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© Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Girona
Omeka ID 3243
Empúries

glass game tokens

MAC GIR-098341 a MAC GIR-098465

Object type
game tokens
Production date
1 / 199
Fabric
-
Museum
Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Girona
Culture
-
Discovery location
Empúries
Materials
glass
Township
Escala, l' (Europa, Espanya, Catalunya, Girona, Alt Empordà)
Technique
casting
Where is it?
MASPG
Dimensions
-
Description
Set of glass and stone game tokens from Empúries (L'Escala, Alt Empordà), dating to the 1st-2nd centuries AD. They are round or ellipsoidal and those of glass are in various colours, from dark blue to green, amber... These types of tiles were used in the so-called “tabula lusoria” or “tabula latrunculata”. The first was a rectangular game board and the second was square and compartmentalized like a chessboard. We currently know some of the intelligence and strategy games that were practiced during Roman times. An example is the game of thieves, which was played on a rectangular or square “tabula lusoria” divided up like a chessboard that symbolized a battlefield and in which the opponents faced each other. The board was divided into eight lines consisting of eight squares (“mandrae”), which formed a total of 64 squares over which the players had to move their tokens. The game was to move forward with the tokens in the opponent's field and expel, capture or immobilize the opposite tokens. These types of games are very reminiscent of the current game of draughts.

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