates their cultic role, the archaeologists report.

The Hellenistic city of Maresha was one of the period’s melting-pots in the southern Levant where different populations and cultures lived side-by side there as neighbors, all subordinate to the Hellenistic – or Greek – rule. There were Edomites, Phoenicians, Nabateans and Jews, and the different peoples and cultures influenced each other.

According to Eli Eskosido, Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “This fascinating research sheds light on the life and customs in the ancient world and reminds us that people are regular people all over the world. They dream and hope, and notwithstanding the harshness of daily life, they find time for playing and leisure.” 

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The majority of the games played nowadays are video games that are played on some sort of electronic device and to be honest, this is not the most eco-friendly way by which you can play games. 

Using electronic devices and smartphones all the time is just not great. Sometimes, we need to go back to physical socializing and talk with our nears and dears directly. In such instances, eco-friendly board games have always been the best because not only do they bring friends and families together but they are also usually eco-friendly, not being rough on the environment. 

Whether it is your favorite board game Monopoly or you like playing cards with your friends, there is now every board game available that is made out of eco-friendly materials that aren’t rough on the environment plus you can always have a good time with your friends and family members when playing board games. Let’s have a look at some of the eco-friendly and old-fashioned games to play with your friends:

1. V:King or Kubb

It is a perfect outdoor eco-friendly game. Previously it was known as Kubb but not it is called V:King inspired by ancient Vikings. This is a fun game where the players have to knock their opponents’ shields by using their battle-axes. If anyone manages to do so then he will emerge victoriously and will get the crown.

The game relies on strategy and teamwork. You don’t need to be very strong or fast to win this game, you just need to have the right strategy to snatch the crown from your enemies and dethrone them. 

There are now eco-friendly versions of V:King/Kubb available that are made out of hardwood completely and free from chemical and toxin stains. A fun game to get you and your group pumped up.

2.Endango

Endango is a board game that requires taking care of the different environments such as forests, oceans, ice caps, safaris, etc. Each environment has endangered species that you have to protect and every move that you will make will either help them in survival or further promote their extinction. The ultimate goal is to make sure that you protect all the endangered animals in every environment.

Not only is this game made out of eco-friendly materials but it also teaches us how our small actions can lead to the destruction of the planet and different species inhabited on it.

3. Tic Tac Toe

Although Tic Tac Toe is a simple game, but who says it isn’t fun? In Tic Tac Toe, you have to think about a unique strategy through which you can outsmart your opponent. Not only is this game simple and fun to play but you can literally play it at any given time you want to. Plus, there are now different eco-friendly versions of the game available that are made of 100% recyclable materials.

4. Cards

Playing cards has always been fun. Whether you are at a party or you need to kill some time, cards have always been fun to play. Not only is a pack of cards cheap but it comes in handy in different situations. Plus, there is now an eco-friendly version of cards available such as the Bicycle Eco Edition that is made purely out of eco-friendly materials such as starch-based glue, vegetable-based inks, and paper from sustainable forests, and along with that, they can also be fully recycled into a new pack of cards. 

Those who are having a hard time leaving their smartphone or laptop can still play cards on those devices very easily. Popular electronic card games include Spider Solitaire, solitaire and Freecell. These games are also very fun to play and provide a soothing experience to the mind.

5. Jigsaw Puzzles

While people usually think of physical puzzle pieces when someone mentions a jigsaw puzzle, there are other options that are deemed more eco-friendly. For example, online jigsaw puzzles are easy to access for anyone at no cost and without wasting extra resources. One awesome site is Im-a-puzzle.com. This online jigsaw puzzle site has thousands of options. From beginner-friendly puzzles to incredibly difficult ones, you can decide which level is right for you. If you’re unsure, try out a few different options without worrying about wasting money or materials. Categories include animals, food, cars, holidays, and more. Another perk is you can create your own puzzle when you upload an image and define the settings – all without having to print a physical game.

6. UNO

UNO is the perfect game that you need when you are on a road trip, camping or fishing. All of us played UNO at some point in our lives and whenever you are out on a long trip with your friends, playing UNO is always a good choice. You won’t get bored plus if you happen to beat your friends then you get bragging rights over them. There is now an eco-friendly version of UNO available, UNO Wilderness Edition that is 100% eco-friendly. 

7. Boggle

Boggle is another classic board game that most of us love to play with our friends and family. Although most of the versions used to be made from plastic, there are now newer, eco-friendly versions of the game coming which are made from heavy-duty wood instead of plastic, and as compared to plastic, wood is definitely an eco-friendly material. 

All the rules of the game remain exactly the same, the only difference is that you are playing on a Boggle board made of wood instead of plastic. You can still enjoy playing your favorite board with your friends and family members & have fun.

8. Scrabble & Jenga

Scrabble is another eco-friendly board game that is always fun to play. If you are a linguist or vocabulary geed then you would love playing Scrabble. There is also a wooden version of Scrabble available nowadays that you can play with if you want to promote eco-friendly living. 

Jenga is another game that people love to play, especially kids and teenagers. Stacking up the sticks and keeping them balanced is always a fun & challenging thing to do. Jenga is loved by people of all ages and as the game progresses further, it becomes harder and harder to balance the wooden sticks and eventually one of the players ends up losing. 

Scrabble and Jenga are two games that have their eco-friendly versions readily available in the market and they can be played by people of all ages, kids, teens, adults, seniors, everyone can play these games.

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Neolithic game boards from Jordan. In some places like Petra they were carved into walls of the city for leisurely play? The early mancala game we know today is likely from this, but no one really knows the rules of the ancient games. But archeologists do know that they were a way for socializing people through the ages.

Ever thought about those new and interesting board games that are popping up? Like the ancient game Mehen, based on an Egyptian god and the path to enlightenment. As kids get overstimulated from technology and smartphones, a new trend is to get them to play board games. And now ancient games like mancala and mehen, much lesser known games than chess, are making a comeback. Historically, board games were played by ancient civilizations to socialize. And here we learn more about games from the western east.

According to American anthropologist, Gary Rollefson, western east area board games such as mehen, senet, and later mancala and chess (brought from India to Persia), have been an integral part of the human experience for at least 5000 years. While chess was invented in India it was brought to the world through the Persian empire when the Arabs conquered Persia. Chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently spread to Southern Europe.

And all these old games we played have a history. We interview an anthropologist to find out more.

Over the past two decades what looks like game boards fashioned out of stone have been recovered from sites around 9000 years old, along with game pieces, explains Gary Rollefson, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington.

Archeological records show how the less complex communities than Old World civilizations (Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt) we know today enjoyed an extensive period of social interaction of this kind.

“Board games were widely played throughout the Mediterranean into Africa and the Near East during the Classic period,” Rollefson tells Green Prophet and similar forms of game boards were also popular during the Bronze Age, about 4000 years ago.

“Origins of complex gaming remain debatable, but there is now a wealth of examples of analogous game boards that date from the Neolithic period in Jordan, Israel, Syria and Iran,” he said.

| Neolithic people or the New Stone Age era people, was the final stage of cultural evolution or technological development among prehistoric humans. |

Researchers discovered prehistoric game boards north of Petra, the gorgeous Pink City in Jordan built by Nabateans, at the site called Beidha. It happened in 1966 when Diana Kirkbride discovered them in Beidha.

Games found in ancient garbage

“Evidently made of local sandstone, one complete and three fragmentary examples were recovered from almost the entire span of the 8th millennium BC in domestic and trash contexts,” Rollefson pointed out, noting that all share similar traits, including two rows of depressions.

The depressions are approximately 1 inch in diameter and one quarter inch deep, he explained, adding that the complete “game” has four such holes in each row, all linked by shallow grooves: “the groove link is missing, but two separate grooves between the two rows trace a shallow sinusoidal pattern,” he points out.

Games ancient Iranians used to play

On the other hand, a different kind of board game can be found in Iran from Chagha Sefid found by Frank Hole: the board, made of gypsum, is broken and has 13 holes or traces of holes arranged in 3 parallel rows. The holes are small, measuring only a quarter inch in diameter and depth and the board comes from the Sefid phase, dating to 7400 to 6700 BCE, about 8000 years ago.

Games scratched into the city walls, beginnings of mancala?

Ain Ghazal is a well-known site on the northeastern outskirts of Amman, where two complete game boards came from. The ancient Nabataeans scratched what looks like game boards into flat surfaces all over the city. And they can be found all over the city. While the adults are looking at the big, huge tombs and carvings, send the kids to find the game boards.

Play board games like an ancient Egyptian

Depressions were pecked about a centimeter into the limestone and had a diameter of almost an inch, and the rows converge from the wider end toward the narrower end of the board.

More ancient games in Jordan

“The second specimen from ‘Ain Ghazal [northeast Amman] was recovered in 1996; it is much less intensively worked than the 1989 example. Two rows of four very shallow depressions [less than a centimeter deep and about 3 cm in diameter] were pecked into an almost circular hard limestone slab that is convex on the obverse side,” said Rollefson, noting that the lack of definition of the holes might be an indication that it was not finished, perhaps due to its extraordinary hardness compared to the softer kind of limestone of the other game board.

The stone was later used by ancient architects to serve as a base in a posthole that was part of the roof support system of an apsidal building that may have been used in a cult practice by a kinship group, he speculated.

On a terrace high above the lower Wadi Al Hasa in central Jordan, Adamanitos Sampson excavated two game boards from the site of Wadi Hamarash 1, including a complete and very elaborate specimen, Rolleson underlined, adding that it was made of pink sandstone, and it represents the largest Neolithic game board discovered so far. See top photo.

Game boards have been also found west of the Jordan Valley, in Jericho, when a single fragment of a game board came from a Pottery Neolithic era Rollefson elaborated, noting that only two circular depressions were preserved (and one was nevertheless incomplete) with a narrow channel connecting them.

“Two Late Neolithic game boards were excavated at Shir an agricultural village about 10 miles north-northwest of Hama in the Orontes Valley of Syria. One of the game boards was incorporated as a wall stone in a house; the second game board is a small fragment,” the scholar emphasized, adding that like the odd arrangement of holes in the stone from Chagha Sefid in Iran, the complete Shir game board has three parallel rows of ten shallow holes.

How were ancient games played?

Scholars in general assumed that board games were played by objects such as pebbles or seeds, a Japanese archaeologist Sumio Fujii claims that at Wadi Abu Tulayha colorful semi-translucent pebbles were found that are not available locally, implying that they must have been brought to the site from elsewhere.

One of the major problems regarding the interpretation of human activities and social habits in prehistory is the lack of material evidence, not to mention written sources.

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Board games are so important for green-minded people today. We are revolting against technology overuse, promoter and consumer culture. So this new but ancient game promoted on Kickstarter piques our curiosity: Mehen is a 5,000 year old Egyptian board game. It is the only widespread ancient game to use a spiral game board, making it one of the most unique games ever created.

Sadly, Mehen has not been available to non-ancient Egyptians for some time. Now you can play like the Ancient Egyptians, thanks to Pandora Games.

How does Mehen work?

The game is based upon the snake god, Mehen, who coils around Ra (the sun god) to protect him during his subterranean journey each night.

Mehen is a fierce, protective god, and a fitting deity for a perilous board game journey.  The gameboard is a representation of Mehen’s coiled body, beginning at the tail and progressing to the head at the center of the board.

While a number of ancient boards and sets of game pieces have been recovered by archaeologists, no indication of the rules of the game have survived.

Previous scholarly attempts to reconstruct the rules have assumed that Mehen was played as a simple, linear roll-and-move game.

With a complex, innovative board that looks nothing like other roll-and-move games of the time, we think this is unlikely.

Accordingly, game designer Zach Horton set about producing a new set of rules for Mehen that take into account what we know from the archaeological record, what we know of the game’s spiritual significance, and the unique features of its board and theme to create an exciting, strategically rich gameplay experience that makes you think in spirals.

This mehen board on Kickstarter, is optimized to new rules and cherry with walnut inlays for Mehen’s eyes! Wood is sourced from sustainable tree farms and small mills.

A basic game of Mehen involves 6 pawns per player, plus a number of “lions” equal to the number of players. The pawns begin off the board near Mehen’s tail, while the lions wait off the board elsewhere.  Players throw four wooden throwing sticks to determine their movement options for each turn.  Each player moves two pieces on their turn: either pawns or (when available) lions.

While the pawns are attempting to reach the center of the board (Mehen’s head), where they can achieve enlightenment, lions are soon moving backwards, from the center toward the tail, devouring pawns!

As the game progresses, the journey becomes more and more dangerous for the pawns, and more strategically complex as players must find a way to approach the center while protecting themselves against lions.

At the same time, of course, each player must try to hinder the progress of their opponents, break up their opponents’ protective formations, and take advantage of fortuitous opportunities like forward slides and coil-to-coil jumps.

The god Mehen also has agency in this game: certain throws trigger Mehen’s actions, which can pull pawns to their doom if you haven’t planned ahead!

The first player to achieve enlightenment for three of their pawns wins the game.

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