I love playing games of all sorts. As such I have collected a number of period games. I also have a few period-esq games, which while modern can easily pass for being period.
Senet
Number of players: 2
Type of game: Boardgame
Period: 2686 B.C. +
Senet is one of the oldest known board games, originating in ancient Egypt around 3100 BCE. Played by pharaohs and commoners alike, Senet was both a pastime and a spiritual symbol, representing the soul’s journey through the afterlife. The game is a race of strategy and chance where players aim to move their pieces across a grid-shaped board and off the playing field first.
Royal Game of Ur
Number of players: 2
Type of game: Boardgame
Period: 2400BC+
The Royal Game of Ur is one of the oldest known board games in history, dating back over 4,500 years to ancient Mesopotamia. It is a two-player race and strategy game discovered in the Royal Tombs of Ur (modern-day Iraq) by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. The game combines elements of chance and tactics as players race their pieces along a distinctive track to be the first to bear all their tokens off the board.
El Mundo
Number of players: 4 Type of game: Dice Period: 1283
El Mundo – Four Player Backgammon
History of El Mundo
El Mundo (lit. The World) aka Tables of the Four Seasons aka Four Player Backgammon is a tables game from the 13th century.
This reconstruction is based off of the rules found in Alfonso X’s Book of Games (1283) as translated by Sonja Musser Golladay (2007).
The Book of Games is the only known description of how this game is played, and the only known reference to the game. Each colour in the game not only corresponds to a season but also one of the four elements and humours. Green represents spring, air, and blood; Red represents summer, fire, and choler; Black represents autumn, earth, and melancholy; White represents winter, water, and phlegm.
Tables
Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Race
Period: Roman to 17th Century
Tables is not one game but a whole family of games, played on the same board with the same pieces and dice. Backgammon is the best known survivor, but for well over a thousand years people across Europe and the Middle East played dozens of different tables games, each with its own starting position and rules. Medieval players would simply say they were “playing at tables”, and then agree which game they meant.