WEBVTT - Invention Playlist 3: Board Games, Part 2 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.039 Hey, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.640 I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.239 our discussion of the invention of board games. Now. In 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.479 the last episode, we talked a lot about the i 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.440 the idea of what play is and what games are 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.120 and how they emerge from our biology, and the fact 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.040 that this is still an open question. We talked about 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.240 a lot of the evidence in the theories about why 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.440 why play exists in animals, what purpose it serves, if 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.120 it might be biologically adaptive in one way or another, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.599 the idea of that maybe it trains us for future skills, 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.800 that maybe it signals fitness, that maybe it makes us 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.800 more versatile and able to deal with unexpected events, and 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:52.880 all kinds of things like that. We also talked about 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:58.280 theories about why abstracted versions of play like board games emerged. 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.640 That maybe it was in order to sublimate a competitive 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.480 instinct that could be violent if not given an outlet 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.039 like games, Yeah, don't punch each other in the face, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.400 play Little rockham Stock and robots instead, uh yeah. And 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.479 and then also the idea that there is a deep 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:19.039 inherent link between board games the earliest known board games 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.040 and the practice of divination or sort of ledge, where 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.800 you might do things like cast lots to figure out 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.560 the will of the gods, or answer a question by 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.240 consulting some type of pseudo random object or event. You know, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:33.800 you throw knuckle bones and see what the gods are 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.120 telling you, or consult the each ing, and that these 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.839 kinds of things could have given way to board games 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.880 that also involve casting of lots or rolling of knucklebones 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.200 to see how many spaces you get to move on 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.400 the board, right, and we see that legacy continue in 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.440 modern games. The Mystery Day, the Game of Life that 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.160 we already mentioned, and though this is not technically a game, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.360 it is still kind of lumped into the same similar category. 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.440 Certainly something you can buy at a toy store, but 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.920 the magic eight ball. The magic eight ball is a 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:07.120 toy that is obviously just overtly a divination tool, but 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.760 one that as uh I thought, I would say, usually 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.040 I don't know. I would say that even as a kid, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.520 when I used a magic eight ball, there was a 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.400 sense of wanting it to be real, like there was 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.919 a you leaned into the magic, into the the sort 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.880 of the divine aspect of the practice, even though you 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.160 knew that this was was not actually a you know, 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.760 a hotline to the fates, or that God had anything 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.680 to do with what was happening in the ball, Robert, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.960 do you hear that? Yeah? Whoa? What is that? Something 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.680 kind of cutting in cuttle Cat's cuttlefish to the second 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.760 oil age and his kingdom with whirl of darkness. I 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:53.800 don't dispute the eurostata, but if he's down here, not 0:02:54.040 --> 0:03:01.680 blood but darkness, the Earth's black riches. No, I could 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.840 taste it on my lips. Today, I want to talk 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:18.280 to you about the science of transgenesis, tens genesis dot show. No, 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.679 I guess it's gone now. Maybe it wasn't anything. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.760 I just heard like a high pitched, like like glitchy noise. Robert, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.240 you've got a bit of blood in the owner of 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.560 your eye. Oh my goodness. I yeah, I'm I'm bleeding 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.440 from rama. I want to get cleaned up here and 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.240 we can keep going. I'm good, I'm good. Well, if 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.120 I can get off topic for just a second here. 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.240 Of course, I do think that there actually is that 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.280 the eight ball and other divination methods like the Wegia 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.960 board and all that. You know, we we can laugh 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.800 at like the strict religious authorities and adults who say, 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.560 don't fool around with the weedge board. You know, you're 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.840 inviting demons in. Or they might say the same thing 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:57.960 about the magic eight ball. On one hand, that's kind 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.520 of funny. But on the other hand, of course, I'm 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.080 not suggesting like real spiritual demons actually come in and 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.960 possess you if you play with a wigia board. I 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.280 do think playing with a wigia board can be kind 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.680 of dangerous because it suggests a divinatory frame of mind, 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.160 even if you don't go in believing in it. I 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.880 bet you've had this experience of playing around with something 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.520 like this not believing it has any real magical power. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.600 But then once you've played the game, you kind of 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.359 start to wonder, and it tempts you, attempts you to 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.240 think in terms of fate, in terms of like the 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.440 intervention of of other otherworldly forces in your life. If 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.120 you play with it enough, I can see how it 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.919 could really suck your mind into that cast of thinking, 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.240 which can be harmful. Well even just um just you know, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.720 marginal exposure to something to that kind of thinking can 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:48.600 have an effect. I think back to the episode of 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.200 Stuff to Blow your Mind we did on the Chinese 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.440 zodiac and uh, you know, with the lunar calendar, the 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.320 different zodiac animals associated with each year, and the sort 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:04.480 of the the loose too complicated characteristics that are aligned 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.960 with individuals born in each year, and how you saw 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.440 you when you look at the birth statistics, you see 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.520 this this bump uh during the years of the Dragon, 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:17.280 the most auspicious year. And and one of the things 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.760 that we found is that this didn't you didn't see 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:24.520 this occurring because necessarily people were just like hardcore Chinese 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.839 astrology believers, but that they were there were other things, 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.680 probably more important things of impacting their their choices, But 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.400 then this thing was in the background, like a casual 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:40.040 understanding of the zodiac, and then that ended up perhaps 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.480 the argument is um uh influencing their choices. So just 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.240 having something like the the eight ball or the Luigi board, 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:51.039 or astrology or whatever supernatural model you want to lean on, 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.680 just having there in the background can conceivably be enough 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:58.159 to tweak your choices, you know. And I wonder if 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.960 this can be extended into partly explaining why games of 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.480 chance have sometimes historically and even sometimes by by a 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.920 few people today, been considered dangerous because if there is 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.240 this kind of danger, you know, even if there aren't 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.039 really spirits that are gonna come mess with you, there 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.279 is a kind of danger in setting your mind to 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.880 the cast of thinking that is encouraged by divination methods, 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.560 and that rolling dice to play a game of chance 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.720 is in a way a form of divination. It is 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.920 kind of a slightly abstracted sortilage practice. Now, I also 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:32.760 want to remind everybody, since it, you know, may have 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:34.560 been a week since you listen to the last episode, 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.760 we're going to talk a little bit as we continue 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.599 about sort of the what I'm thinking of the three 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.400 corners of gaming that you're gonna have the mechanics of 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.800 the game. That's the rules, the system of rules that 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.160 dictate how it's played, the skeleton the skeleton ya, who wins, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.520 how they win, et cetera. Then you have the fluff, which, 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.080 especially in modern games, this is the story, the characters, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:59.160 the setting, the illustration and illustrations. And then you have 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.200 the material aspect of it, which could be as simple 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.000 as a board and some sort of you know, a 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:09.640 dice or it is something more elaborate, like it requires 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.080 a poplematic bubble, or you know, the battleships set requires 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:17.440 this whole plastic interface, etcetera. The Omega virus robots that 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.240 talks to you and or the videotape you put in 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.040 with the you the one who is moving now right, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.440 Or there are a lot of games you know nowadays, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:26.720 or there are a lot of games that have just 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.720 required timers. You need that hour glass, right, But a 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.200 lot of games now that either have a timing element 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.840 or something more complicated than that will require you to 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.400 use an app which which it can also be used 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.640 to great effect. Well, I think we should then try 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.600 to turn our attention to what is the earliest known 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.320 evidence of physical apparatus for for these types of abstract 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.720 games like board games. What's the earliest evidence we have 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:56.160 that somebody was playing something like a board game. Well, 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.160 when you start diving back through history, you find that 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.520 some of the uh what is considered the earliest archaeological 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.559 evidence for board games pops up in the Neolithic Middle 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:10.520 East around seven thousand BC. Wow, board games nine thousand 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.720 years ago. But this would have been the time in 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.080 which individuals living in this region we're beginning to find 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.960 social leisure and security on a regular basis for the 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.720 first time. So they were feeling safe enough, they were 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.520 feeling secure enough, and you know how much food they 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.520 had available that they had, say, you know, a few 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.720 minutes in the afternoon to scratch some a grid into 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.719 the dirt and maybe move a few pebbles around. Now, 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.400 I would think a grid scratched into the dirt would 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.240 not survive nine thousand years. So what is the physical 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.840 evidence we have that people were playing games like this 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.000 at the time. Well, that is one of the key 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.040 the key challenges because we tend to find what might 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.160 be the boards or the pieces, and sometimes it can 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.360 be difficult to figure out exactly what we're looking at, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.000 you know. Uh. Indeed, if it's something as simple as 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.280 pegs and stone owns, or little holes drilled in stones, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.080 or some sort of a grid and stones, there's a 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.600 fair amount of interpretation figuring out why people made these marks. 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.400 Um And certainly we're not going to find anything like 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.200 the rules for ancient game. If if you have a 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.280 game that is predating written language, there is no rule 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.680 book to go by. It would have just been an 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.079 oral tradition. So it's not always easy to say, yes, 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.680 this was probably part of a game, this was something 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.400 that served litteral or no purpose outside of leisure. For instance, 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.160 there's the Neolithic Beta site, which dates back to somewhere 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:38.319 between seventy two hundred and sixty b C. And it's 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.880 near Petra, Jordan's Uh and this is one of many 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.000 ancient sites where we have we find stone slabs with 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:49.040 three parallel rows of regular holes, and this might have 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:54.520 been an early precursor to Mancala, which is of course 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.840 one of the world's most ancient games and one that 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.880 we still find versions of throughout the world. You can 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.280 usually buy it at a store or even I remember 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.040 a version of Mancola got popular at my school. I 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.040 think when I was in I don't know, something like 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.520 sixth grade. Does that sound about right. Yeah, I think 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.560 that it has come backs occasionally. Yeah. Yeah, it's one 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.240 of these you just see. I don't think I've ever 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.440 owned a copy, but you you see it around like 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.520 it's for something with such ancient origins, it's still very 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.319 much alive. Basically, it involves like you get to go 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:30.440 along a series of holes or impressions, dropping in seeds 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.160 or stones, one at a time and like counting out 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.080 the number of places you get to go. Right, it's 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.240 generally a colored beads nowadays, but but the older model 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.240 would have probably used seeds or beans, and this might 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:47.440 reveal its origins as a fertility ritual for early agricultural societies. 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.679 Again getting into a little bit into the divination and 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.000 a little get into the magical perhaps origins of games. 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:57.600 That's really interesting the idea. Yeah, so seeds, agriculture and fertility, 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.480 but also having perhaps some kind of divinatory role exactly. Yeah, 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.479 and uh, these were pretty white, widespread, to the point 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:09.920 that mencla games are are even a whole category of 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.520 ancient games in some classifications. Now there are different classifications 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.040 for for games and board games that you'll find depending 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.120 on who the scholar is that's doing the analysis. But 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.280 for instance, Harold James Ruthren Murray is one of the 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.920 individuals who categorized games, and he said, okay, well we 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.920 have men calla games, that's a category. But then he 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.040 had other games, for instance, alignment and configuration games. The 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.720 most obvious example of this is tic tac toe Connect 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:42.760 four Connect four I think would probably count basic principles 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.560 the same. You have war games. Of course, the classic 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.079 example there is chess, but you can throw in your 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.120 warhammer games, you can throw in your risk games. I mean, 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.800 these are all essentially games that simulate warfare. Then they're 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.920 hunting games. I don't think I've played one of these, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:01.800 or at least I don't think I have. But Fox 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.040 and Geese is an example that pops up in different cultures. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.400 This was the hardest category for me to understand. I 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.640 think maybe it involves sort of like collecting pieces, like 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.240 you compete to collect them or something. Yeah, it kind 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.080 of makes more sense if you if you look at 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:16.640 a picture of it. So if you do a search 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.040 for fox and Geese games, you'll see some some images. 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.360 Then there are race games, and the prime example here 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.160 is backgammon. I don't think I've ever played backgammon, so 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.160 I don't actually know how you do it. Well, it's 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.080 it's a pretty ancient game that but is also apparently 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:36.400 a descendant of the two row Roman dice game twelve lines, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.920 which itself was based on older forms of the same mechanic. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.200 And this is something you see with a lot of 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.520 these games. It's just this continual evolution of form games 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.920 are passed on almost virally from culture to culture, and 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.439 new spins are put on them because for a certain 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.440 to a certain extent, especially when they're when it's just 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.720 oral tradition. Uh, you know, it's going it's like a 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.960 game of telephone, but with the game rules levels of 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:05.080 complexity and simplification altering across the centuries. Yeah. I think 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.560 that's one of the key insights of the study of 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.120 games is that games are just are not fixed. They 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.040 always change. Yeah, like even something like Monopoly, which we'll 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.480 we'll get into more later, but it's easy for me, 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.440 especially to think, Okay, Monopoly, is this awful game that 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.720 never changes. Oh yeah, we learned that last time you 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.440 hate Monopoly. Hate Monopoly. Yeah, you go to the store 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.640 and there's some new version of Monopoly and it's the 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.280 same version of Monopoly, different pictures. They just tweaked the 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.440 fluff like that. You can even get Warhammer Monopoly, Star 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.440 Wars Monopoly. Yeah. But but even but I say that, 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.920 but deuced Bigelow Monopoly. I say this, but I was 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.120 just talking to Scott Benjamin, who helped us research this episode, 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.160 and he pointed out that actually you do see evolution 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.000 in Monopoly. There's a millennial Monopoly that came out where 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.120 they've altered the rules, not only the fluff, but the 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.200 rules itself to indicate that you're not you're not buying things, 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.600 you're renning things, and then of course they're there's also 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.800 like a card game based of Monopoly. There are other 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.280 games with the same franchise and similar fluff. Wait a minute, 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.760 if you're renting them, how do you how do you 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.240 what do your sublease when people land on your tiles 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.520 on the board. I don't know. Uh, community chest is 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.440 replaced with like take a puff of the jewel. Well, 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.160 as long as the as long as the game ends 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.920 the same way all Monopoly games end, and that is 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.400 with friends mad at each other, that's all that counts. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.520 That's not my experience. That's my experience with risk because 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.280 that risk makes people hate each other. Okay, I never 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.680 played risk. I had friends who are really into it. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.760 But that's one that also goes really long, right it can, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.000 and risk risk is like the number one offender for 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.360 for outing table flippers, for you know, letting you know 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.920 which are your friends is actually a really bad sport 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.680 to find out through risk. Yeah, you know, thinking back 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.520 to Monopoly, and then I think, you know, I had 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.680 friends who were playing risk too, Is that part of it. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.840 It's like a really long game that's played at night 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.240 in many cases, and so you've just been doing it 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.000 for so long, you're tired, you need to go home, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.240 you need to go to sleep, You're still stuck in 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:09.200 this low stakes um b s And then yeah, eventually 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.920 you just gotta flip the table. Elements make it worse. 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.880 Most often, i'd say, played for a long time at 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.680 night by adult men who have maybe been consuming alcohol. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.080 So like, yeah, it's a bad scene and will let 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.160 the demons in for sure. All right, well, let's take 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.280 a break, and when we come back, we're going to 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.760 roll into some some specific examples, some more specific examples 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.720 of ancient games and and really we can learn a 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.160 lot about just the nature of board games in general 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.520 by looking at what we know and what we don't 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:48.440 know about these ancient pastimes. All right, we're back now. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.800 Earlier we talked about the idea that there is perhaps 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:55.240 physical evidence of some type of unidentified Neolithic board game 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.840 just been found in like near Petra in Jordan's that 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.040 was perhaps a form of the Moncola game type but 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:04.840 we don't know for sure, and that that was maybe 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.160 like seven thousand b C or nine thousand years ago. 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.280 The oldest game that we definitely really know about on 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.520 are sure it's a game we have direct archaeological evidence of, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.040 is a game from ancient Egypt called senate. That's right, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.400 also known as the game of thirty squares, also known 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.880 as the game of passing, which will get back to later. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.760 I think that's what senate actually means, is passing. So 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.400 the dates range on this, So I've seen dates that 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.120 that say Senate goes back to roughly three thousand BC. Yeah, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.360 I've seen that there's evidence trace to BC or basically 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.960 roughly the fourth millennium BC. Either way, it was played 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.680 in pre dynastic times, and we can even turn to 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.720 tomb paintings that that actually depict ancient Egyptians playing this 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.400 game during this time period. Yeah. One famous one is 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.960 an ancient Egyptian painting of Queen Nefertari, one of the 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.560 wives of Rams. He's the great, and this painting of 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.439 Nefertory playing Senet is within the queen's own tomb, so 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.600 in her tomb in the Valley of Queens and Thebes 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.840 there's a painting of her playing a board game. That's dedication. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.320 I mean she was probably nationally ranked. Well yeah, probably 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.639 so now when you look at this illustration, I've actually 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.680 seen this illustration wrongfully identified as her playing chess. That's 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.920 not correct. Chess wouldn't come about for another four thousand 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.840 years in India, and I think that's worth remembering too. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.520 By the time chess was invented, games like this were 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.760 more ancient than chess is now. Yeah, that's unbelievable. I 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.040 love putting ancient history in that kind of perspective, like 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:49.119 thinking about the things, the things in ancient Egypt that 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.800 we're older to the ancient Romans than ancient Rome is 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:57.160 to us. That's always something I'd like to keep in perspective. Um, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.320 But so what do we know about this games net? 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.359 We know it was played with multiple game pieces, So 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.200 there were these things that look kind of like ponds 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.040 that were sometimes made of like a blue type ceramic material, 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.679 and it was played on a grid of thirty squares. 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.679 There were three rows of ten squares, and several of 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:21.760 the squares had symbolic hieroglyphs on them, seemingly symbolizing game imagery. 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.960 Such as the water Trap, like there'd be a water square. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.760 And while our evidence of synet is often in the 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.040 form of elaborate game boxes used by the wealthy, it 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.399 speculated that the game could also have been played by 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.159 the poor simply by drawing a grid in the sand, 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.200 or by like making scratches on a rock or a board. 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.760 And this is something we we see with some of 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.760 the later games we're going to discuss, where you had 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.040 the ornate version with a little in a box underneath 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.080 it to keep the pieces in. But then you also 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.800 see evidence of graffiti versions where someone just scrawled it 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:57.119 on on stone and played it exactly. Now, the exact 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.560 rules for Senate, though, are ultimately just a matter of 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.639 conject Sure, yeah we know something sort of, but we 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.640 don't fully know how the game was originally played, right, 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.080 And you can just imagine this exercise taking various modern 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.560 games and imagine, you know, opening them and having absolutely 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.879 no instructions, no written language about how they were played. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.720 In some cases you can pretty much piece it together. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.000 Fireball Island, candy Candy Land, especially Snakes and Ladders or 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.240 Shoots and Ladders. These are games that you know, you 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.280 can you can figure it out pretty quickly. Other games 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.359 with more you know, ambiguity is harder to tell, right 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.920 if you took a box of Arkham Horror. And it's 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:36.520 hard enough to tell what you're supposed to do in 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.840 Arkham Horror when you have the rules, but if you 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.520 have no rules, I can imagine there would be different 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:44.639 models based on it. Well, we think it was played 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.000 this way. We think these tiles were possibly used in 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.200 this way shape or form. Future archaeologists five thousand years 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.040 from now are definitely going to be able to figure 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.720 out how to play cross Fire because that's just obvious. 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.160 You can't miss it. Yeah, hungry hungry hippos. Yeah, that's 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.520 another one though. Of course, you can determine some things, 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.880 as we're saying, just by looking at what the what 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.119 we've been talking about is the materials of the game are. 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.080 What are the things you have to work with. It's 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.880 believed that this game Senate was played by casting of 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.920 some equivalent of dice, maybe casting knucklebones or throwing sticks, 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.800 and this would help determine what kind of moves you 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.840 could make. Knucklebones, by the way, often these would be 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.840 a knucklebones from say a sheep or a goat. So 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:28.320 something that was regularly slaughtered and and used for to 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.520 manufacture items, and it would be something more like a 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:36.000 four sided dice, like a D four in modern gaming terms. 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.080 I don't know for sure, but I would have to 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.920 guess that that would mean it's it's the biological shape 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.000 would mean it's not quite perfectly random which number you get, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.439 like there is actually a bias towards some of the 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.600 faces of the dice, since it's not, you know, perfectly 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.159 machined to be equal. That's a good point, but I 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.360 don't know that that just seems likely to me. One 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.600 of the really interesting things about Senate is how this 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.919 game held sacred connotations for the ancient Egyptians, Like it 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.080 doesn't seem to be a coincidence that Nefertari has shown 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.080 playing the game in a painting within her own tomb. 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.160 Uh The pharaoh Tutton Common was also buried with Senate 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.280 game boxes among his grave goods to be taken into 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.800 the next life. And we mentioned earlier that the name 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.480 of the game means passing. It's the game of passing, 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.200 and this probably has significance on the board itself, because 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.800 it's believed that you played the game by sort of 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.160 advancing past your opponent along the squares, and you could 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.080 like pass your opponent, you could block your opponent. So 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.639 it is in some ways literally a game of passing 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.760 in terms of its mechanics. But Senate also seems to 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:46.199 hold this strong religious significance associated with death, which for 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.840 the ancient Egyptians meant passing on into the afterlife through 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.240 this cosmic journey. I know, Robert, you've talked about that 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.240