VIII Games Britannica - Ancient games

Recently watched an interesting show titled Games Britannica which looked through the ages at some ancient games. It talked about how some games had already existed before the roman conquests showing how Britain was already quite developed, however these games were not for fun or amusement, they were generally played by fortune tellers and druids to predict future events.

A pre roman game was found, without rules among various different surgical items of the time, showing it was a learned man, with some form of medical experiences. It is thought that the man was a druid who practiced fortune telling, the two sides of the board were used perhaps to predict the outcome of battles or things of such nature. However it is all speculation without the rules, but it more than likely had some abstract more than life meaning.

There are also remains of marks people had carved into the stone of medieval churches, while they were waiting they used these carvings to play games and pass the time trying to get through that human only trait of boredom.

There are many examples of where other ancient games came from and how they have evolved to this day and age, however the only one that stood out to me, was a game named The Game of Gospels. This is a very tactical game, which is the reason it stands out to me, the general play method is that one player is light, the other is dark, the dark player’s counters surround the light players, the objective for the light is to get his king counter to any corner of the game board, which represented a saint. The aim of the dark colour was to stop him. This was a war game, and thus each counter represented soldiers, either protecting their king or trying to stop the king, you could remove your opposition by getting 2 of your counters either side of theirs. 

I really admire how these people made their own games to pass the time; it shows how anybody can make a good successful game. These people did it without any other games to draw ideas from, it would have been a lot harder for them and they already had good functional games, even if they were used for other means. The first episode is interesting and the next instalment of the show moves further along the timeline discussing newer British games, when I get around to watching the rest of the series I will be sure to keep this blog up to date with its various topics.

SM – iHK

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