history

Imran Ghory : History of Backgammon, briefly.
We project here Imran Ghory History of Backgammon, while we believe that even in short version, it is one of the best! He avoids making any mention to some known assumptions about the origin of the game. There are so many stories and “fragments”: from bones to dice, the Royal game of Ur, Senet of the Egyptians, etc, etc… He prefers to start with facts that have a more clear relationship with the Backgammon we know today. Enjoy!

The earliest game for which there is firm evidence of a relationship with backgammon is "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum" ("game of twelve line"), the games board contains many similarities to that of backgammon, including the a bar, with six points on either side, however it also had three rows and was played with three dice. The earliest mention of the game is in Ovid's Ars Amorous (written between 1 BC and 8 AD).

By 54 AD a game called "Tabula" which is a variant of Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum had appeared on the scene, and it is thought that Emperor Claudius may have discussed it in a book on gaming which he wrote. However none of the 40+ books which he is said to have written have survived. The only known mention of this particular book is by Suetonius so the existence of a finished book on the topic may be in some doubt.

A board from about 125 AD of Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum has been found at Holt in Denbighshire (Wales) in a grave of a roman soldier, indicating the first wave of this game spreading across the world.

The second wave of the game spreading occurred from the third century onwards and appears not to be due to the movement of soldiers but rather due to settlers and traders.

The Chinese text Hun Tsun Sii (written between 960 and 1279 AD) claims that the game known as t'shu-p'u was invented in western India and imported into China during the Wei Dynasty (220-265AD). The Chinese variant played the game with 16 pieces. It is also thought that the game appeared in Japan under the name Sunoroko prior to Empress Jito's death.

However as the Chinese text was written possibly over a thousand years after the period it describes, it is almost certainly relying on secondary sources (given the state of archaeology in China at the time it is unlikely primary evidence would have been available). Unfortunately these sources are currently unknown.

The claim that the game originated in India seems unlikely given the apparent similarity between Tabula and the older roman game "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum". No archaeological evidence has turned up to indicate that the game may have been created in India.

About the same time as the game is thought to have entered China, it appears to have enter Great Britain, and for this we have the greater evidence of having a Tabula board from the end of the third century in a cemetery in Leuna, Saxony in the grave of a Germanic settler. Another board, this time from the sixth century, also thought to be of Germanic origins was found in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.

Given that the game was being spread around the world at this time, it is a surprise to find an unknown board game in the tombs of Qustul from c. 350 AD which matches the board used for "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum" indicating perhaps that while Tabula hadn't completely wiped out "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum" as suggest by Bell.

Despite the game having been spread far and wide, no written description of the game is known until the sixth century, where we find a description of a game position that was played by Emperor Zeno (476-481AD) given by Agathias of Myrine (527-567AD) in the form of an epigram, and from this the rules of the game have been reconstructed by RC Bell. It is though that at this the neither the doublet rule nor the last quartile rule existed at this time.

By the end of the sixth century the name Tabula had been replaced by Alea, a word meaning die (as in dice). This term earliest recorded use is in Isidore of Seville's Origines where he also gives the definition of the term, "Alea, id est ludus tabulae..." ("Alea, that is the game of tabula"). This term seem to spread rapidly with a seventh century English text using the term "alea teblae" to refer to the game.

By the start of the ninth century Tabula turned up in the Arab world under the name, Nard, perhaps agreeing with the earlier point of Qustal that Tabula hadn't become popular in the middle-east at that same time as it grew popular elsewhere. It has been suggested that the word "nerdshir" in the Babylonian "Gemara" is the old form of the word Nard.

In the 13th century, sometime between 1251 and 1282 AD, the Alfonso X manuscript documented the game and several variants. This document is the first known codification of the rules.

Also in the late 13th and early 14th century Tables as the game was then known, was again growing popular in England, with the game being mentioned in popular literature again for the first time in over 500 years. Complete game boards from this period have been found at St Denis near Paris (c1200 AD), Gloucester (c1220 AD) and Freiburg in Germany (c 1300 AD).

After this point the game faded out of popularity until the sixteenth century when a variant of the game similar to the game played today took hold and rapidly spread through Europe. Known originally as tric-trac the exact rules are unknown, although they may have been document at the time no such document has been found. The name was later used to refer to the game known as backgammon in England. However it appears that the Tables variant known as Irish may have preceded this time, and may have derived from one of the early spikes of popularity of the game.

The earliest known documentation of this new variant was in Hoyle's "A Short Treatise on the Game of Backgammon" in 1743 but it is known from 1605 that this variant included the doublet rule and from a 1668 source that it included possibility of wining a double game (a gammon).
The first known use of the word Backgammon was in 1645, however at this time the name "Tables" was still in use and it wasn't until the end of the seventeenth century that the name Backgammon came into standard use.

By the 18th century Backgammon had arrived in America, with Thomas Jefferson listing gambling losses for the month of June 1776 in his notebook.

Some histories of backgammon claim that Tabula, and by descendance, Backgammon, is based on the game Senet. There are two problems with this theory:

1) No Senet boards have been found from between 1500BC-200AD. It's possible that boards in this period will be found, but as things stand there is a significant gap between Senet and Tabula (a 'missing-link'), if one game came from the other we would expect both to be played at the same time with one variant slowly dominating.

2) Some arguments use the similarity of rules as a basis for a relationship for the games. However it is important to remember that we have no record of any rules of Senet, all of our information is based on limited references in period literature and paintings [34] depicting the game. The rules most commonly cited are those of RC Bell, which were created _assuming_ the game was related to Tabula, and so arguments along this line fail due to circular reasoning.

It is possible that Tabula is based upon "The Game of Thirty Squares", the same arguments against it apply as Senet, but Thirty Squares does a have a similar board to "Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum". However it lacks the bar and the similarity of board may just be coincidental.