Ancient Games And What They Teach Us About Modern People (original) (raw)
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Games in the Ancient World: Places, Spaces, Accessories
Games in the Ancient World: Places, Spaces, Accessories, 2024
Le volume réunit une série d’études présentées lors de colloques organisés par le projet ERC Locus Ludi (#741520) ainsi que d’autres contributions. Un large éventail de cas met en lumière la diversité culturelle des comportements dans l’espace et le temps. Ces études révèlent l’étendue géographique et chronologique des pratiques ludiques, de l’Égypte pharaonique à la Grande-Bretagne romaine et à la périphérie celtique du haut Moyen Âge. Malgré l’abondance de témoignages, le matériel conservé est souvent fragmentaire et dispersé, occulté par la perception occidentale moderne des jeux comme des passe-temps futiles. En déconstruisant la complexité des pratiques ludiques antiques, cet ouvrage met en lumière l’intersection des jeux avec la vie sociale, culturelle et religieuse dans l’Antiquité, et livre une perspective nouvelle sur un aspect jusqu’ici négligé de l’histoire humaine.
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299 10. A playful coroplast? A new look at the terracotta group of the early Roman board-game players NAM 4200 and related finds Maria Chidiroglou 323 11. Catacomb games: reused game boards or funerary inscriptions? Ulrich Schädler 349 12. Une tabula lusoria ou « triple enceinte » et l'inscription funéraire de Agate filia comites Gattilanis à Milan Francesco Muscolino III. Between literary fiction and divination 367 13. Plato plays Polis
Playing with the Past: a Framework for Studying South Asian Board Games
Playing with the Past: Proceedings of the NationalConference on Ancient and Medieval Indian Games, 2020
Play, psychologists tell us, is a critical part of human existence. And if animal behaviourists are allowed a word in, play is critical to the muscular and mental development of most mammalian children. While a number ofsports may be attested from the earliest periods of human existence, sedentary games of skill and calculation go way into the past too, perhaps even before humanity learned to write. Indeed, even today, most traditional game boards are ephemeral: they are carried around in human heads, and etched, chalked, drawn or painted onto a suitable surface at the start of play, and abandoned soon after. The same applies to rules: the best and longest lasting games have the simplest rules, that can yet lead to complex and engaging play for hours. The play pieces and dice themselves are resistant to such mentalisation, but can be improvised on the spot using pebbles, sticks, shells, coins and fragments of pottery. Yet if the Brahmajāla Sutta is to be believed, Tathagata’s contemporaries played a game of Ākāsa (Majjhimasīla, Dīgha Nikāya: Brahmajāla Sutta), in which board, pieces, dice and moves were all played imagined in the air between players, the entire game narrative being held in the mind alone.
Ancient Egyptians at Play : Board Games across Borders
Ancient Egyptians at Play : Board Games across Borders, 2016
gaming to larger social and political developments including trade, migration, conquest, and colonization. This study is also innovative in discussing not only the religious, but also the social significance of gaming not only in Egypt but also throughout the Near East and to some extent northeast Africa, considering the most modest game boards in addition to the fancy sets of nobles and Pharaohs. Their discussions of the material residues of gaming provide useful tools for archaeologists in identifying and contextualizing elements from boards, 'dice' and playing pieces. In sum, this volume provides a fascinating glimpse into the mechanics and dynamics of play in antiquity. The authors' concern for gaming's temporal, geographic and social contexts adds an important dimension to their study, making it an essential source for those who are interested in gaming in the Near East and northeast Africa and indeed at all times and places.
osophisch-historischen ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN BOARD GAMES. A NEW APPROACH
2016
scholars have éontributed richly iowards the history of chess. Their researches led to the following conclusions; (i) Chess is a descendant of an Indian game transmitted to the West in ihe shape it had àssumed in the seventh century A.D. (Murray 1913), (2) Chess wastheinventiônof someHinduwhodevisedagameof warwiththeest6pada board as his field of battle,l (3) Chess was the result of a prolonged evolution which is difficult to trace (Thieme 1962:216). 'Whether the bôard game called sst6pËds was known to the Vedas, the RÊm6gana**, the tlahabhdrata, forms a vely interesting topic for discussion. The history of astEpadr may also throw some light on the date of these celebrated words. Reseaiches into the uarious aspects of board games may help us to solve some unsolved problems connected with the flshÉbhdrsta, such as the date of ratld6sa, besides helping us to fix the dates of certain lexicographers. ^ "The Vedic people used to play dice using VibhTTtËka nuts. It seems that bo...
THE WHEEL OF GAMES AND ENTERTAINMENT HISTORY
Physical education and sport through the centuries, 2023
SUMMARY Games and entertainment, as a phenomenon, were present even in the clan community. From ritual games in the clan community, the games grew into agonistic games among the ancient Greeks, and already had an entertaining character among the ancient Romans. It is precisely the change in their character from αγονεσ to ludi, that leads us to wonder how games and entertainment have changed and developed through different eras of humanity, and not necessarily always in a positive direction. What challenges that society has faced throughout history have influenced the changing nature of games and entertainment? How did we get from Juvenal's recommendation that one should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body to the age where computer games will find their place at the Olympic Games? Can computer games contribute to prayer for a healthy mind in a healthy body? Or is there only the prayer of loved ones for their healthy spirit and body... Has the term game lost its basic meaning over time, which refers to an action without any material gain? How important are play/game and fun/entertainment for each age group? Does fun take precedence over play? Does the NTC program of exercise through play, which is based on science, have an adequate place in modern society? Has professionalism devastated the essence of sports games? These are just a few questions from the wide range of questions this research addressed. The aim of the paper was to point out the importance of games and entertainment for society and the possible direction towards choices of games and entertainment that did not stray from ethics, our essence and us as human beings. The results of the work indicate that although the choices on an individual level are ours, the ever-faster wheel of history is leading us to dehumanization and alienation from people, play and entertainment in their basic meaning. Keywords: games and entertainment, historical development, challenges and changes, future of games and entertainment
Project Khēḷiya: Mapping India's Heritage Games
Playing with the Past: Proceedings of the National Conference on Ancient and Medieval Indian Games, 2020
Khēḷiya originated as a joke term for the tendency to find board game patterns at archaeological sites, especially among students and alumni of the Centre for Extramural Studies and the INSTUCEN Trust. Serendipitously however, it has turned into an unanticipated survey of board games etched on the floors of various monuments throughout the country. Here we report board games brought to our attention from Hampi, Khokhari, Mahabalipuram, Badami, Nasik and Ellora. While several are well-known games, some are now fossils as their intangible (rules) and perishable (pieces and dice) are lost. We see Project Khēḷiya as the beginnings of an archaeological survey of games throughout India, fronted by amateurs, as a project to document our intangible heritage. This is of urgent need as any monuments are being refloored, leading to a permanent loss of this heritage.
Exploration of Ancient Board Games at Aurangabad Caves, Maharashtra
Journal of Archaeological Studies India , 2021
The following report contains information of a detailed survey conducted with the intent to document and study the diversity of game boards etched on the floors in the Aurangabad caves. Our method of documentation relied on physical inspection of each accessible cave, spotting, measuring, photographing and recording the games present in them along with contextual data. We faced a number of problems in the collection mainly due to the caves being badly weathered, and many being inaccessible due to being locked up by the authorities for the purpose of public safety. In spite of this, we were able to collect a large number of diverse games-most already known, including variations-along with a number of old graffiti etched on the floor of these caves. The data collected from this survey is part of an extensive, ongoing study of rock-cut caves and other monuments in Maharashtra, with the ultimate aim of finding, cataloguing, and if possible, reviving ancient board games as a living tradition and as an important part of the intangible cultural heritage of India.
International Journal of Applied Exercise Physiology (IJAEP), 2019
The game is a global and universal phenomenon, an integral part of life and any transformations and changes in the life of each person directly or indirectly correlate with the game factor. Retrospective analysis of the development of the game phenomenon is necessary for revealing and disclosing the internal unity of the various views on the game, the core of which is the philosophical and pedagogical idea of transforming the world through spiritual and moral growth and physical improvement of the personality, the formation of their humanistic and value orientations. In particular this applies to the process of training future teachers of physical training, whose activity is directly linked with the game phenomenon. To achieve this goal, a set of interrelated methods has been used, namely: analysis, synthesis and synthesis of scientific information on the problem of research, educational and methodological literature and Internet sources. In the views of thinkers of the earlier times, the game appears to be the necessary basis for all things, the fundamental phenomenon of being, in which the discovery and understanding of the essence of man is manifested. The game phenomenon reflects a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that is recognized by human through experience and comprehended at the sensual level. Modifying with each stage of the development of society, the game always keeps the manifestations of the phenomenon and is only inherent for itself a list of properties and qualities. Its leading features and essential characteristics are associated with such categories as activity,