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"A game is a bounded, specific way of problem solving. Play is more cosmic an open-ended. Gods play, but man unfortunately is a gaming individual." --- David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules
It may surprise you to know that games and gambling have mystical origins rooted in early cultures' attempts to predict the future, to appeal to the gods, and to discover hidden aspects of reality. Fortune tellers threw knucklebones, shot arrows, and dealt cards as a way to uncover the hidden forces shaping our lives. The modern components of board games evolved from these early practices and artifacts.
The earliest examples of dice and playing cards were tools of divination. They represented the power and capriciousness of nature, and they fulfilled a deeply human need to tame the unsettling randomness of life. Before they were children's toys, they were predictive tools of one's fate.
FROM ARROWS TO PLAYING CARDS
Shooting arrows and interpreting where they land was a common divinatory practice throughout Europe and Asia. The earliest legends of Robin Hood included shooting an arrow to divine where the hero would be buried. Arrows were "cast" and where they landed determined where churches would be built, as local lore described how the Cathedral of Drum in Salisbury, England was built in 1219. Eventually, divinatory arrows evolved into long cards in Korea, which in turn spread to China, where playing cards as we now know them emerged:
"[Stewart Culin] noted that traditional Korean playing cards, which are narrow strips rather than the broad rectangles commonly used in most of the world, bear a picture of an arrow on their backs, a relic of ancient divination. Culin believed that the Korean 'cards' were the origin of Chinese playing cards, whose patterns reproduce those of ancient paper money." [Pennick, Nigel. Secret Games of the Gods: Ancient Ritual Systems in Board Games. Samuel Weiser. York Beach, Maine. 1989. Page 38]
In pre-Islamic Arabia, seven arrows were used for divination in specific sacred places, as well as for profane gambling in the game Maysar. Where and how the arrows landed could determine your fate as well as your winnings. The popularity of Maysar is evident in Islam's later prohibition against gambling, which is seen as trivializing divine power.
KNUCKLEBONES
.ve-image jstor:community.26321830 right height=75% Knucklebones, the precursors of modern dice, appear throughout the world as tools of divination. How they land when they're "cast"-- their arrangements as well as their facing-- revealed the future. Eventually primitive knucklebones where refined and stylized, becoming the objects of stochastic fascination we know today.
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FROM DIVINATION TO GAMBLING
Going from divination to gambling was a short leap, as people ascribed random events to divine will. If a good harvest can be predicted by casting knucklebones, then one's immediate fortune could be made by betting on specific outcomes such as a die's facing, or a sequence of cards. Both the harvest and the winning hand were products of "Fortuna's wheel."
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Ancient Egyptian 20-sided die: Twenty-sided die (icosahedron) with faces inscribed with Greek letters .ve-image jstor:community.18304618 left
Faience polyhedron inscribed with letters of the Greek alphabet .ve-image jstor:community.18691039
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Group of eight glass astragali (knucklebones): .ve-image jstor:community.18670532
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Indian Fortune Teller: .ve-image jstor:community.24898797
The Gypsy fortune teller: .ve-image jstor:community.28536451
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CARDS .ve-image jstor:community.15651408
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DIVINATION .ve-image jstor:community.26324158 .ve-image jstor:community.26321500 .ve-image jstor:community.26320143