Strange Games: Some Iron Age examples of a four-player board game? (VVL Presentation, 2014)

Strange Games: Some Iron Age examples of a four-player game?

Eddie [email protected]

Image © Trustees of the British Museum

Veni, vidi ludique Jeux et Multiculturalité International Colloquium

Swiss Museum of Games, La Tour-de-Peilz 20-22 October 2014

Examples to consider• Welwyn Garden City (second half C1st BC)• Stead/Brizio examples:

– Montefortino• Tomb 23 (late C3rd – early C2nd BC)• Tomb 35 (not seen)

– Bologna• Benacci Tomb 953 (early C3rd BC) • Ceretolo (second quarter C3rd BC)

• Other examples:– Bologna

• Arnoaldi Tomb 80 (late C6th – first half C5th BC)• Arnoaldi Tomb 128 (second half C5th BC)• Arnoaldi Tomb 132 (ca. 450 BC)

– A final thought about Etruscan/Gallic game boards

Welwyn-type Burials• Six definite examples

are known.• Extremely rich burials• Large pit• Un-urned cremation • Wine amphora• Imported tableware• Imported bronzeware• Imported silver cups• No offensive

weapons

• Personal items (eg, bracelets, game pieces)

Map: Stead 1967, Fig 1

Welwyn Garden City

Welwyn Garden City• Five Dressel 1B

wine amphorae • Italian silver cup• 35 items of “fine

table ware” (mostly native grey ware and buff ware) inc. three imported items: 2 platters and a flagon)

• Bronze strainer• Bronze dishand more …


A Rich Burial• Wine amphorae and other imported luxury items indicate

high-status and wealth.• Wine is an important aspect of gallic culture

– Late C1st BC wine trade in Gaul and Britain operated on an industrial scale,

Tyers, P. (1996) “Roman amphoras in Britain” Internet Archaeology (1). Council for British Archaeology Available online:http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue1/tyers_index.html

http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue1/tyers_index.html

Expensive Tastes• The Greek historian Diodorus

Siculus (fl. Sicily C1st BC) noted Celts would pay very high prices for wine, which they drank “unmixed and […] without moderation”

• According to Diodorus, Italian merchants trading with Celts in C1st

BC could exchange one amphora of wine (about 39 litres) for the “incredible price” of one slave.

Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History. Volume III, Book V Chapter 26. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5B*.html#26 Image: http://platopagan.tripod.com/Diodorus_Siculus.jpg

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5B*.html#26

Conspicuous Leisure

• Heléne Whittaker discusses Iron Age games in terms of Thorsten Veblen’s notion of “conspicuous leisure”. – The concept describes processes by which members

of a social elite distinguish themselves by engaging in non-productive activity.

• She concentrates primarily on Scandinavian games, but cites the Welwyn Garden City pieces as an example of the association of leisure with status. Whittaker, H. (2006) “Game-Boards and Gaming-Pieces

in the Northern European Iron Age”. https://www.academia.edu/586270/Game_Boards_and_ Gaming-Pieces_in_the_Northern_European_Iron_Age

https://www.academia.edu/586270/Game_Boards_and_Gaming-Pieces_in_the_Northern_European_Iron_Age


Conspicuous Consumption• We have a wealthy leisured elite, consuming expensive

imported wine and using imported luxury items to serve food and drink in a way that displays their wealth and sophisticated tastes.

• They also participate in pastimes using boardgames to complement and reinforce their leisured status and wealth.

• Funerary practices provide a record of these aspects of material culture.


Welwyn Garden City• Late Iron Age cremation• Second half C1st BC• “richest Iron Age burial

to be found in Britain”• Excavated mid 1960s

Images © Trustees of the British Museum

Welwyn Garden City Game Pieces

• 24 glass gaming pieces– 6 white, 6 blue, 6 red 6 yellow

• Six throwing pieces– Fragments as binary lots


Archaeological Report

Donald Harden: • “of the greatest interest and rarity”• “not only is there is no comparable set

extant; there is not even a single gaming piece of the same form and decoration which can be cited as a parallel, whether contemporary or not”

(Stead, 1967 p. 15)


Donald Harden:• “the places where we could most

reasonably expect to find parallels to these pieces are eastern and southern Gaul, the Alpine region and the upper Rhineland, and the Po valley, and it is likely that in time parallels to them in one or more of those areas will turn up”

(Stead, 1967 p. 16).


Tony Werner and Mavis Bimson:• suggest yellow pieces show the earliest

example of the use of lead and tin as an opacifying agent

(Stead 1967, p. 19).



Ian Stead:• “similar to a game played in India on a

board with cruciform marking. This game was […] patented with the name ‘ludo’”

(Stead 1967, p. 19).


A Mystery Game• There’s no evidence to identify the game.• The idea that it could be a four-player game comes from

the appearance of the pieces, which suggest an arrangement of four sets of six.

• Throwing pieces suggest race game.• Fragments of what may have been

a game board were found, but there is little more than iron corner braces and hinges with traces of wood, and signs of repair.

• Stead estimates the size about 2ft sq. • A shield boss, found nearby, may

have been attached to the board.Image: Stead 1967, Fig 21

A footnote in Stead

• Stead also notes that game pieces similar to the Welwyn Garden City pieces were excavated from two Montefortino tombs and also from two tombs near Bologna.

• Montefortino – Tomb 23 & Tomb 35

• Bologna: – Benacci Tomb 953 & Ceretolo

Map: Wikimedia Commons CC 3.0






Montefortino• The Montefortino necropolis is in

Arcevia, on Italy’s Adriatic coast.• The area was settled in C5th or C4th

BC by the Gallic tribe the Senones.• Montefortino cemetery in use from

the C4th – C3rd BC.• The site was excavated 1894–1899• The site is important for “numerous

items which demonstrated the process of the assimilation of Greek and Italian influences in the material culture of the Senones” (Vitali, in Koch ed. 2005, p. 1308).

MontefortinoAncona


Montefortino• The site is significant because the

so-called "Montefortino" type helmet, with distinctive jockey-cap shape and detachable cheek-plates, was first discovered here.

• The cemetery also yielded the so- called “Montefortino hoard” of late C4th – early C3rd BC silver plate from the tomb of a Gallic warrior, which is now housed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Top: Montefortino-style helmet. e. C3rd BC Benacci 953, Bologna Civic Museum

Bottom: “Montefortino hoard” l. C4th – e. C3rd BC Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photograph by Glenn Gulley.

Brizio: Montefortino Tomb 23• [C]onsiderable in this woman's tomb are

three bone dice, with twenty variegated buttons in glass paste, which were used to score points in the game of dice.

(Brizio 1899, p. 682). • Ma notevoli in questa tomba femminile sono

tre dadi di osso, con una ventina di bottoni variegati di pasta vitrea, che usavansi per segnare i punti nel giuoco dei dadi.

Eduardo Brizio 1846 – 1907

Image: http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/mostre/archeologia/brizio.htm

Brizio: Montefortino Tomb 23

Game pieces: items 10 and 11 (centre right). Source: Brizio (1899) Table 5. http://digi.ub.uni- heidelberg.de/diglit/ monant1899/0441

Montefortino Tomb 23• Female inhumation burial• Late C3rd– early C2nd BC • The jewelery adorned the body• The amphora, other vessels

and tableware are placed near the head.

• The mirror, gaming pieces, hairpin tube, spits and firedogs are placed near the feet.

Image: Montefortino Tomb 23Museum Display. Room 22. Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche.

Montefortino Tomb 23• The contents of this rich grave,

catalogued as 22 items, include gold- twisted wire torque, pair of gold snake- head bracelets, pair of gold disc earrings with pyramid pendant, bronze Etruscan mirror with image of the goddess Lasa and a bone tube for hairpins.

• Sympotic items include a bell krater for mixing wine, small amphora, skyphos (two-handled wine cup) situla (bucket) and bronze olpe (for serving wine from the krater)Image: Montefortino Tomb 23. Museum Display, Room 22. Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche, Ancona.

Montefortino Tomb 23: Gaming Pieces

• Twenty glass counters– 12 swirl pattern

• 6 white• 6 yellow

– 4 plain• 1 black • 1 grey• 2 white

– 4 grey with circle

• Three cubic bone dice

Image: Game pieces and dice. Montefortino Tomb 23. Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche.

Montefortino Tomb 236 x black pieces with yellow swirl

6 x grey pieces with white swirl

4 x plain pieces

4 x grey pieces with ring pattern

Montefortino Tomb 23• Manuela Dilliberto and Thierry Lejars offer a different

description of the pieces:– Twenty glass tokens of tomb XXIII of the Montefortino necropolis

are associated with three cubic bone dice. The chips are different colors (black, two white and seventeen blue). Blue united (four) or spiral decoration (seven and six whitish yellowish).

(Diliberto and Lejars 2011, p. 444)

– Les vingt jetons en verre de la tombe XXIII de la nécropole de Montefortino sont associés à trois dés cubiques en os. Les jetons sont de couleurs différentes (un noir, deux blancs et dix- sept bleus). Les bleus sont unis (quatre) ou à décor spiralé (sept de couleur blanchâtre et six de couleur jaunâtre).

Brizio: Montefortino Tomb 35• “two cubic bone dice and twelve

hemispherical bullets of glass paste, in various colours”

(Brizio 1899: p. 699)

• “due dadi cubici di osso e dodici pallottole emisferiche di pasta vitrea, di vario colore”

Brizio: Montefortino Tomb 35• The contents of Montefortino Tomb 35

are on display at Museo Archeologico Statale di Arcevia, which is in a somewhat remote rural location difficult to reach via public transport.

• Regrettably, due to limitations of time, language and budget, it was not possible to visit Arcevia museum to inspect these pieces.

Montefortino Tomb 35Game pieces: items 4 and 5 (top right). Source: Brizio (1899) Table 11. http://digi.ub.uni- heidelberg.de/diglit/monant1899/0447






Bologna

• Stead notes two tombs in the Bologna area were identified by Brizio (1887) as containing gaming pieces that could be seen as incomplete sets of 24:– Benacci tomb 953 (3 dice

and 22 pieces) – Ceretolo (17 pieces)

Bologna


Benacci Tomb 953

• Early C3rd BC• Rich male inhumation burial

– Gold crown of laurels– Symposium apparatus included

five bronze kyathoi (dipping cups) bronze oinochoe (wine jug) and iron candelabra near the head

– Iron sword, iron javelin, bronze helmet & bronze strigil near the feet

– Gaming pieces and dice placed between the two sets of equipment

Image: Vitali 1992, p. 285.

Benacci Tomb 953

Image: Museum Display: Room XI Case 4. Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna

Brizio: Benacci Tomb 953• Three ivory dice, unfortunately very worn; 22

glass paste hemispheres to score points in the game of dice, in different colours: 6 are white in colour

clear, 6 off-white, 5 red in colour and five

dark tint.(Brizio, 1887: pp. 475–476)

• Tre dadi di avorio disgraziatamente molto logori; n. 22 semisferette di pasta vitrea per segnare I punti nel giuoco dei dadi, e di colori diversi: 6 sono di color bianco chiaro; 6 di color bianco sporco; 5 di color rosso e cinque di tinta scura.

Benacci Tomb 953

• Only 21 game pieces remain; one piece appears to have been lost.

• Difficult to group the pieces into sets of 6 white, 6 off-white, 5 red and 5 “dark tint” as Brizio suggests.

• The pieces are not glass paste but limestone.

Image: 21 limestone game pieces and 3 cubic bone dice, e. C3rd BC. Benacci Tomb 953. Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

Vitali: Benacci Tomb 953• Daniele Vitali identifies several

discrepancies between Brizio’s and Zannoni’s notes, along with several other errors and omissions.

• For example, Zannoni repositioned the bronze helmet for photographs while Brizio claimed the bone tube by the warrior’s feet was on the shank of the sword (Vitali 2002, p. 289).

Image: Zanonni’s excavation Source: Vitali 2002, p. 288.

The Ceretolo Warrior’s Tomb• A bronze vessel unearthed by ploughing in

a field near Bologna in 1877 led to the discovery of a tomb containing the skeleton of a warrior with 18 limestone game pieces placed on his chest, probably on a shield.

• Other grave goods include an iron sword and sheath, chain, spear, and iron fibulae.

• Thre tomb is dated to the second quarter C3rd BC

• Laura Minarini describes the grave goods as “among the richest and most complex found in the Boii territory” (Minarini in Morigi Govi ed. 2009, p. 109).

Image: Bronze oinochoe with figural handle. early C3rd BC Room XI, Case 8. Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

Ceretolo Controversies• The Ceretolo tomb has been the focus of several

controversies. While Vitali gives a detailed account (Vitali 2002, pp. 380-390) notable aspects include:– The landowner was apparently unaware of the need

to report the find; as a result Gozzadini’s excavation was delayed by months.

– Some items had been misplaced, and the location of other items had been inaccurately reported.

– Gozzadini suggested the material was Etruscan while Zannoni disagreed, identifying the fibulae as Gallic, resurrecting earlier tensions in the archaeological community over the interpretation of excavations in Bologna (on archaeological differences, see Dennis G (1878) The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria vol. 2)

Image: Grave goods. Ceretolo tomb, early C3rd BC. Room XI, Case 8. Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

Brizio: Ceretolo• Brizio’s 1887 account noted one that piece had been lost.• He also suggested the objects could not have been a

necklace as they were un-pierced, reasoning from that, and from the colours:– four red, four white, six dark grey veined and three yellow, it

becomes very probable that they were employed for the game of dice although the latter was not found.

(Brizio 1887, p. 495)– 4 di color rosso, 4 di color bianco, 6 di color bigio scuro venato, e

3 di color giallo diventa molto probabile che fossero adoperate per il giuoco del dadi, quantunque questi ultimi non siansi trovati.

• Again, however, as the image on the next slide will show, it’s difficult to apply Brizio’s colouring …

Vitali: Ceretolo• Daniele Vitali, following Zannoni, suggests fragments of

umbo in the pelvic region indicate a shield was placed over the body and the game pieces were probably set upon the shield (Vitali 1992, p. 382).

Image: 17 limestone game pieces. Room XI, Case 8. Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

Brizio:

“four red, four white, six dark grey veined and three yellow”

(Brizio 1887, p. 495)

Re group• Stead had noted several instances where game pieces

could be organised into “four groups distinguished by colour or design” (Stead 1967, p. 19).

• While an examination of most of the examples cited has confirmed this to be more or less the case, no other “complete set” has, thus far, been seen.

• However, some examples of game pieces in reconstructed tombs in the Arnoaldi necropolis, Bologna, yield some interesting examples.

Loss and Damage• Although Ulrich Schädler notes the notion of a “complete set” of

game pieces may be a contemporary idea, the prevalence of “incomplete” sets might also be understood if we consider Schädler’s suggestion that some game pieces may be ritually discarded as part of the funerary rite “to remove the game from secular use” in a way similar to the ritual deformation of weapons or the breakage of ceramics (Schädler 2002, p. 368).

Image: Lance tip (far left) shows signs of ritual damage.

Ceretolo “Warrior’s Tomb” Second quarter C3rd BC






The Arnoladi Necropolis• The Arnoaldi site is one of several properties to the west of Bologna

extensively excavated in the late C19th during what is described by Cristina Marchesi as “Bologna’s enthusiastic archaeological season, which went from 1869, the year the Certosa necropolis was discovered, to the early 1900s” (Marchesi in Morigi Govi ed. 2009, p. 82).

Map: Zannoni (1907). Source: Macellari 2002, vol 1. Fig 18.

The Arnoaldi Necropolis• Many of the Arnoaldi tombs show signs of disturbance

and looting in antiquity. Signs include material or fragments from one tomb part being found in another, or objects missing altogether.– For example, Macellari notes a fragment of a volute crater

belonging to Tomb 128 was found in Tomb 132.– The skeleton(s) from Tomb 128 are missing

• Roberto Macellari has re-constructed the Arnoaldi graves, restoring items moved in antiquity as well as correcting items that were mis-assigned by Zannoni and Brizio in the 1880s (Macellari 2002).

Arnoaldi Tomb 80• The tomb contains several bronze Certosa-type fibulae

(brooches) which date the grave to l. C6th – e. C5th BC.• Macellari identifies contradictions and confusions with

Tomb 80: Brizio states the cremated remains were placed directly on the floor, and not in a cinerary urn (a detail Gozzadini overlooked in his original report).

• The dispersed contents of the tomb were later acquired by Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna and re- assembled as per Brizio’s notes, including what Macellari refers to as some “doubtlessly spurious” items.

• Macellari offers a revised construction, removing some items and adding some game-related objects Brizio had assigned to Tomb 78 (Macellari 2002, p. 165).

Arnoaldi Tomb 80• The tomb contains several bronze Certosa-type fibulae (brooches)

which allows date the grave to l. C5th – e. C6th BC. • Following Gozzadini, Macellari restores four bronze studs, three dice

and twenty-one glass game pieces to Brizio’s construction.• The game pieces can be grouped into four sets:

– six white, five blue-green, five yellow and five blue.• Despite assigning three dice to this tomb, they are “not tracked”

(“non ritracciati”), which seems to be Macellari’s euphemism for lost.

Image: 21 glass game pieces Photo: Laura Minarini

Arnoaldi Tomb 132• Probably a female cremation burial.• Macellari notes the cremated remains were probably in a

rectangular organic container which has not survived. • Attic pottery in the tomb dates to ca. 450BC• This tomb contains eighteen glass game pieces and

three parallelepiped dice.• Maccellari cites Gozzadini’s account of picking up the

dice from the floor of the tomb, along with six turquoise button pebbles, the same in white and the same again in turquoise with white dots (Macellari 2002, vol 1. p. 316).

Arnoaldi Tomb 132• The dice are distinctive with both end faces marked with

a dot within three concentric circles. – The three remaining faces are marked with a four, six and three

with a dot within two concentric circles. – The final face in unmarked.

• The glass game pieces can be arranged in three groups:– Six black pieces with five-dot pattern– Six black pieces– Six white piece

Image: three paralleliped bone dice and 18 glass game pieces Photo: Laura Minarini

Arnoaldi Tomb 128• According to Macellari, Tomb 128, is a “sumptuous”

(possibly bisomal) burial, that should contain 24 glass gaming pieces, comprised of six pieces in four different colours:– 6 x grey; 6 x black; 6 x white; 6 x yellow patterned pieces– There are also two parallelepiped dice

Image: 24 glass game pieces and two parallelepiped dice. Photo: Laura Minarini

Arnoaldi Tomb 128• This set of game pieces, like

the pieces excavated from the Welwyn Garden City grave, may comprise a complete set of gaming pieces for a four-player game.

Image: Macellari 2002, vol 2. Table 34.

A note on game boards• No game boards or fragments

of boards known in Etruscan/ Gallic graves with game pieces.

• There are, however, bronze “feet” which are assumed to be from stools or chairs.

• In some cases, traces of wood remain within the feet.

• Could it be that some of these feet might belong to stools which were, in fact, game boards?

Image: Certosa Tomb 66, e. C4th BC

Three bronze “feet” from a stool bone parallelepid dice two glass game pieces bronze ring (on a finger-bone) bronze bracelet (e. C 4BC)Etruscan goods in “Gallic” period Small bracelet: possibly child’s grave

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Strange Games: Some Iron Age examples of a four-player board game? (VVL Presentation, 2014)

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