Playing games at the Paphos Theatre: an examination of graffiti games uncovered by the Paphos Theatre Archaeological Project (original) (raw)
2022, HEROM. Journal on Hellenistic and Roman Material Culture
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).
Related papers
Playing against complexity: Board games and social strategy in Bronze Age Cyprus
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2019
Social complexity requires people to create new ways of interacting with one another to counteract new social boundaries. Board games provide one avenue by which archaeologists may examine the ways in which people interacted. The act of play is liminoid, allowing for people to more easily overcome social boundaries to in- teraction, while also creating a shared experience for the process of grounding. Thus, games provide an op- portunity for people to build relationships and also to negotiate their identity. This research counters previous assertions that only complex societies play strategy games. In Bronze Age Cyprus, middle-range society became increasingly complex with the development of urbanism and differential access to wealth, while also producing a particularly large corpus of ancient board games. Determining where games were played, and then analyzing the social context of games in those spaces using multiple correspondence analysis, it was found that people were more likely to be playing in public during periods of greater complexity. This is likely due to the performative aspects of play, allowing for the communication of status in different ways when games are played in public spaces. The pattern found shows the variation in the ways people incorporated games into their social strategies during periods of different types of complexity.
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.
New Fruition of Aegean Archaeology : A Board Game on Mi oan Crete
2019
MUSINT and MUSINT II are part of a long-term projec t on Aegean and Cypriot collections from Italian Mu se ms. MUSINT contains findings from the Archaeological Mu seum of Florence and other institutions in Tuscany. MUSINT II concerns the cretulaei.e. small clay objects with the impression of a seal (sealing) from Haghia T r da (Crete) stored in the Museum of Florence and in the "Luigi Pigorin i" National Museum in Rome. One of the main aims of the project is to reach a wider audience: in MUSINT a small sec tion was devoted to children and MUSINT II has been r cently implemented with a special section entirely dedicat ed to games.
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.
2019
MUSINT and MUSINT II are part of a long-term project on Aegean and Cypriot collections from Italian Museums. MUSINT contains findings from the Archaeological Museum of Florence and other institutions in Tuscany. MUSINT II concerns the cretulae-i.e. small clay objects with the impression of a seal (sealing)-from Haghia Triada (Crete) stored in the Museum of Florence and in the "Luigi Pigorini" National Museum in Rome. One of the main aims of the project is to reach a wider audience: in MUSINT a small section was devoted to children and MUSINT II has been recently implemented with a special section entirely dedicated to games. This paper focuses on the use of games preeminently inside-but also outside-classrooms as a new kind of educational resource. It turns out that games can be a valuable method in teaching Aegean archaeology. Different kinds of games (printed or digital) allow virtual visitors to get more deeply engaged and satisfied. At the same time the general needs of a better fruition of Aegean archaeological heritage will be achieved. Although games can so far be found in many websites, they have never been concerned with Aegean archaeology. Indeed, this is a difficult and peculiar subject which needs specific games objectives. MUSINT may be the ideal platform to start with promoting the culture of game-based activities in this educational sector. This contribution is particularly devoted on how dedicated board games can maximize the positive perception of archaeology. We worked to the creation of MINOANS, a board game on Knossos and Crete, mainly based on materials and games of MUSINT II. The island of Crete has been transformed into a platform where, acting and surveying, exploring and playing with ancient sites, new relationships between old findings and modern engagement are established.
New Fruition of Aegean Archaeology : A Board Game on Minoan Crete
2019
MUSINT and MUSINT II are part of a long-term project on Aegean and Cypriot collections from Italian Museums. MUSINT contains findings from the Archaeological Museum of Florence and other institutions in Tuscany. MUSINT II concerns the cretulae i.e. small clay objects with the impression of a seal (sealing) from Haghia Triada (Crete) stored in the Museum of Florence and in the Luigi Pigorini National Museum in Rome. One of the main aims of the project is to reach a wider audience; in MUSINT a small section was devoted to children and MUSINT II has been rcently implemented with a special section entirely dedicated to games.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Related papers
2021