In the news I never thought I’d be covering this morning, archaeologist Tomasz Olszacki has uncovered a 500-year-old board game known as Nine Men’s Morris while excavating the ruins of an early 16th-century castle in Poland.
According to Olszacki, it’s likely that the classic board game was carved into the castle either by the workers who constructed the castle or by children or servants at a later date.
Nine Men’s Morris is an abstract board game similar to Chess or Checkers and has been played as far back as during the Roman Empire. The game that was uncovered is tiny, measuring 13.5cm, and while the board has been discovered, the pieces have not.
The reason for the lack of pieces is that they would have been made out of perishable materials like wood or leather, meaning they wouldn’t have survived the centuries.
Nine Men’s Morris was wildly popular throughout medieval Europe, and previously, an engraved game board was found in the church in Opole in Silesia dating back to the 13th century.
The castle in Poland where the game was now found was initially owned by a politician, and other notable finds have included stove tiles, richly decorated architectural elements, as well as coins and parts of clothing.
If you’re interested in this and want to read our coverage of some more modern board games, you can follow the link here.