Games in Ancient Iran

Not all the news coming out of the mullarchy involves nuclear weapons programs. The current cynosure of archeological interest is the southeastern Iranian city of Jiroft, whose previously unknown civilization, dating to the 3rd Millennium B.C., came to light only four years ago, when looted artifacts started showing up on the art market. An effort is under weigh to locate and assemble the scattered relics and to conduct professional excavations. There is evidence that the culture extended over a wide area and was in touch with Elam. Some archeologists are convinced that Jiroft is the legendary city of Aratta, which plays a prominent role in three surviving Sumerian narrative poems.

What caught my eye was a Cronaca link to a report of the discovery of five objects that have been tentatively identified as game boards. According to Persian Journal,

Three of these game boards look like eagles, one looks like a scorpion with human head, and the other is a flat board, and all have 12 or 18 holes with similar sizes. . . .

According to head of the archeology team of Jiroft, Yusef Majidzadeh, the holes in the boards, which count to 12 or 18, and their similarity in size indicating that they were most probably used as games by the ancient residents of the area.

It is not yet sure how the boards were exactly used, Majidzadeh told CHN, however, the equal numbers of the holes and the holes all being in one size show that they were games most probably played with some sort of beads.

Jean Perrot, a world-known archeologist and a retired expert of Louvre Museum who has also studied the boards told CHN that boards similar to these, plus some beads, have previously been discovered in the historical sites of Mesopotamia, and their form and structure shows that ancient people used them as games to entertain themselves.

The reference to “beads” suggests a relative of Mancala, but, judging by the accompanying the photographs (which unfortunately have no indication of scale), the holes are too shallow for that type of game. My guess, FWIW, is that, if these really are game boards, they were used for a race game akin to those known to have been played in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. The playing pieces would be pegs, each side perhaps having four (suggested by the four holes positioned in each of the “eagle’s” wings. Movement would be governed by chance (sticks or dice), with the object being to move down the central row of holes and bear off at the eagle’s tail.

Barring an incredible stroke of luck, we will never know the rules to these ancient pastimes, making my guesses as good as anybody’s.