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Games are one of the oldest shared habits of humanity. Boards, dice and pieces turn up in royal tombs, army camps and village squares on every continent, across every culture and period, and they show how people thought, prayed and competed.

The Role of Games in Early Societies

Long before modern technology, ancient civilizations played a wide range of games, some of them thousands of years before the common era. Many were rooted in religious and cultural practice and doubled as tools for teaching, social interaction and even spiritual life. They are a window into the past, showing the cultural, intellectual and social values of civilizations long gone.

Games and Society

Games often mirrored the structure and beliefs of the society that played them. In Egypt, Senet was tied to the journey of the soul through the afterlife. In Mesoamerica, the ball game carried myths and the cosmos. Early sets were made from bones, shells, stones and sticks, some of them used for divination. Games were central to social bonding, used in teaching, and acted as markers of social status. For the elite, games like Senet and the Mesoamerican ball game held religious significance and were also given as diplomatic gifts. A shared material or mechanic between an ancient and a modern game does not prove descent, a distinction our histories keep.

Many of those games are still played, on boards and on screens. Card and table games such as blackjack and poker evolved over centuries and are now found at online casinos around the world, including those available to players in Canada.

Archaeological Significance

Boards, pieces and depictions in art are the main evidence for how ancient games were played and what they meant. They are not just remnants of leisure but records of daily life, belief and interaction. Board games likely originated in the ancient Near East, with the earliest pieces found in Turkey dating back 5,000 years. The Royal Game of Ur, dated to 2600 to 2400 BCE, was played across the region and carried astronomical meaning.

Complexity and Spread in Ancient Civilizations

Greece and Rome played Episkyros, Harpastum and an early form of tic-tac-toe. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, Shatranj spread through the Arab world. In India, Chaturanga, the ancestor of chess, took shape in the Kushan or Gupta periods as a symbol of military strategy, and Carrom and Snakes and Ladders followed later.

• China: Liubo, Go and Xiangqi, plus the invention of playing cards under the Tang dynasty.
• Africa: Mancala, one of the most widespread games in the world and possibly the oldest.
• The Americas: Patolli and the Mesoamerican ball game.
• Northern Europe: the Tafl games of Germanic and Celtic societies. Chess reached the Iberian Peninsula in 822.
• Medieval sources: the Libro de los juegos, commissioned by Alfonso X of Castile in 1283, describes and illustrates dozens of games.

From the Near East to Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, games have served as teaching tools, as markers of status and as part of ceremonies and rituals. Through them we can trace the development of strategic thinking, social interaction and cultural values across civilizations. That shared heritage is what this site sets out to trace, one game at a time.

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