1,700-Year-Old Board Game Found in Norwegian Burial Mound | Hacker News Reader

1,700-Year-Old Board Game Found in Norwegian Burial Mound

lifeinnorway.net

150 pointsquidsentio22 comments

Don't know what drove them to say it is an early form of Hnefatafl, other than that both are games played on a board. Hnefatafl games (there are several [1]) are pure strategy open information games using different pieces with different moves. This discovery is of a game played with dice and apparently identical pieces. There are no pictures of the board. so I can only speculate about it, but my guess would be this game is probably a race game, perhaps a distant relative of backgammon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

Tafl games do include variants with dice for movement.

It's actually not clear at all what the rules are for Tafl. Linnaeus instructions are suggestive, but certainly wrong/incomplete and people think stuff like Fetlar rules are probably close, but we really don't know.

The article says (in an incredibly confusing way) that no game board was actually found here. What was found was dice and game chips. The dice is similar to those of another digging site "near" this one. On that site the board was recovered, but as you say, that board is not shown or discussed further. It then goes on to mention other board games that might have been played and by free association arrives at the 800 year younger Tafl find at Lindisfarne. I imagine that the goal of this was to put the word "Viking" in the headline and thereby generate clicks, but that some editor put a stop to it.

We changed the URL from https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/05/1700-yea... to one that is almost identical but has more information. Is archaeologynewsnetwork a blogspam site? Or was this a case of both articles working off some press release?

I honestly don't know. I just posted the one I encountered. But after some googling, this seems to be the original source: https://www.uib.no/en/culturalhistory/135652/gaming-roman-ir...

Great link. I like the four sided stick dice.

It's not blogspam, it's an archaeology specific aggregator. A lot of people working in historical/anthropological fields read it and even give it the occasional cite.

Thanks, that's helpful.

Expecting the Hasbro/Parker Games DMCA take down notice at any time :-)

More seriously, I think it is pretty interesting that board games would be the thing that meant this person was automatically considered aristocracy and upper class because they had board games buried with them. Today of course someone with a lot of board games or a love for them is often just considered a nerd. Perhaps nerds ruled Norway at the time. That's an interesting thought too.

I believe the ancient Egyptian aristos had their nerds buried with them.

The instruction booklet is ALWAYS missing when you find on old board game you want to play.

It's a prototype, but don't worry, the Kickstarter backers should have theirs within the year.

Thoughts of Jumanji come to mind... "Don't open the ancient Norweigian burial mound!" <g>

No, but on a serious note:

>“These are status objects that testify to contact with the Roman Empire, where they liked to enjoy themselves with board games."

and:

>"People who played games like this were local aristocracy or upper class. The game showed that you had the time, profits and ability to think strategically,” said Ramstad."

Fascinating! Makes sense, too...

Dice, not dices!

unless you are referring to multiple sets of distinct dice.

Die, not dice! There was only 1.

The long dice would be familiar to most Tamils though, not unusual at all.

https://tamil.boldsky.com/img/2020/01/1-dayakattai-157828523...

> they found a set of roman dice for a game

mono-polis?

It was Diplomacy. They still haven't finished the game.

Very nice observation

Not in original packaging?? Worthless!

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