Oldest known gaming tokens dug up in Bronze Age Turkish graves

[Ichingcarpenter]

Small carved stones unearthed in a nearly 5,000-year-old burial site could represent the earliest gaming tokens ever found, according to Turkish archaeologists who are excavating early Bronze Age graves.

Found in a grave at Başur Höyük, a 820- by 492-foot mound near Siirt in southeast Turkey, the elaborate pieces consist of 49 small stones sculpted in different shapes and painted in green, red, blue, black and white.

"Some depict pigs, dogs and pyramids, others feature round and bullet shapes. We also found dice as well as three circular tokens made of white shell and topped with a black round stone," Haluk Sağlamtimur of Ege University in İzmir, Turkey, told Discovery News.


According to the archaeologist, who presented his finding at the annual symposium of excavations, surveys and archaeometry in Muğla, similar pieces were previously found in Tell Brak and Jemdet Nasr, two settlement mounds in northeastern Syria and in Iraq, respectively.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/oldest-known-gaming-tokens-dug-bronze-age-turkish-graves-6C10920354

[xchrom]

1. cool. nt

[MisterP]

2. so *that's* where we put them (gets out 4th-m.-BC "Token to Ride" game about Anatolian carts)

[RushIsRot]

3. I'd hate to land on Boardwalk with a pyramid on it.

[formercia]

4. A Clay Tablet was found

..when translated, said:" What happens Here, stays Here."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. No dice?

[TalkingDog]

8. I thought the pyramid pieces were the die. n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. In senet they threw sticks....

It could be the playing board was wood and turned to dust long ago.

[Igel]

6. The beta version of Risk.

In that version, you had to have food before attacking the pyramids (Egypt).

What, no campaign journal?

[TalkingDog]

7. I've heard that if you roll a 16, it gives you +40 invisibility and a healing spell.

It was called "Caverns and Dinosaurs" (yes, I know they were not contemporaneous)