Games Britannia, part 1 of 4 "Dicing with Destiny"

On our most recent critical games studies lecture we were shown part one of a four part series called Games Britannia; a series in which historian Benjamin Woolley shows us the origins of our countries earliest games. At first the show takes us to a quarry in Essex where they had found one of the earliest board games if not the earliest that still remained intact. There were also 13 black and 13 white small pebbles on the board, two of these were in fact smaller and could of resembles a control piece in the game, similar to the king piece in a game of chess. It was nick named The Stanway Game as it was found in Stanway in Essex. Some of the game bits had already played on the board and from this Benjamin Woolley found a game historian from the British Museum and asked him if he could piece together the rules of the game.

Stepping even further back into history, Woolley learns of a game found in many religious cults and beliefs. A game known as Alea Evangelii was supposedly a game that was used as an educational tool to educate followers on the process of life. This game was believed to of been played at 400AD. At first many religions frowned upon playing games, but as the documentary progressed Woolley found that there was a game that was played during church ceremonies. This game was called Nine Men’s Morris and was played quite noticeably in the religious building in the past. It is a game similar to Tic-Tac-Toe where when a player lines up 3 of his stones, then you were allowed to remove one of the opponent’s stones until there is none left. This game is played on a set of 3 squares and so was easily scratched into stone, floors and even ceremonial grave stones. The religions didn't mind this for some reason as nowadays, games are considered bad by religions unless the game actually teaches the players morals and understandings. Particularly if games contain dice/dies, many religions saw the dice as a devils game as you are pretty much relying on chance and luck, which is exactly the opposite of what religions wanted in their games. Saying that though leads me onto why we as human being invented games.

Animals in the animal kingdom play around with object as do we, but on the human being has the ability to craft the simple act of play into a game which contains rules and structure to challenges ourselves. And why do we do this? Because we get bored! Humans get bored and so turn simple play into games in which we can compete with each other at. Many of the first instances of games began in the East in Asia/India and were brought over and manipulated to our requirements in Britain. Let’s take for example good ol' Snakes and Ladders. It first began as a religious game to teach the Hindu religious families about life and how you will be rewarded at the end for all your hard work. This game consisted of ladders and snakes of temptation however it also did include a different feature that wasn’t adapted for the English version. On several squares there is a moral in which the player may have to wait a turn due to temptation, thus teaching families about the right way of life (in the religious point of view.)

This is all the detailed notes I wrote about part one of the Games Britannia series and so I come to the conclusion that if you are a fan of history or board games or both, then you should try and get this video someplace as I found it extremely interesting.




"Dicing with Destiny" Games Britannia 2009 [TV] BBC4, December.