The doctor’s game – new light on the history of ancient board games (original) (raw)

2007, Philip Crummy et.al., Stanway: An Elite burial site at Camulodunum, Britannia Monograph Series No. 24, London 2007, 359-375

Dr Schädler also makes the point that, as far as can be gauged, rectangular boards like the one in the Doctor's burial, with its width to length ratio of about 2:3 or more, were not latticed. However, all three boards which he cites from Britain as having measurable dimensions (i.e. the Doctor's burial at Stanway, Grave 117 at King Harry Lane (Stead and Rigby 1989, 109) and Burial 6 at Baldock (Stead and Rigby 1986, 68-9)) are likely to have been broadly of the same type and may even be from the same workshop, thereby opening up the possibility that they represent a type of board and game not recognised before. Although these boards were not identical (they did not all have metal corner pieces and handles), various features bind them together as a group, i.e. a) all three were hinged, b) at least two (Stanway and Baldock) were made of maple, the wood of the third being unidentified, c) Baldock and Stanway were very similar in size and shape, and King Harry Lane could have been the same (same length as the other two but of indeterminate width), and d) leather traces were found on the boards at Stanway and King Harry Lane. All three were found in the territory of the Catuvellauni (and we include Camulodunum in this), although this relatively tight distribution might simply be the result of chance. Thus the three boards, plus those in the Warrior's burial and in Chamber BF6 (pp. 126, 186-90) and the possible board in Grave 309 at King Harry Lane (Stead and Rigby 1989, 109-10, figs 108, 152), could have been part of a distinctive British body of artefacts linked to a specific game popular among a group of Britons in the south-east of the country with strong connections with the nearby Romanised Continent. The case for fidhcheall needs to be balanced against the fact that Roman counters and boards in the possession of Romanised Britons provides strong evidence in favour of the playing of a Roman game of some sort.