Ancient board games in perspective : papers from the 1990 British Museum colloquium, with additional contributions / edited by I.L. Finkel.

"In September 19990, a three-day colloquium entitled Board Games in the Ancient World took place in the British Museum"--Page 1.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface -- Notes on the contributors -- Board games in perspective: an introduction / Irving L. Finkel -- Homo ludens: the earliest board games in the Near East / St John Simpson -- The royal game of Ur / Andrea Becker -- On the rules for the royal game of Ur / Irving L. Finekl -- Mehen: the ancient Egyptian game of the serpent / Timothy Kendall -- Were there gamesters in pharaonic Egypt? / W.J. Tait -- The Egyptian game of senet and the migration of the soul / Peter A. Piccione -- The game of hounds and jackals / A.J. Hoerth -- The Egyptian 'game of twenty squares': is it related to 'marbles' and the game of the snake? / Edgar B. Pusch -- Board games and their symbols from Roman times to early Christianity / Anita Rieche -- Inscribed imperial Roman gaming-boards / Nicholas Purcell -- Notes on pavement games of Greece and Rome / R.C. Bell -- Late Roman and Byzantine game boards at Aphrodisias / Charlotte Roueché -- Graeco-Roman pavement signs and game boards: a British Museum working typology / R.C. Bell and C.M. Roueché -- Game boards at Vijayanagara: a preliminary report / John M. Fritz and David Gibson -- Horse coins: pieces for da ma, the Chinese board-game 'driving the horses' / Joe Cribb -- An introduction to board games in late imperial China / Andrew Lo -- Go in China / John Fairbairn -- The beginnings of chess / Michael Mark -- Grandmasters of shatranj and the dating of chess / R.D. Keene -- Changing cultures: the reception of chess into western Europe in the Middle Ages / Richard Eales -- Board games in central Asia and Iran / Grigori L. Semenov -- Board games and backgammon in ancient Indian sculpture / Micaela Soar -- Notes on the early history of the backgammon family in China / Andrew Lo -- A late eleventh-century tabulae set from Gloucester / I.J. Stewart -- A brief history of backgammon and the design of the board / Malcolm J. Watkins -- An overview of mancala rules and variations / L. Russ -- The typological spread of the game of mancala / Philip Townshend -- Mancala game boards as African emblems of status / R.A. Walker -- The pursuit of hnefatafl / Ian Riddler -- Rithmomachia, the philosophers' game: an introduction to its history and rules / Jurgen Stigter -- Robert Stewart Culin and New World games / Bonita Freeman-Witthoft -- Index.