Ancient board game carved into rock shelter shows how people relaxed 4,000 years ago
A distinctive pattern of holes scored into the rock of an ancient shelter in Azerbaijan (Picture Walter Crist)The way we live now is enormously different from the lives of nomads four millennia ago – but back then, people still liked to unwind with a board game.
A pattern of small holes found carved into the floor of a rock shelter in Azerbaijan shows that the local nomads were playing a game known as ‘58 Holes’.
It’s thought to be similar to today’s game of backgammon and would have been played using stones or seeds as counters, by nomadic cattle herders.
Walter Crist of the American Museum of Natural History said that the game was widespread across the Middle East and versions were found in the tombs of some pharaohs in Egypt.
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Crist said, ‘It is two rows in the middle and holes that arch around outside, and it’s always the fifth, 10th, 15th and 20th holes that are marked in some way.
‘The hole on the top is a little bit larger than the other ones, and that’s usually what people think of as the goal or the endpoint of the game.’
No one knows the rules, or how it was played, but researchers believe that counters were moved around the board to reach a goal, Crist says.
Crist says, ‘”It suddenly appears everywhere at the same time.
‘Right now, the oldest one is from Egypt, but it’s not by very much. So, it could just be because we haven’t found it from somewhere else older. So, it seems to spread really quickly.’
