Disc: die or gaming piece (?)

3rd–2nd millennium BCE

Not on view

Objects such as this one can present problems of interpretation when they are not preserved as part of a set. Gaming accessories are rarely retrieved together with game boards. A game of 58 holes was discovered in association with three clay plano-convex discs in the area of the Enlil temple at Nippur. The discs, with the rounded side marked and the flat side plain, were presumably cast to determine the movement of the pieces along the board. They would have indicated a different value depending on the side, marked or unmarked, they landed. This bone disk from Nippur with two double incised lines on the edge may also have been used as a die. A great variety of dice—with two, like here, four, or six sides—have been used with race games in the ancient Near East.

If not a die, this disc could have been part of a set of playing pieces for the game of 20 squares, also attested at Nippur. The number of pieces for each player seems to vary across time and probably decrease from seven for the Sumerian version to five during the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Disc: die or gaming piece (?)
Date: 3rd–2nd millennium BCE
Geography: Mesopotamia, Nippur
Medium: Bone
Dimensions: Diam. 1.8 cm x D. .5 cm
Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1959
Object Number: 59.41.68
Curatorial Department: Ancient West Asian Art

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