Playing against complexity: Board games and social strategy in Bronze Age Cyprus (original) (raw)
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Games of Thrones: Board Games and Social Complexity in Bronze Age Cyprus
2016
This study frames research on board games within a body of anthropological theory and method to examine the long-term social changes that effect play and mechanisms through which play may influence societal change. Drawing from ethnographic literature focusing on the performative nature of games and their effectiveness at providing a method for strengthening social bonds through grounding, I examine changes in the places in which people engaged in play over the course of the Bronze Age on Cyprus (circa 2500¬–1050 BCE), a period of increasing social complexity. The purpose of this research is to examine how the changes in social boundaries concomitant with emergent complexity were counteracted or strengthened through the use of games as tools of interaction. Bronze Age sites on Cyprus have produced the largest dataset of game boards belonging to any ancient culture. Weight and morphological data were gathered from these artifacts to determine the likelihood of their portability and to identify what type of game was present. The presence of fixed and likely immobile games, as well as the presence of clusters of portable games, was used to identify spaces in which games were played. Counts of other types of artifacts found in the same spaces as games were tabulated, and Correspondence Analysis (CA) was performed in order to determine differences in the types of activities present in the same spaces as play. The results of the CA showed that during the Prehistoric Bronze Age, which has fewer indicators of social complexity, gaming spaces were associated with artifacts related to consumption or specialty, heirloom and imported ceramics, and rarely played in public spaces. During the Protohistoric Bronze Age, when Cyprus was more socially complex, games were more commonly played in public spaces and associated with artifacts related to consumption. These changes suggest a changing emphasis through time, where the initiation and strengthening of social bonds through the grounding process afforded by play is more highly valued in small-scale society, whereas the social mobility that is enabled by performance during play is exploited more commonly during periods of complexity.
2021
HEROM. Journal on Hellenistic and Roman Material Culture, 2022
Graffiti game boards are a well-known phenomenon across the ancient Mediterranean. The increasing scholarly interest in game boards over the last three decades has led, not only to the identification of board morphologies and game play, but also to new research into the social contexts in which board games are played. In Cyprus, archaeological research of board games has been limited to the Bronze Age, with ad hoc publications of Classical to Late Antique period boards known from individual excavation reports or finds publications. Most recently the University of Sydney’s excavations at the Nea Paphos Theatre (part of the World Heritage listed archaeological park in Kato Paphos) has uncovered 5 new game boards, dated to the Late Antique period, to add the known Cypriot corpus. This paper seeks to review the known Cypriot corpus of Classical to Late Antique game boards and introduce the newly discovered examples from the Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project. Particular focus will be given to the archaeological context of the newly discovered games and will demonstrate that the position of the board itself is essential to understanding the player’s seating arrangements and following, the identification of the game being played. NOTE: Uploaded is the front matter and first page of the article. Please follow the link for the complete paper (or DM me if you have access issues).
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.
Elite place-making and social interaction in the Late Cypriot Bronze Age
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 2009
Monumental buildings constructed with ashlar masonry have long been recognized as a hallmark of the Late Cypriot (LC) period (c. 1650-1100 BC). Yet, little attention has been paid to the vital role they played in the (trans)formation of social structures and maintenance of elite power. I examine how these buildings were designed to facilitate social interactions, including ritual activities centred on feasting, through which social statuses, roles and identities were negotiated and reproduced. This was achieved through the purposeful arrangement of rooms to control access and encourage or discourage particular types of interaction, as well as the strategic placement of symbolically-charged architectural elements such as ashlar masonry as a means of reifying social boundaries. As such, these monumental buildings were socially-constructed and meaningful places of action and interaction and therefore a central component of LC elite identities and the strategy of placemaking by which they derived and maintained their power.
Ancient Games And What They Teach Us About Modern People
Tamil Heritage Trust, 2023
In his Talk, "Ancient Games And What They Teach Us About Modern People", Raamesh Gowri Raghavan will use game boards and pieces unearthed in excavations, games etched on monument floors, heirlooms, depictions in literature, and ethnological reports, to present a a rich culture of games and the consequent opportunities to be had by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and museologists in the study of games to complete the picture of historical societies.
Caré, B., Dasen, V., Schädler, U. (eds), Back to the Game: Reframing Play and Games in Context. XXI Board Game Studies Annual Colloquium,, Lisbon, Associação Ludus, 2021, 227-271 (= Board Games Studies Journal, 16, 1, 2022, 251-307, https://sciendo.com/it/article/10.2478/bgs-2022-0009
A late 5th century BC funerary altar from the necropolis of Krannon (Central Greece) depicts a bearded man and a boy on either side of a board with five lines carved on a block. The fact that the man is seated and the horizontal position of the board reveal important information about Greek education and the history of Greek numeracy. This paper analyses the iconography of the relief, the link between the Five Lines game (Pente grammai) and abaci, examines the possible identification of the man as a "pebble arithmetician", of the boy as a student, and suggests a new reconstruction of the reckoning system operated on an abacus composed of five horizontal lines. A special practical function is proposed for the half-circle at one end of the abacus. This five lines pattern and the related material, especially counters, are considered from a wider perspective, a system of cultural practices associated with boards and counters throughout the Greek world.