Ancient Games

Games have been with us from the beginnings of human history.

Games pieces and dice are found by archaeologists made of stone, clay, bone, ivory, glass and metal along with boards carved in wood and stone.

Sometimes the games themselves have continued to be used for centuries and perhaps even to this day. From these and surviving clues we have recreated some of these games for your enjoyment.

On these pages are some really simple games with very ancient origins. As is often the case the exact origin of these games can be hard to identify but I’m pretty sure children (and adults) of the times labelled below would have played these games, just as they are still played today in some parts of the world.

Counters and Boards can be made from many simple materials as part of an Art project. If you fancy a bit of luxury you can obtain reproduction counters from some of the suppliers on our Links page

One of the earliest games that we know of is Knucklebones played with sheep tali bones and I have recently been sent an interesting document on the subject by Michael J Speakman which he asked me to publish so I have included it here in PDF form

Ancient Roman and Greek Tali Games & Roman and Greek themed Games that use Tali